Get your email marketing making waves by defining customer journeys personalised to the different groups in your database! Not sure how? Check this out:
1. By customer status
What is this customer’s relationship to your brand? Are they….
…A prospect – i.e. you have their details but they have never purchased from you?
Prospect nurture will most definitely be an important part of your CRM programme; segmenting this status in your database will help you encourage people down the marketing funnel from being aware of you to liking you, to trusting and purchasing.
Define the ideal customer journey and A/B test every email to see how your prospects respond. Don’t expect to jump straight to sale, but instead provide value in your emails to build a long-lasting relationship.
…A lapsed or dormant record?
There is no point continually communicating with customers or prospects who don’t open your messages. Make sure you cleanse your database readily – send requalification messages to check people still want to hear from you. If they are now opened, archive the records! If they are lapsed customers but still show some interest, develop a stream in your CRM plan that aims to entice them back; test different offers and subject lines to see what works.
…An active customer?
Active customers will need regular content to keep the relationship going. Measure the open and click rates and then further segment this group by their interests.
…A brand advocate?
Your Brand loyalists will have high % open rates and high repeat purchases. If someone is highly engaged with your business, keep them engaged. Communicate with them regularly, rewarding them with the type of content you know they will want; new product news, behind-the-scenes insight, events, and offers.
2. By their likes
You have a few different options to detect what your customer base is interested in:
1) Look at what they click on
2) Look at what they have subscribed to
3) Look at what they have purchased
4) Ask them!
3. By customer location
This won’t be applicable to all businesses, but if you do communicate anything about physical events, you should look at geographical identifiers. Segment the users who live in a particular region and provide location-specific details.
4. By the point in their journey
Any interaction with your brand should prompt a bespoke email or chain of emails. For example:
Welcome
To all the new subscribers, you can send welcome emails or provide great welcome offers.
Shopping cart abandoner
If you’re selling a product either physical or digital, always remind the subscribers who show interest and have items in their cart to check out.
And did you know? Nearly 50% of all abandoned cart emails are opened and over a third of clicks lead to purchases back on site (SaleCycle, 2020)
Booker/Purchaser
Thank them!
5. By their values or demographics.
Most CRM tools will allow you to segment based on predicted demographics, which is useful if you want to tailor your communication by age or gender categories.Be mindful of not over-generalising here though, second-guessing what a demographic group may or may not like relies on marketer bias; testing is actually a truer way to determine the style or content likely to appeal. The more sophisticated method for larger databases and a varied product range to append predicted values to your email list and tailor your communications accordingly.
Before you go to this level though, make sure you’ve got the basics in points 1-4 covered first!
