Continually striving to improve and optimize your various email lists will increase open rates, customer engagement and ultimately, conversion rates. Most email marketers are familiar with the practice of list segmentation and/or optimization, but for one reason or another, businesses have neglected to institute these techniques into their own marketing strategy. Here at Eastmont Group we believe a greater emphasis on segmentation and optimization can lead to measurable improvements for businesses in 2017.

Segmentation Is Key

Not everyone on your email list is the same. Your potential customers come from different age groups, geographic regions, genders and the like. Not to mention, they have different preferences, personal interests and buying habits. Therefore, don’t send the same email to everybody on your list and expect the best results. Quite simply, that’s not possible! You may be generating a decent open rate or a solid click rate. But if you don’t segment your lists into well-thought-out categories that are designed to generate conversions, you will continue you fall short.

Dig into your user data segment those lists! The more granular you get, the better. In doing so, you increase your chances of sending the right email, to the right person, at the right time. Here’s some additional helpful tips about email list segmentation.

The Importance of A/B Testing

To be clear, segmentation won’t produce better results if you don’t know what works best for different subsections of your list. This is where A/B testing and multivariate testing come into play. By A/B testing, you can truly gauge which email titles, design layouts, subject matter and messaging resonate with each subsection of your list.

To run a quick and simple A/B test before emailing an entire segment, create two different titles for a small subsection of your list. One title could be more factual, while the other title could be more attention grabbing and loosely based on the actual email content. You never know. Maybe the people within this email list are far more willing to open, click and convert if the email title features a funny emoji!

Over the next few hours, track which title is performing better, but don’t just skim the basic stats. Maybe the factual title generates a lower open rate but nets more conversions, since the people who click are more interested in the actual subject matter. Then, send out the “better” version of that email to your entire segment. Of course, if you’re using MailChimp Pro, rather than just testing two variables at a time, you can use the multivariate testing feature to get dig even deeper.

Iterative Refinement

A few list segments and A/B tests will not maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. An ongoing process of testing and refining your strategies is essential to generating the best results.

As you become more comfortable with the process, test new variables (while starting slow) and gradually build up to MailChimp Pro’s multivariate testing.

Depending on the size your business, we recommend setting aside time each week to review your current email efforts, create one new A/B or multivariate test (based on previous findings) and analyze the data before next week’s session. This simple, yet iterative, process will create good habits AND produce measurable improvements to your email marketing efforts over time.

It takes time, effort and a little bit of brainpower to optimize your email marketing. But by segmenting your lists, testing new strategies and continually striving to improve, you will start sending the right emails, to the right people, at the right time.