Do you have a mailing list for your business but not sure how to segment it? Do you send every email to everyone and would like to start emailing more strategically? In this post, I will be sharing 3 ways that you can start segmenting your mailing list.

Please note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

Email is a great way to market your business, but all too often I see people emailing their whole list over and over again. As your list grows segmentation will become more important. If you delve into your email service provider you will be able to uncover so much information that you can use to segment your data and serve your subscribers better.

There are literally hundreds of ways to segment data and the beginner the list gets, the more campaigns you send out and the more opt-ins you have the more sophisticated you can get. But this post shares 3 simple segmentation tools that you can apply to your list no matter how big it is.

1) Segment based on opt-in source

If you are growing your email list by creating different opt-ins then you should be segmenting your list by the different opt-ins. Keeping track of how many people joining your list via a certain opt-in not only means you can measure how well an opt-in is performing, but it will also enable you to send targeted emails that offer services you know the person is interested in. For example, if I created a cheat sheet for this blog post then I would know if you opt-ed in cheat sheet that you are interested in email segmentation. Therefore, I could then send you an email that talks specifically about how you could book a strategy session where we go through your opt-ins, your services and your future plans and work out all of the different ways you should specifically be segmenting your data. Now I use strategy sessions for a number of reasons, but because I know you are interested in email segmentation I could send an email that is specifically addressing that interest.

Segmenting based on opt-in source differs depending on email service provider, but usually, it will require you making a new group or a new tag for every opt-in, lead magnet or freebie you create.

2) Segment based on engagement

Kevin Kelly wrote about an article around the idea of an ‘artist’ only needing 1,000 true fans in order to make a living. As a business owner, it is probably also very true that if you sell multiple products or your clients can work with you multiple times then 1,000 true fans is enough for you to run a successful business. So how do you create 1,000 true fans?

To create ‘superfans’, as I like to call them, you need to look after the people who are showing an interest in you. Email makes it super easy for you to highlight those superfans.

In Mailerlite, there is the option to create segments based on subscribers open rate and click-through rate. By segmenting your data based on their open rate or click through rate you can send exclusive emails to those people. This would be a great group to survey to learn how to serve them better or maybe you make something especially for them as write an email saying as a valued subscriber you have created something exclusively for them.

3) Segment based on location

This one is important for those who do in-person events, workshops or even online live masterclasses. Whilst you can announce an upcoming event to your whole mailing list if you have a large international mailing list then you probably don’t want to be emailing them multiple times about something they can’t attend. If you segment your list by location then you would be able to email the whole list about the event but then only send more emails to people who you think are within the vicinity to visit.

Segmenting by location is also useful in the planning stages of events. Maybe you want to run a series of workshops, but not sure where to go. By segmenting your mailing list by location you can choose locations where you know you have an audience to market to.

Even if you don’t run in-person workshops knowing where your audience is from can be helpful. For example, I run live masterclasses. Whilst I am based in the UK I know I have a large percentage of my audience that are based in the USA. Therefore, I choose a time when I will be awake, but that also works for my American audience.

ARE YOU READY TO START SEGMENTING YOUR EMAIL LIST?

I have given you three segmentation ideas to get you started. Hopefully, you can see how at least one would be beneficial for your business.

Your options for segmentation are totally dependent on your email service provider. I tried to choose three that I thought all email service providers would provide, but I know all three are definitely possible in Mailerlite, which is the email service provider I use to run charellegriffith.com. Mailerlite is free for your first 1,000 subscribers and has all of the tools (landing pages, email automation and segmentation) that you would need to successfully build and email your mailing list. Find out more about Mailerlite by clicking here.

I hope you have found this post useful. I would love to know in the comments how you plan on segmenting your list.