Back to basics

Think about what you’re trying to achieve as a business and the ways in which segmenting groups of contacts can help you reach those goals. In other words, don’t create segments for the sake of creating segments – make them meaningful.

You might find it hard to prioritize, so here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Engagement: who’s opened your emails in the last 30-60 days (depending on how frequently you send)? These contacts are going to be your key engaged audience, so consider how you can maintain and further cultivate the relationship. Perhaps thank them for engaging with your brand and ask them to complete a quick survey to capture more information / feedback on how they think your emails are doing, or what they’d like to see in the future.
• Non-engagement: like the above but reversing the rule. Has the contact avoided opening the campaigns you’ve sent in the last 30-60 days? Pop those subscribers into a nurture program to help keep your data clean and your engagement strong.
• Geographical: if you’re a store-based or location-based brand and have access to your customers’ postcodes, you can make use of Dotdigital’s geographical segmentation – it’s handy for any local events, sales, store openings, or just a reminder that you’re there.
• Gender: a great segment for retailers and healthcare, though in some cases it’s still good to include multi-gender products/information in your communications as your audience are likely to make recommendations to friends or family members. “Have a look at this, I think you’ll find it interesting” or “Look at these shoes, I think you’ll love them”.
• Subscription date: show your customers you’re thinking of them by reminding them that they’ve been a member for 6 months, a year etc. You can use dynamic content to personalize the emails, perhaps offering them some kind of reward or incentive.

Transactional data segmentation – must-haves for retailers

This mostly applies if you have order insight and are pushing data through the API or Magento. Of course, some of these can still work using a flat data field and by manually updating your contact records based on the category or product type they’ve purchased.

The following segment examples are based on a mid-size company with mid-range prices (so somewhere in between your Primark (UK) / Target (US).

• VIP customers: makes at least 1 purchase a month and has opened 1 campaign per month for the last 6 months
• Discount spenders: have only purchased ‘Sale’ items in the last 6 months
• Loyal customers: have opened at least 3 campaigns per month for the last 3 months and have made at least 2 orders
• Big spenders: spend frequently with full priced items and are likely to bulk buy that one shirt you sell in 12 different colors
• New customers: subscribed, opened an email and have purchased in the last 30 days
• Win-back: non-openers and non-purchasers in 90 days or more
• Online shopping carts containing: one of ‘X’ stock keeping unit

How do the above segments help me?

The above segments will help you to get a handle on the clients you’re losing and why they’re no longer buying from you. Your high-engagers and spenders are undoubtably worth your time and effort, so segmentation can ensure that you’re always sending them the relevant products and content that’ll keep them warm.

If I still haven’t convinced you to give this a try, reach out to your Account Manager or contact us for a demo and we’ll be happy to walk you through the platform.