Segmentation of mailing lists
Many people do not segment their mailing lists, often large organisations do but it’s a method that is effective no matter how many contacts your mailing list contains. Your target audience applies offline, people like to be treated as individuals and feel that communications have been tailored for their needs.
Let’s imagine you owned a bar or pub, you would have regular customers that come in on a weekly or daily basis. Over time you learn what your customers like, John comes in on a Tuesday for Quiz night and a few drinks. You remember he likes Budweiser, so before he gets to the bar you say “Hi John, Bottle of bud?” John likes this, it makes him feel welcome and you’re anticipating his needs. John also comes in on Sunday for lunch with his family, when he walks in you get a menu ready and let him know what the specials are without him even asking, to top it off you know when he’s with his wife he likes a orange juice to start off with, because he has to drive home after lunch and it’s his wife’s turn to drink. You now have made his wife happy and John also feels welcome. You also tell John that you have reserved a table for him, right where he likes to sit (so he can see the TV with the sports on). You probably have five other regulars which you treat the same as John, although John never notices and feels he gets a friendly service.
This applies online, you have groups of people who have similar needs and likes treating them individually helps develop your relationship and provide good customer service. This can be applied online by:
Sending communications to people when you anticipate they will want to receive information, by learning peoples buying habits. Some people are more recieptable to a bargain or a special deal, others like to purchase one of your more high end products of services as they feel it is of higher quality, these people would probably purchase less often. They would be annoyed by frequent communications because they could think “I spent 150 notes last time I visited, I can’t afford to keep spending!” – Although they may want to. Visitors from a large city wouldn’t find strong sturdy walking boots useful, whilst the ones who live in more rural areas may be more recepteble to this. If a person has only just signed up to your mailing list, and yesterday you sent out a special voucher or deal code to all of your contacts. It would make sense to send this out to all new subscribers until the discount isn’t valid.
I know these are all examples and your client base probably has more complex needs, but consider segmentation by demographics, geographic location, online behaviour by tracking click-throughs and open rates and previous buying habits.
