Is Email Still Relevant? The Importance of Segmenting Your Email Marketing Lists

Email is often compared to CDs: younger people (and many older ones) listen to digital music exclusively. CDs are those funny things that your parents used to buy way, way back, and email is what Grandma uses to stay in touch. Social media and microblogging sites like Tumblr are making email obsolete for some demographics. Despite this, most marketers believe that the email channel offers a good ROI, second only to SEO. So, is email obsolete or potentially profitable?

According to Adestra’s Email Marketing Industry Census 2012, 70 percent of companies say that email is “good” or “excellent” in providing a healthy return on investment. By contrast, only 44 percent believed that social media’s ROI was as strong. An interesting finding was that companies who segmented their audience were 95 percent more likely to say their ROI was “excellent” or “good” than their non-segmenting peers. This is where you ensure that your emails, and the messages they contain, are hitting the audience that you need, the audiences for whom email is very much relevant.

Marketers who create buyer personas and answer questions about their audience see better results. They know their audience’s:

• Demographics.
• Age ranges.
• Occupation and level within a company or business.
• Pain points.
• Aspirations and goals.
• Needs.
• Method of gathering information.
• Most common objections to completing your CTA.
• Where they are in the sales cycle. Not everyone is at the same points, and emails need to take this into consideration.

With this information, marketers can segment their lists and provide targeted content. One person may be close to buying and need just a little encouragement. Another may be at the very beginning of the cycle and need basic information without a push or pitch. When emails are targeted like this, it tends to:

• Increase the click-through-rate of your emails.
• Enhance your reputation (customers feel you know them, what they need, etc.).
• Keep un-subscribing down.
• Turn one-time customers into repeat customers.

To see an ROI on email marketing, you need to know who you’re targeting and how to encourage them to take the next steps, whether that is clicking through to your site or making a purchase. Email is not only relevant, it can be a great benefit to your campaign.