For digital publishers, audience relationships are key.
These relationships drive audiences to visit your site more often, click more content, and (for premium publishers) convert into paid subscribers.
Email is a powerful way to strengthen these audience relationships, and a solid email marketing segmentation strategy can help you maximize the potential of your email efforts.
What is Email Marketing Segmentation?
Email segmentation is when you take your email list and split it up into, well, segments. These segments can be based on criteria you set, such as a subscriber’s demographics, email preferences, purchase history, or past engagement with your emails.
So why segment? Ultimately, email segmentation comes down to relevance. Rather than blasting your list with a one-size-fits-all newsletter, you can cater to audience appetites by delivering the content they’re most likely to click.
By segmenting your list, you can deliver the right content to the right audiences, providing your subscribers with a better email experience — and you with more revenue. In fact, the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) found that segmented email campaigns drove 760% more email revenue than non-segmented campaigns.
Segmentation Strategies for Better Messaging and Targeting
Email segmentation is important for all email marketers, but the right segmentation strategies vary across industries. For instance, retailers may segment to deliver the right product recommendations, while nonprofits may send fundraising emails based on whether a subscriber has previously donated.
As a publisher, you have a wealth of first-party engagement data about the content that engages your audience. You can use this data to segment your email list based on how often subscribers engage, what types of content subscribers engage with, and how long it’s been since a subscriber engaged.
Segment email audiences by amount of content consumed.
No two audience members engage the same way. Some subscribers may devour every newsletter you send, while others will only click from time to time. Segmentation can help you drive more email revenue from your highly engaged audiences without fatiguing your more casual subscribers.
A few ideas to do this:
- If subscribers rarely engage with your daily newsletter, try opting subscribers down into a weekly digest. Perhaps they like your content, but they don’t necessarily like to read it as often as you send it. Sending them email less often can help keep your engagement rates high.
- Identify subscribers who routinely engage with your content and invite subscribers to take a brief survey. Not only will capturing audience feedback let you learn about your audience, but you can also incorporate these actionable insights into your future email products.
- When you launch new newsletters, send new newsletter products proactively to your most engaged email audiences. This gives you a built-in audience to springboard your new products, and it may even help your audience discover new content they enjoy.
Deliver targeted email to audiences who enjoy certain content.
Email preference centers allow your subscribers to self-segment themselves into receiving the content they like. However, most subscribers won’t go looking for your preference center to sign up for more newsletters.
Fortunately, assuming your articles are tagged by content type, you know what types of content your audience likes. You can use this data to segment your list.
If a subscriber frequently engages with articles along a certain topic (such as football), segment them into a list of fellow football fans. Then, you can send them a newsletter specifically devoted to football content, or you may even send them automated breaking news alerts after a big game.
For publishers with paid subscription business models, you can also use this engagement data to tailor your subscription marketing emails. A marketing email that references a subscriber’s favorite topic may entice that user to subscribe.
Nudge lapsed subscribers by segmenting them into a re-engagement program.
New subscribers tend to be more engaged than subscribers who have been on your list for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can’t squeeze more engagement from your tenured subscribers.
That’s where email re-engagement comes in handy. A newsletter re-engagement program can help you wake up these subscribers, potentially leading them to be more engaged than they were at the start of the relationship.
Once you’ve segmented your lapsed subscribers into a re-engagement list, you can:
- Decrease the frequency of emails they receive.
- Send an email with your best new content, inviting subscribers to see what they’ve missed.
- Change it up and deliver them a different newsletter than the one they normally receive.
- Warn subscribers with a “final notice” email informing them they will be unsubscribed if they don’t engage.
To maximize your chances of re-engagement, go one step beyond segmentation and automate your re-engagement efforts. With an email service provider like Upland PostUp, you can create an automated email program that delivers re-engagement emails at the point in the relationship when a subscriber is most likely to re-engage.
How to Segment an Email List in the Upland PostUp Platform
Upland PostUp provides powerful email targeting capabilities, including segmentation. To start segmenting your lists, take a look at Upland PostUp’s list segmentation documentation.
Whether you use these segmentation ideas or try your own, Upland PostUp can help you create an effective email marketing segmentation strategy. To see how Upland’s PostUp helps publishers deliver relevance and revenue with segmentation, request a demo now!