“Your customers are living in the present. Your marketing team needs to meet them there.”
I stumbled across this quote when doing research for a recent webinar, and it has stuck with me. Email marketing is such a powerful way to reach residents and prospects, but most of us are doing it wrong. We are still doing what has always been done with that tired batch and blast method.
Customer expectations have changed, and we have done an excellent job evolving our communication methods, other forms of marketing, and advertising. But for some reason, email marketing got stuck in the last decade.
I get questions all the time about how to improve design, when emails should be sent, and what subject lines work. All very good questions, but marketers and business managers rarely focus on the one thing that always improves conversions. Segmentation.
The very first step, and most important step, you should take to improve your email marketing is to segment your audience.
What does this mean? It means sending the right people the right message at the right time. Inboxes are very full and you need to stand out with a relevant message that provides value and a reason to read. Segmentation puts your customers at the center of your marketing and encourages them to interact with the message.
If segmentation is new to you, it is okay to start small. Identify one key variable, the most relevant attribute for your audience, and split your audience in two.
From there, you can take it a step further. Group people according to activity, usage, behavior, and even by gender and send messages that pertain to each group.
No matter how you evaluate it, segmentation is key to effective email marketing. It will require more work up front, but the ROI is well worth the effort. Your audience wants communication that feels like personal attention and will respond to it if you succeed.
Misty Sanford
Social Insight Thought Leader
Renter’s Voice