Email Marketing by the Numbers: How to Use the World’s Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level

Basic Segmentation 101: What Is It?

When marketers refer to a segment, they are talking about a portion of their database that has similar characteristics. Those characteristics are used to market in a relevant manner, which is different from mass marketing. Segmentation is an ongoing process that will help you build real relationships. The smaller you can make the segments, the more likely you are to deliver a relevant message.

In the old world of marketing, segmenting was difficult. The nature of television or paper-based marketing made it expensive and cumbersome to do real segmentation. How can a television know anything more than my demographics? Or how can a direct mail piece immediately measure my engagement? Both are time intensive and leave a lot for the marketer to fill in with his or her imagination.

With email, you’re able to leverage all of your data to target smaller groups of people with the same characteristics, while tracking engagement from start to finish.

Many organizations aren’t sure what segments will be beneficial to their business. To me, segmentation is the most fun aspect of marketing. It’s like detective work. Who do you segment? Based on what attributes? Why? Was it Colonel Mustard with the rope in the billiard room or Miss Scarlet?

Not convinced? The alternative to segmenting your audience is to simply batch and blast messages to your entire subscriber list. Marketers who engage in batch and blast email marketing knowingly (or unknowingly) make several ...