The worst thing a marketer can face is losing a lead.
Unfortunately, email marketing is the most affected, with 0.18% to 0.52% of unsubscriptions after each email you send.
However, most digital marketers call this a blessing in disguise.
We can agree with them to some extent, but we shouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt. In most cases, people unsubscribe because of many irrelevant emails.
You risk damaging your brand’s reputation by sending emails that don’t engage your audience. Why? You’ve consistently shown that you don’t consider their personal needs.
The only way to escape this endless abyss is to develop a robust, targeted strategy. This is where email targeting comes into play.
What is the Purpose of a Targeted Email?
A targeted email is similar to any other email. The only difference is that it’s sent to a specific part of your subscribers after carefully studying them.
To develop a targeted email campaign, your email service provider should help you segment your subscribers based on interests, gender, age, occupation, Geography, and more.
This gives you valuable insights to personalize your emails that target your audience with the right content.
Targeted emails have many benefits; the most significant are high open and conversion rates.
For example, a survey by Oracle found that one in five subscribers love it when brands send them targeted emails. They’re likely to convert.
Targeted emails also make your brand relevant to your audience. As you keep creating content they want to see, they’ll remember your brand as a source of pertinent information.
Plus, it creates a robust retention capability for your existing customers. It’s possible because you already have your subscriber’s preferences and interests. Use the information to maintain a solid customer-company brand going.
Examples of Targeted Emails
There are different types of targeted emails. This section will give you the most popular styles with examples.
- Geo-Location Targeted Email
If you’re selling a physical product, it’s easy to know the location of your email subscribers. The information is available on their purchase history, delivery address, and zip codes. You’ll use this to send personalized emails based on their location.
For instance, Ace Hotels get to know their customers’ location when booking rooms. They’ll then use the data to inform customers about events near their area.
Here’s an example of an event that was to take place in Los Angeles. They emailed this to all subscribers living in the area.
- Gender Targeted Emails
Gender-targeted email marketing segments subscribers based on their gender.
For example, Lucchese Bootmaker, a bootmaker brand based in Texas, uses targeted emails to communicate differently to their male and female customers.
In their most successful campaign, they developed ” Roy ” boots for men and “Gabby” for women.
Emails sent to their female audience showed a woman wearing a Gabby boot in a hero-like kind of image. The boots are then pictured below the image. They did the same for their male subscribers.
This campaign had the highest click-through rate in the company’s history because it targeted its audience with matched-gender content.
- Behavior Targeted Emails
This type of target email relies greatly on tracking your website’s users as they navigate through the website. Lucky for you, there are many tracking tools to help you here.
A perfect example of a targeted email is from Medium, an online publishing platform. You can only read three free articles every month if you’re not a member.
Medium’s editorial team then recommends articles based on your reading history. Here’s a screenshot of some recommendations they sent me.
If you’re an avid reader, the recommendations will compel you to pay the $5 monthly fee for unlimited access. There are multiple approaches you can still use here.
For example, you can use transaction emails if you’re selling physical products. These emails provide the buyer with personalized cross-selling products to motivate them to revisit you.
This strategy has become Aliexpress’ mode of making their customers come back.
How to start using Email Targeting
This section will focus on how you can embark on creating your first targeted email.
- Create an Email Database
You need people in your email list before starting your email targeting campaign. The process isn’t complex. First, get a reliable email marketing provider.
Consider the ease of use, price, and premium features when choosing. Then, create an attractive opt-in form for new sign-ups.
The opt-in forms shouldn’t just collect emails only. Add other options like phone numbers, physical addresses, and birth dates. These data might come in handy later when starting your email targeting campaign.
- Gather information about your subscribers and create customer segments
This is the most challenging part of email targeting. Why? There’s a lot of data to consume to segment your list.
Technically, each segmentation step considers your audience’s challenges and why they subscribed to your list in the first place. As hinted earlier, you can segment your list based on gender, demographic area, and purchase history.
Use surveys or quizzes for more technical segmentation, like behavior and preferences. They dive into the mind of your audience to show you their interests.
- Make Your Emails Targeted
With the results in the above section, the next step is to adjust each email you send based on their needs. It shouldn’t be a hustle as you already know what they want when needed or where they want it.
- Test and Analyze
You’ll probably have a few misses when starting. However, this is precious data to help shape your overall target email marketing.
You can even do the whole email targeting process with a portion of your subscribers. If you have 5000 subscribers, start with 500 to see how your targeted email goes.
The results you’ve received will help you start targeted email marketing for all your subscribers.
For example, you’ll know how to shorten the process, create laser-focused targeted emails, and increase ROI.
Takeaway
Brands are throwing money into email marketing, yet they don’t get the full potential of what it can do.
Email targeting is the only way you’ll be assured of getting $36 for every $1 spent. You can even be more successful when you’ve got a laser-focused strategy.