some-alternative-ways-to-segment-your-listMost experienced ecommerce email marketers know about the importance of segmentation. By dividing your subscriber list into groups that all share similar characteristics, you can tailor-make more personalised messages that your customers are much more likely to respond to.

Most email marketers segment their list based on things like age, gender, location and buying habits. However, it’s often said that, the more you can segment your list, the better your results will be. So, instead of the obvious, why not try some of these more alternative ways of segmenting your mailing list:

Postage

The chances are that you already segment your list based on your customers’ purchase history and buying habits. But, you could also look to segment your list based on their postage history. Do you have a lot of customers who send a lot of items as gifts? If so, you can send these people emails showcasing your most popular gift items, or offering them free gift wrapping on their next order.

The offer of free postage can sometimes be enough to encourage someone to make a purchase. If you have a lot of customers who tend to use the ‘free postage’ option on your site, you can send them an email offering them a code for free next day delivery, like this one from Seasalt:

A little incentive like this is likely to encourage some of your customers to click through, and they may be so impressed with the next day delivery service that they choose to pay for it in the future.

Feedback

Nowadays, most online shoppers use customers reviews to make decisions about their purchases. Therefore, it can be incredibly beneficial to encourage your customers to leave reviews on your website.

Some customers are prolific reviewers, whereas others need a push to encourage them to leave feedback. If you have any customers who have never left a review on your site, you can send them an email asking for their feedback, like this one from Pepperberry:

Certain customers will need even more of a push in order to leave feedback. Consider offering a prize or incentive in return for leaving a review, like Regis Salons have done:

Social

Do you have customers who love to share your content on social networks? You can target these customers with your email marketing, encouraging them to share even more and on different social networks. House of Fraser dedicated an entire email to social sharing, starting with the subject line:

They then feature sections on each of their social media pages, including a competition for their Facebook fans:

As with any email marketing techniques, there’s no guarantee that more unusual segmentation will achieve better results for your business. But, by trying and testing as many different segments as you can, you’ll soon find out what works for you.