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The basis of a successful B2B email campaign is, at the very least, email personalization. To avoid sending the same mass email to all your prospects, it's important to segment your subscriber list. Here are a few tips on how to segment your list in the most appropriate way.
Segmentation and its benefits
As part of a marketing strategy, it's essential not to put all your contacts on a single mailing list. What could be more rewarding for a corporate customer than to feel valued by an e-mail with content precisely tailored to their expectations? To respect this principle, you need to segment your subscribers into several lists. Otherwise, your prospects risk losing interest in poorly-targeted e-mails, resulting in damaging unsubscribe rates. The result - spammy e-mails, lack of interest and no impact - can be catastrophic.
That's why your company's marketing department needs to take particular care in segmenting your subscriber list, as much as in email content. Each recipient's needs, profile and level of maturity in a B2B inbound marketing campaign are unique.
Data to feed your lists
A good marketing strategy starts by getting to know your future customers as well as possible, so you can offer them the content they expect in an e-mail, at the most opportune moment. The first tactic is therefore to gather all possible data on the companies that come to you. A registration link in an e-mail is a first source, since it integrates a simple visitor into your subscriber lists.
However, it's through the behavior of these aspiring customers, as they interact with your emails or website, that valuable data can be gathered to build your contact segmentation. This information will be provided by appropriate analysis tools.
What marketing criteria should be used to segment?
Multiple criteria can be used to segment your subscriber list. The most common is socio-demographic data, among which the position held by your contacts within the client company plays an essential role. It's also advisable to segment according to the observed behavior of your prospects, such as opening an e-mail, downloading a file or visiting a web page.
To read Le role du storytelling dans l’email marketing B2B
Lead scoring tools provide information on the maturity of your leads, which calls for appropriate segmentation within email campaigns. If your future customers are looking for certain products, an e-mail containing information on that product range will be welcome. If they are interested in the products sold by your company, an e-mail testifying to the satisfaction of your former customers could encourage them to commit.
Other segmentation levels
Other levels of segmentation are possible, for even greater personalization of your e-mails. The time of day at which an e-mail is sent can also help to ensure a good open rate. Subscribers who have been inactive for too long can be targeted with a reminder e-mail, or removed from the list to avoid increasing the failure rate. However, don't multiply the segments unnecessarily, or you'll end up with an overly complex list.
Constantly updated lists
Relevant, responsive segmentation requires an automation tool, the foundation of any marketing strategy. Once your segments are well defined, it's up to your marketing team to keep them up to date. Your subscribers will frequently need to migrate from one list to another as their expectations evolve.
Last but not least, comply with the General Data Protection Regulation: it would be a shame to compromise your emailing campaigns without having obtained the consent of one of your customers to the use of their personal data!
