Email Marketing
Effective Email Marketing :: List Segmentation
By Corrinda Campbell, May 2009
It's no question the facts are in and list segmentation is a key success factor for effective email marketing.
Segmentation produces results because it helps improve your level of relevance and sometimes personalization.
Segmenting an email list is often associated with high costs or a lot of manual work. What's a small business to do? Depending on your tactics and choice of ESP (email service provider) you can implement some basic strategies.
The most obvious application is for promotional or transactional email. But segmentation also applies to content based email as well; particularly when you identify new subscribers and develop an introductory autoresponder series.
Segmentation can also help maintain your list hygiene by identifying inactive subscribers and reengaging them or removing them. I often hear "Email is free", well it's not free most ESP's (email service providers) charge per address or email sent.
So you want to make sure each email you send is worth the cost. Also, when you know who your active readers are and who is interacting with your email most frequently you can reward those individuals with exclusive content, promotions, discounts, special invitations.
For small business owners the task of segmentation can appear difficult. Perhaps not as much how to segment your list but more so how to collect the information you need to segment.
One of the best ways to collect information on a small business budget is to use a two step subscription process. This is where you collect the basics Name and Email in step one and in step two ask for more detailed information.
Another is to send surveys that ask questions with answers that provide the information you need.
To read about more strategies for segmentation from Entrepreneur.com Click Here
Connecting with customers:
With opt-in email marketing and iContact, you can easily connect with your customers. iContact allows you to easily create, send, and track email newsletters, surveys, and RSS feeds. Your customers are important to you and securing a connection with them is fundamental for the growth of your business.
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