You might have a long list of subscribers and might be utilizing a robust B2B email marketing strategy. But, you might still experience the pain of seeing low open rates even after executing important email marketing campaigns.
The reason could probably be you are sending the same emails to the entire list. It does not make sense to send the same email, considering the different stages of a buyer’s journey. The best B2B lead generation companies use B2B email segmentation to turn the one-to-many approach into a one-to-one personalized approach. Consequently, it will improve click-through rates.
Segmented email campaigns, according to MailChimp, receive 14.31% more opens and 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns.
Moreover, email marketing acts as one of your best options as a B2B lead generation solution. Hence it is of utmost importance to focus on segmenting your email list.
In this blog below, you will encounter what is email segmentation, why it is important to segment your B2B contact list, and how to.
What is B2B Email Segmentation?
Email segmentation plays a critical role in the email marketing approach. A “one size fits all” email marketing strategy is not effective, and this is where email segmentation strategies for brands come into play. To segment B2B email lists or contact databases, they must be grouped according to shared characteristics.
Email marketing segmentation is a widely used marketing technique that allows you to precisely target your audience by identifying email list segmentation based on specific data or behavior. Customization of every email is unnecessary, but the main categories of subscribers should be segmented, and the content style should be tailored accordingly.
According to the Direct Marketing Association (D.M.A.), email segmentation can result in a 760% increase in revenue. While it may require a little extra effort, it ultimately pays off in the long run and sets your brand apart from the competition.
What are some email list segmentation ideas?
B2B Email segmentation lets you send more personalized and relevant emails, improving engagement and conversion rates. In this response, the below pointers explore some of the ideas.
- Demographic segmentation: This requires segmenting your email list by age, gender, geography, and occupation. This can help you craft audience-relevant messaging.
- Behavioral segmentation: This entails segmenting your B2B email list by subscriber behavior. You may split your list by email opens, clicks, cart abandonment, and purchases.
- Customer journey segmentation: Segment your email list per the customer journey stage. Segment your list as fresh leads, active, and expired customers.
- Interest segmentation: This entails segmenting your email list by subscribers’ interests and preferences. You can segment your list by products bought, content read, or events attended.
- Psychographic segmentation: This involves segmenting your email list based on subscribers’ personality traits, values, and attitudes. For example, you can segment your list based on whether subscribers are environmentally conscious, price-sensitive, or brand loyal.
Additionally, email list segmentation best practices listed below result in successful email marketing campaigns.
- Keep your segments manageable
- Test your segments
- Personalize your messaging
- Optimize your subject lines
- Don’t over-segment
By segmenting your list based on different criteria, you can improve engagement and conversion rates and increase ROI.
Incorporating the latest personalization features into your email segmentation ideas is crucial to ensure your email marketing campaign’s success. It is essential to recognize its significance and why it is crucial for the success of your email marketing campaigns.
Why is Email Segmentation Important In B2B
Effective email marketing segmentation impacts campaign performance, email delivery, and brand perception favorably.
Not segmenting your email list, or not doing it appropriately, will have several consequences:
- The content you send won’t be personalized.
- Customers and leads will tire of your emails. Your unsubscribe rate will soar.
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and contacts may label your emails as spam.
There are several reasons why email segmentation is essential in B2B:
- You can send better-targeted and personalized emails.
- Email segmentation can help you improve your email deliverability and open rates.
- Email segmentation can help you measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns more accurately.
Email segmentation in B2B is a crucial strategy in today’s dynamic business world. When you segment your email list and tailor your content to each group’s needs, it helps increase the chances of converting leads into customers and growing your business.
To do so, you need to acknowledge how you start email segmentation in B2B.
How to Start B2B Email Segmentation?
In B2B email marketing, marketers may feel overwhelmed by the numerous tools available, making it difficult to get started. To simplify the process, here are three clear steps for email segmentation:
Step 1:
There may be some untapped segments you haven’t considered that can significantly increase your open and click-through rates. To target your B2B email audience effectively, you can use the following three creative ways:
- Survey questions – Conducting surveys can gather valuable information that can be analyzed to understand your audience’s preferences and behaviors better.
- Click history – By collecting data on the links your email subscribers clicked on in previous campaigns, you can give them more of what they are interested in. For those who opened the email but didn’t click on any links, try approaching them differently.
- Generational segmentation – Segmenting your email list according to the four main generations (Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers, and Silent Generation) can reveal unique communication styles, interests, and preferences that can be used to personalize your email content accordingly.
Step 2
Create the segmentation categories you’ve just identified, and populate them with the names of customers or potential customers who belong within them. As a result, you will come across valuable B2B email data, and you can now let your imagination soar and create incredible messages and content for these segments.
Step 3
Having identified and established your segments in the preceding stages, it is time to modify the categorization content of opportunities for each listing. Sometimes, your potential consumers are unaware of their requirements, but based on your experience, you must determine what they are and be confident that they will soon become apparent.
To maximize the return on investment and improve conversion rates in B2B email marketing, aligning email segmentation strategies with your overall business plan is imperative. Let’s explore a few tips on how to use email segmentation to improve B2B conversion rates.
B2B Email Segmentation Boosts Your Conversion Rates
Email segmentation for B2B is a powerful way to increase conversions by delivering more targeted and personalized content to your audience.
Here are some tips on how to use email segmentation to improve your B2B conversion rates:
- Segment by industry: Group your contacts and tailor your email content to speak directly to each industry’s needs and pain points.
- Segment by company size: Segment your list by company size, and create content that speaks directly to the challenges faced by small, mid-sized, and large businesses.
- Segment by job role: Create targeted content for specific job roles within your target companies, such as CEOs, CFOs, or CMOs.
- Segment by engagement level: Group your contacts based on their engagement level and create campaigns tailored to each segment. For example, you might create a win-back campaign for contacts who haven’t engaged with your content.
- Segment by stage in the sales funnel: Group your contacts based on where they are in the B2B sales funnel, and create content that addresses their specific needs at each stage.
- Personalize your messaging: Use data collected about your contacts, such as their name, company, or previous purchase history, to personalize your messaging and make it more relevant to each individual.
By using B2B email segmentation effectively, you can create more targeted and relevant content that resonates with your audience, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates and improved ROI. There are several ways to segment your B2B email list and streamline the process to achieve your targeted return on investment (ROI).
Ways to Segment B2B Email List
As a B2B SaaS company, you have access to various automated tools that can help you segment your B2B email lists. Familiarizing yourself with primary segmentation methods will enable you to categorize your subscribers into relevant clusters.
Let’s dig into a few successful email segmentation examples to categorize your subscribers.
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What are your target audience’s demographics?
Information such as age, gender, job title, location, language, and income can provide insights into an individual’s preferences and requirements. Collecting more data about your audience during sign-up can expand your demographic segmentation possibilities.
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Where are they in the sales funnel?
One of the most efficient methods to personalize your messaging is segmenting it according to the sales funnel stage where your audience is located. Your emails should provide valuable content to establish your brand’s identity and strengthen your relationship with new prospects.
Whereas, for active readers, the content should aim to inspire them to take action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.
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How often do your customers use your product?
Segmenting your email list based on user activity effectively enhances trial-to-customer conversion rates and overall sales. By identifying unresponsive, relaxed, and power users, you can offer personalized recommendations catering to their needs. This targeted approach can help reduce churn and increase the likelihood of converting trial users into paying customers.
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What are the survey findings?
Conducting surveys is a valuable approach for gathering demographic data and understanding your target audience’s perspectives, preferences, and opinions. To receive a substantial number of responses, consider providing an incentive, such as entering participants into a competition to win a prize.
Alternatively, instead of labeling it as a survey, you could present it as a quiz that delivers results that appeal to your audience, making it more engaging and enjoyable. These tactics can benefit B2B companies seeking to collect feedback and insights from their target audience.
Tailoring for Maximum Impact: B2B Email Segmentation Strategies
Marketing professionals acknowledge that segmenting email marketing lists is an effective way to enhance open and click-through rates. However, determining the most effective method for segmenting email lists can be significant. To simplify the process, here are a few email segmentation strategies to help you get started.
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Email Engagement
Email engagement is a straightforward yet powerful method for segmenting email lists and improving overall results. You can categorize your subscribers based on their engagement level by tracking open and click-through rates in your email marketing services.
This segmentation can be done by distinguishing active from inactive users, which can provide valuable insights into how to tailor your content and messaging to each group for maximum effectiveness.
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Past purchases
Leveraging customer purchase history is another effective email segmentation strategy that can optimize targeting. Cross-selling or up-selling can be achieved by analyzing previous purchases and recommending similar items or accessories that complement their previous purchases.
Additionally, if customers have purchased products that require replacement, refilling, or renewal, targeted emails can be sent based on their potential needs. This strategy can increase customer satisfaction and bring revenue to the business.
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Survey or quiz results
Collecting customer data through surveys or quizzes is a valuable email segmentation strategy that provides insight into their demographics, preferences, tastes, and beliefs. To encourage high response rates, it may be necessary to provide an incentive for completing the survey, such as entering participants into a drawing for a prize.
Alternatively, a quiz can be offered to the audience, which provides results that interest them. This approach can result in higher engagement rates and more valuable data for the business.
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Position in the sales funnel
Segmenting your audience based on their position in the sales funnel is one of the most essential email segmentation best practices for personalizing your messages. This means subscribers at different funnel stages should receive targeted emails that align with their specific needs and interests.
For instance, customers at the top of the funnel may need more education and awareness-building content, while those at the bottom may require more product-specific information.
By tracking and analyzing subscriber interactions, such as clicking through a link, businesses can obtain valuable information about their interests and preferences, allowing for more personalized and effective email communication.
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Lead magnet
To segment your subscribers based on the specific lead magnet, they opted in for; you can create a list dedicated to each lead magnet using your email service provider. After completing the lists, you can design your campaigns and send them directly to the relevant list.
Alternatively, you can add tags to certain email segments of your list using your B2B email service provider. This allows you to tailor your messaging to the interests and needs of each segment, improving engagement and conversion rates.
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Amount of purchase
Dividing your customer base according to their purchase amount history can be an effective method for B2B email segmentation, particularly for offering appropriate up-sells. Analyzing the expense history of your customers allows you to understand which customers are more likely to purchase expensive products and which ones are interested in affordable items. This way, you can create targeted email campaigns with products tailored to each individual’s budget.
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Website Activity
Another effective method to gather information about visitor interests is by tracking their website behavior. This enables you to gain insights into what the visitor is looking for and tailor your email campaigns accordingly. Several tools are available to track visitor behavior, such as monitoring scrolling behavior, clicked icons, time spent on a page, menus visited, and other relevant data. By utilizing these tools, you can gather a wealth of information about your audience’s behavior and preferences, which can be used to optimize your B2B email marketing strategies.
Conclusion
B2B email segmentation is an essential marketing strategy that enables businesses to deliver personalized messages to their target audience, increasing engagement, conversion, and revenue. It is time to switch up your B2B email marketing strategy and win over more leads.
B2B Email list segmentation provides relevant and valuable content that resonates with your subscribers’ unique needs and interests. Moreover, effective email segmentation can help you build stronger customer relationships, reduce churn, and increase your bottom line. By adopting the practices and techniques utilized by the best B2B lead generation companies in the USA, you can effectively design and implement B2B email campaigns that propel business growth and achievement.
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FAQs on B2B Email Segmentation
Q. What is a segmented email campaign?
A. A segmented email campaign is an email marketing strategy that targets specific groups of subscribers with tailored messages based on demographics, behavior, or other factors.
