Segmenting your email database is an important exercise for any business. Let’s look at 7 specific eCommerce email segmentation strategies to help boost conversion and customer experience.
After spending a few decades in digital marketing and marketing automation, I’ve seen email lists of all shapes and sizes. I’ve seen lists segmented well, not well, and some not at all.
In this article I’ll share 7 of my favorite e-commerce email segmentation tips.
So you can quickly decide if this article is for you, the email segmentation strategies I’ll cover are:
- Keep it simple, stupid
- Think in triggers, not blasts
- Segmenting by purchase cycle
- Be personal, at the right time
- email Segmentation – use it wisely
- Segmenting by RFM dimensions to boost CLV
- Take care of your evangelists – segmenting by referrals and reviews
Working with over a hundred e-commerce business’ and tens of millions of contact records, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and had even more revelations.
Please use this article to learn from my mistakes and win from my eCommerce email marketing revelations.
Most of all, use this article to make your eComm business better and convert more subscribers to leads… more leads to sales… and more sales into brand evangelists and repeat customers.
Working with tens of millions of contact records I’ve made plenty of mistakes and had even more revelations.
Please learn from them.
Segmenting your eCommerce email lists is an ongoing process
This is kinda like tip 0… it’s super important but not quite directly actionable… so I kept it out of the main list.
Email segmentation is never a “once and done” process. It’s something you work at, get better at, and repeat.
Your list segmentation strategy should be centered around business and brand strategy. Both of which should be maturing over time.
Plan for change. Schedule monthly, quarterly, and yearly strategy sessions to check the maturity of your list segmentation strategy.
Include sales, marketing, customer service, and leadership teams in these meetings. You’ll be amazed at how much these departments can learn from and influence the program.
eComm Email Segmentation Strategy #1
Keep customer segmentation simple.
Your customer segments should work for you, not confuse you.
Segmenting your customers is an exciting process. Don’t bite off more than you can chew too quickly.
If you get moving on your email segmentation strategy and it starts getting more confusing than an ant farm, it’s time to hit the brakes. Don’t worry, this is normal.
But please, keep it simple, stupid.
eComm Email Segmentation Strategy #2
Trigger your email sends. Don’t blast them.
You’ve collected important data, use it to your customers advantage, not yours.
Maybe you’ve already crossed this bridge. Before practicing good customer segmentation with your email lists, train yourself to stop thinking in blasts and start thinking in triggers.
Email triggers are actions taken by users. A good way to think of these actions is to put yourself in your customers shoes.
You don’t want to be hounded by emails or feel like you’re getting the same message as the rest of the herd, right? So don’t do it to your users.
Find helpful ways to expand the user experience while shopping.
These helpful insights should come from data. Not assumption or intuition.
The best place to start looking is for data guided insight is in your google analytics profile. Your google analytics view for eCommerce should already be broken down by user segment.
These user segments can guide your email segmentation strategies quickly. Looking through your GA eCommerce segments should give a quick insight into how to segment your email lists. Here are a few quick win scenarios to boost your email stats:
- Demographics: Segment your users by demographic information
- Technology: Segment your users’ sessions by their web and mobile technologies.
- Behavior: Segment your users by how often they visit and conduct transactions.
- Date of First Session: Segment your users (create cohorts) by when they first visited.
- Traffic Sources: Segment your users by how they found you.
- Enhanced Ecommerce: Segment your users by their shopping behavior.
Using triggers to communicate with your eCommerce segments from Google Analytics
Something as simple as an image swap can make all the difference in eCommerce email conversions. When looking at demographic segments, a quick visual association can easily be the difference between an open and a conversion.
Consider segmenting your email sends to your top 3 demographic profiles from your google analytics with a simple image or headline swap to make the communication more relevant to the recipient.
eCommerce Email Segmentation Strategy #3
Segmenting by RFM dimensions to boost Customer Lifetime Value
RFM stands for “Recency, Frequency, and Monetary” and is a must-use segmenting strategy for e-commerce email lists.
To use RFM for segmentation, you must first understand each dimension:
Recency – How much time has elapsed since a customer’s last interaction and/or transaction on your site?
Frequency – How often does a customer interact with or make a transaction on your site during a particular time period?
Monetary – How much has a customer spent on your site over a particular period of time?
Using RFM segmentation for quick wins
Using the recency dimension of your RFM segmentation, you can quickly put a plan in place to interact with your most active customers… the people buying right now. Chances are if someone has made a recent purchase, your best opportunity for upsell is right now.
Get an automated email in place highlighting an add-on sale for each of your top 5 products. Send this email within 3 minutes of purchase with a minor discount. You’ll be amazed by the conversion.
Take it a step further? Anyone with simultaneous recency and monetary scores of 1 is equivalent to a gold mine. This is a top spender with the most focused attention.
Hit this segment with a high dollar special offer and some level of ‘membership’ incentive included. Your CLV will skyrocket and if your offer is good, you’ll be getting repeat orders from this segment for a good while.
