Email Marketing Blog

In Part 1, we discussed how to use an initial opt-in form to segment your list. In Part 2, we covered a few more ideas, including the use of segmented landing pages.

Today, in the last of this series, I’ll talk about some final segmentation ideas, continuing with the theme of segmenting a list for an active adult community in Orlando, Florida.

Merging Direct Mail with Landing Pages

Yesterday I talked about creating segmented landing pages, using real pay-per-click advertising as examples of areas we may wish to segment.

But you can use many lead generation systems to drive traffic to these opt-in pages. And offline methods - such as advertising or direct mail - often work just as well. Some examples are:

• AARP
• Where to Retire
• ELDR
• 50 Plus Lifestyles

In addition to national publications, there are also many regional periodicals available. In fact, here is a list of almost 200 age 50+ publications.

In the above cases, we were searching specifically on 50+ magazines, but there are lists, just like this, available for almost every niche imagineable.

Editorial Calendars

There are additional avenues to explore as well. Again, using our active adult community as an example, I also want to research general readership magazines. These publications can provide me with an editorial calendar that outlines the emphasis of the magazine for future issues.

In this example, you’ll notice that Smart Money’s Editorial Calendar is going to have a feature on retirement in April. If your community was in one of the lowest cost-of-living areas of the country, you might want to consider advertising your free report here.

While most magazines don’t post an online editorial calendar, you can always get one by going to their web site or calling their offices and requesting a media kit. The majority will include an editorial calendar for advertisers.

(Hint: If you’re an accomplished writer - and are aware of the editorial calendar far enough in advance, you can always submit an article for consideration in that month’s publication. Cost - free! Exposure - Priceless!)

Direct Mail Lists

Lastly, we could set up an offline campaign to drive readers onto our landing page to opt-in for a free report. There are tens of thousands of list brokers who can help you with this. You can see from this sample page that you can get pretty specific about the people you want to reach.

If I am looking for leads to send to my adult community web page featuring golf, I could request:

• Geography
• Gender
• Age
• Income or Net Worth
• Home Owners
• Special Interests / Hobbies: Golf
• Magazine Subscribers: Golf Digest, etc.

While each “select” adds to your cost, they can help you build extremely targeted lists. This is one reason it’s important to learn as much as you can about the people who have already purchased from you. For instance, if I knew that 63% of my buyers had a net worth of more than $1.2 million and resided in Florida, Georgia and New York, selecting that criteria should definitely improve my conversion rate for this direct mail campaign.

If you are generating offline leads, your goal should be to have them register for something at your web site. This adds them to your email list for follow-up purposes.

I hope this series has been helpful in giving you some ideas on segmenting your own list. Now it’s your turn! Do you have some great examples of segmented landing pages that you are using in your business or have seen at sites owned by others? Do you have questions or comments about this series and how it relates to your business?

Don’t be shy! Post your questions and/or comments here!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

In Part 1, we talked about how to use an initial opt-in form to segment your list.

For this series, we are using an 55+ active adult center as the example. Today, we’ll cover a few more techniques to segment your email list.

Choice of Reports from One Web Page

Another idea you can use on your main page is to offer several reports from a drop-down box. Each report would speak to a group as outlined above. Or perhaps your reports would be driven from the activities you offer, so readers could sign up for the newsletters from the golf pro, activities director, etc.

While segmenting your list by ages is one example, you may wish to further segment that list’s interests. Let’s assume that you developed a list of people 55+ who are looking for an active adult community. Here are some things they could be interested in:

Golfing
Fishing
Activity Center and Daily Activities
Maintenance Free Living
City vs. Small Town

Can you see how effective it is to have an email list of readers who are 55+, are interested in retireing to an active adult community now and whose primary interest is golf? Your emails can go into detail about who designed the course, the features, tournament activities, etc. Perhaps you can allow them to opt-in to the golf newsletter if one is available.

Can you also see how NON-EFFECTIVE that would be for someone who was primarily interested in fishing during their golden years and had no interest in golf?

That’s why we want to segment!

Creating Segmented Landing Pages

In the above examples, we’ve talked about driving traffic to one web page and then separating it into segmented lists.

A segmented list can also be developed using various opt-in pages, each related to a different area of interest or segmented group. You’ll see this done quite often with those using pay-per-click advertising.

I’ve entered “active adult community” into a search box and found these pay-per-click listings. Let’s discuss these in relation to landing pages:

Locations: Rhode Island, Florida, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Tennessee

Amenities: Luxury, Country Club, Golf, Boating

Lifestyle: Acreage, Escape the City, Mountains

Let’s assume my property is in Orlando, is situated on a ski-able lake, 20 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean, with an award-winning golf course on the property.

How about an ad that read…

Orlando Lakefront Retirement
Fresh and Saltwater Fishing In a
Resort 55+ Atmosphere
www.yourdomain.com

Someone who opts into this list is interested in hearing about the retirement lifestyle where (s)he can fish all day! Your email series will concentrate on fishing.

Retire on the Golf Course
Orlando 55+ Community
Unlimited Golf Fees Included!
www.yourdomain.com

In this case, you’ll feature the villas available on the golf course, tidbits on the par, golf course designer, matches held there and so forth.

The important thing is to have specific landing pages for each ad. If I click on “Orlando Lakefront Retirement”, I shoud see a guy at the community lake holding up his prize bass. Likewise, the email series they opt into should concentrate on fishing, although you’ll obviously mention all the other features and amenities.

In my next post, I’ll explore how to use an offline technique to build your online opt-in list.

Questions or comments? Post below and I’ll be sure to answer them for you.

In Email Segmentation: How to Talk to Your Reader, we defined email segmentation and discussed why you might want to incorporate it in your email marketing.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share some simple ways to segment your lists and cover common segmentation categories to consider.

To quickly review, the reason for segmenting lists in the first place is to be able to speak more specifically to a particular reader - whether a prospect or customer. This generally increases response to and conversion of the products and services you promote to this list.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Initial Opt-In Form.

If there is an important qualifier for potential customers, you should include it in your opt-in form.

As an example, I live in Florida which is a huge retirement state. There are a number of “active adult” living centers being built here. If I were developing an opt-in list for a center, an important qualifier would be whether or not my readers were 55+; if not, they couldn’t live on my property.

Now, there may be others who are interested in my housing. There may be people who are 50-54 and are beginning to research properties. There may be the children of seniors, who are researching properties to present to their parents.

But the people who are going to put money in my pocket quickly are those who are 55+.

In my general opt-in box, I could have a drop-down box with age ranges or a check box that would be checked if someone was 55 years of age or older. Then I could broadcast a message only to this group offering them an additional product or a coupon for a free weekend at the property. They would get it by opting into a different list - one that is only available for those 55 or older.

Note: You’d want to set up your offer (such as the free weekend) to verify that they are 55+ when they redeem their coupon. For this reason it would make little sense for someone younger than 55 to opt-in.

Another way you can segment your list is from the initial information you gather at sign-up. Keep in mind that the number of opt-ins is inversely proportional to the amount of information you require from those opting in. Also, your potential subscribers don’t know you well yet, so this is not the time to ask for a lot of personal information.

Personally, I like to include zip codes (or other area designations in my forms. This is a pretty non-invasive request to which most people will comply.

On Friday, I’ll give you a few more ways to develop a segmented list. In the meantime, post your questions or comments below…we always love to hear from you!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

You know you’re working too hard when you’re listening to the oldies
station and a song gives you an idea for an email marketing blog post!

Tell me if YOU can find sound marketing advice in the following lyrics….

“Hello!
Is it me you’re looking for?
Because I wonder where you are
And I wonder what you do
Are you somewhere feeling lonely?
Or is someone loving you?
Tell me how to win your heart
For I haven’t got a clue
But let me start by saying I love you”

The lyrics from this Lionel Richie song (for those of you under 30 – he’s Nicole Richey’s dad!), are the perfect anthem to email marketers in need of a segmented list.

We want to provide the answers for our readers. The closer the match between what they are seeking and what we can provide, the higher our actual readership (as opposed to subscribers) and the better our conversion.

Some easys ways to segment a list is by location, occupation, marital status, children, education, home ownership, etc. Obviously, you wouldn’t ask all of these questions but, depending on what you are marketing, a few may come in handy to begin the process of segmenting your list.

For example, one of my coaching lists asks for the state in which my subscriber resides (this is a U.S. based list). While not segmenting into a separate email list, it does allow me to search and broadcast to people in certain locales. If I am traveling to an area for a speaking engagement or meeting, I’ll broadcast to this list to let them know I’ll be in their area. Because coaching can be a higher ticket, meeting face-to-face almost always brings more business.

If you promote seminars to your list, this same information could be useful in promoting seminars in their area. If you’ve booked an airfare within 14 days of an event, you know that the cost skyrockets. Being able to broadcast to those within driving distance of the event can put some healthy affiliate commissions into your pocket.

One of the biggest challenges we face is knowing what our subscribers want and how they want it. For too many, we really haven’t got a clue how to win their hearts.

When was the last time you surveyed your list? It’s almost impossible to “have a clue” if you never ask. You can find several web sites like SurveyMonkey that allow you to set up surveys at no cost.

If you don’t remember anything else – keep the last line of these lyrics in mind, because it’s the most important: Let your subscribers know you love ‘em!

Of the many email subscriptions in my inbox, few marketers show their appreciation for their readers. Instead, you get the distinct impression that these readers are viewed as cash machines, salivating over the daily promotional emails they receive.

If you want your readers to feel appreciated, respect them. Give them value in exchange for their time. Do not email them once or twice a day. Intersperse your promotions with your content – do not intersperse content within your promotions! A good rule of thumb is a 75/25 content content-to to-promotion ratio.

(This does not mean that you can’t promote – after all, we ARE in this to make a living – but it means that you don’t ONLY promote. If you show respect and provide value, the law of reciprocity will kick in!)

Please post your ideas below!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

An interesting article recently appeared in Marketing Sherpa about an ecommerce retailer who wanted to determine the best day and time to mail their list. This example shows not only the significance of testing, but the role of segmentation in doing so.

The owner wanted to know the best day and time to increase clickthrough rates on their email campaigns. They already knew that Tuesday was the day of the week, but they wanted to take it further to see if the time would be a significant factor. Their tests showed that mailing at 9AM produced a 15.63% higher clickthrough rate than 4PM!

How can you apply this type of research to your business?

Use web analytics to study your email clickthroughs, website traffic and orders. This gives you a black and white control from which to work.

Depending on your site’s content and target market, you might test completely different times. For instance, if your target audience are gamers, you wouldn’t test between 9AM-4PM, because a huge chunk of your audience is in school at that time. You might not begin testing until 4PM.

Segment your list. This is a perfect example of why you’d ask questions to segment your list. In this case, they knew where their subscribers were located, making it easy to set up their test, segmenting their list into time zones. (Obviously, when it’s 9AM on the East Coast, it’s only 6AM on the West Coast!)

Test one thing at a time. In this case, the company determined the best day of the week BEFORE moving on to test the best time of day. Testing the best time of day AND the best subject line will not give you good, actionable results.

Questions? Comments? We’d love to hear your input!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse