When you’re marketing your products or services, it can be tempting to pitch to every potential buyer you can find. After all, what person or business couldn’t benefit from your money-saving, time-saving and/or revenue-generating products or services?
Expanding your reach to deliver to specific niches can be a good thing — if you do it right. Maybe you can sell to several different, diverse industries or audiences. But if so, your sales pitch should differ on a case by case basis. Why would you send the same marketing message to people in different industries or with different demographics instead of utilizing targeted email campaigns?
Targeted email campaigns, like any other marketing effort, are vital tools that help companies deliver the right message to the right people at the right time. Unlike many other marketing efforts (television and print ads, we’re looking at you), targeted email campaigns are cost-effective and highly-customizable.
So, if you’re using the same old “batch and blast” email marketing tactics, it’s time to stop. Blindly sending emails to any and every email address you can find will eventually lead to decreased open rates, increased unsubscribes, and the overall diminishment of your brand. As hard as you think it may be to craft specific campaigns for individuals -- particularly if you have thousands of people on your email list -- the results will far outweigh the effort.
And guess what? It’s not that hard to do anyway. Whether you’re asking for demographic data when people sign up to your list, or you’re using the personally identifiable information (PII) that people leave behind as they utilize social media or buy products online, segmenting your audience is far easier than it used to be.
Got your lists segmented? Good, now let’s use those specialized lists for some effective marketing.
Increasing Engagement and Open Rates with Targeted Email Campaigns
Let’s get this out of the way now: There is no reason not to utilize targeted email campaigns. Besides avoiding the issues outlined above, this strategy just plain works. Don’t believe it? Take a look at these stats, which are detailed — along with several others — in this Campaign Monitor blog:
- Aberdeen research found that personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%
- Personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates according to Experian
- DMA says that segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue
- Marketers have noted a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns, according to Campaign Monitor themselves
Now the question is, how do you do it? Or more importantly, how do you do it right?
Remember That You’re Marketing to People and All People Are Different
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but when you consider all the cookie-cutter marketing out there, this needs to be addressed. It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C. It doesn’t matter if you sell hundreds of products or one specific service. It doesn’t matter if you’re global or only operate in one sleepy little hollow. Your buyers are not all the same.
One person or one business may utilize your product or service in vastly different ways than the next. Say you sell nuts and bolts. A large manufacturer may use them for their heavy machinery, while a smaller entity uses them to build custom furniture. One person may use them to fix things around the house, while another uses them to make unique pieces of art. These are very generalized examples, of course, but the point remains: Targeted messages that drill down to exactly how a group of people or companies use your products or services will always be more appealing — and effective — than broad, nonspecific messages. Even if you can only break your audience down into two different segmentations, those customized messages are going to be more effective. And if you can break it down into multiple segments? Then you’re going to be able to craft targeted email campaigns that people will think were made just for them!
Convinced that your small audience in your small market can’t be segmented? Convinced that everyone uses your product or service in the exact same way? OK, for argument’s sake, we’ll go with it. But consider this: Even if everyone in your audience is exactly the same, isn’t it likely that some of them are in different stages of the buying journey? Are they learning about you and want more information, or are they longtime customers? Are they new to their field or industry or are they seasoned professionals? Are they ready to buy today, or will they have a need in a few months? Maybe you are marketing to clones, but if you don’t consider where they’re at in the sales cycle, your message could fall on deaf ears.
People Have Short Attention Spans (and They’re Kind of Vain)
This is another no-brainer, but people are multi-tasking at an all-time high. Next time you go to lunch or walk down the street, count how many people are staring at their devices (if you can put yours down long enough). Everyone wants their information and they want it now. If you use a boring, stock email subject line, it’s likely to get deleted. As this HubSpot blog outlines, Convince&Convert found that 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone, while personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened, according to Adestra. So, your emails must be if you want any chance of them being opened, let alone read. And there’s no better way to be personalized and eye-catching than to deliver targeted email campaigns to the exact right people, giving them exactly what they need, when they need it.
Ready to get started with targeted email campaigns? Contact us today!
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