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Segmentation does it stop at the form?
December 5, 2006
Segmentation based on form data is a great start, but what do you do with those individuals that are not responding to the emails based on your segmentation rules? Most marketers stop their segmentation once the form is filled out, but one of the key attributes to effective email marketing is making sure that the content is relevant to your subscribers over time. People's preferences change, a married couple might have children, the offers they respond to are going to vary once they do, a college student graduates and gets a job and now has purchasing power. Someone that was not previously a purchaser or was not responding are likely to respond to different content as long as it is valuable.
How do you create your segments, how do you know what will work? Initial surveys are valuable here to get an understanding of what segments to create. Get a good comprehensive survey put together to get a real understanding of demographics, preferences, product/service categories, etc. and compile the results to understand that if you have an average household income of under $35k that is subscribing and a fairly equal split of gender with an average age of 25. You know that you are more likely to direct those products that fit within the budget and lifestyle of your subscriber base, but beyond that is understanding what products to market, what sells to this group. This survey is going to help you move people between segments and test those people that are not fitting into the "bucket" they originally came in as.
Posted by Jeff.
