The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming! How do I know? Well, aside from the happy Santa faces staring at me from store windows in October, I always see email volume increase during this time of year. And for good reason! With email being the best ROI for your dollar, it's a logical choice for communication. The recession has only crystallized that choice and pushed the volume even higher.

However, with the increased volume comes the need for better targeting and email segmentation. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't always segment, because it's never a bad idea. I'm just stating that at this time of year, when recipients are being bombarded by more email than any other time, sending a highly relevant email to the right target group will help to ensure that your message is seen and read.

There are hundreds of articles out there that extol the virtues of segmenting (see our top 10 list below), how it allows you to more highly target your customers and provide them with content that will likely resonate with them more than other general content. Time and time again it has been shown to increase return on investment. However, I notice from our own usage patterns that just over half of our customers use segmentation, and that holds true in recent surveys indicating that only another 10 to 15% of customers plan to use it in the next six months.

So, obviously it bears repeating - email segmentation is key to campaign success. You can segment on a number of factors such as past activity (opens, clicks, Web behavior, etc.) or profile attribute information such as purchase price, purchase product, or basic demographics. Each of these factors helps improve your chances of a higher ROI! To simply forgo segmenting because it's perceived to be too hard to do, or you don't have enough relevant data, is downright wrong. Anyone who has sent at least one email marketing campaign has enough data in the system to create a segment, based simply on who opened it or who clicked specific links.

Everyone has to start somewhere!

Let’s start some momentum. Share your email segmenting strategies and successes in the ‘Comments’ section below and inspire others to get on board while the time is right!

Top 10 list of LyrisHQ.com articles & blog posts about email segmentation:

• Email List Segmentation Starts with "Welcome!" 
• Make Segmentation As Easy As 1-2-3
• Email Segmentation & Target Marketing for Non-Profits
• Target Your Best Customers With RFM Segmentation
• KPIs: The Right Tool for the Job
• Segment yourself free: Let go of a stale reporting mindset
• Using Visitor Segmentation in Web Analytics
• Understanding Key Performance Indicators
• Getting Better Results with Segmenting
• How sophisticated is your customer segmentation?

About The Author

Lindsay Kloepping is a product manager at Lyris. She is responsible for defining and delivering customer requirements to improve their email marketing ROI.

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