Email is just about the longest-standing tried-and-true marketing tactic that’s still around today, and that’s for a simple reason: it works.

One of the ways you can make it work more effectively is by segmenting your email lists the right way: with data analysis.

Why Segment a List?

Know your audience is a golden bit of advice that applies to pretty much anything. It’s never a bad idea to know exactly who you’re talking to and what makes them tick, and this is doubly true of marketing, and triply true of cold email marketing specifically.

Think of it this way: when a contact opens a marketing email, even if it’s not a cold one, they’re most likely going to first glance over it and and decide whether it’s worth their time and attention. If it’s not immediately clear that the message is directly relevant to their interests and needs, that decision might not work out in your favor.

When you segment your list, what you’re really doing is sorting your contacts into categories based on common factors. That gives you a concrete set of points to make and ways to motivate the contacts in that segment. And that makes your marketing emails far, far more effective.

Segment for Success

Before you start shuffling all your contacts into categories, it’s a good idea to do a bit of preparation. There are any number of ways you could segment your contacts, so start by figuring out which approach will be most beneficial to you.

First, consider your overall goal. What’s your conversion action – what is it you want your contacts to do? Let’s say you’re trying to generate leads for your funnel through getting signups for a trial of your product.

Consider your product’s value propositions. What makes it special? What pain points does it solve for the user? Make a list of things that your offering does extremely well. For each item on that list, consider who has those pain points or needs that problem solved. You’re already on the way to meaningful segmentation if you can divide your list into sets of contacts who share a common problem your product solves.

Following our example: if someone signs up for a trial of your product, who in their organization is going to actually be using it? If your product is especially user-friendly and easy to get rolling with, that’s a major selling point for people who’ll have to use it every day.

Segmenting your lists based on key value propositions your product offers makes it easy to know what to talk about in your content, and lets you be sure you’re driving the right point home to the right people.

Maximize Your Impact with Data-Driven Segmentation

It really boils down to “what factors contribute most to a contact becoming a customer”. That means getting some data from your sales team can make this whole process much easier.

Analyze your customers and identify commonalities between your best ones. Are your best customers typically in a certain age range? Try segmenting by age demographic. Do your highest-converting contacts tend to be in Sales roles? Split your list out based on job title.

Is your product a major investment, and the people who pull the trigger on the deal tend to be higher up the food chain? Try segmenting for seniority.

You can go as deep as you need and want to. If you identify “Sales managers and executives in B2B companies between ages 35-55” as your biggest customer base, assemble a list of contacts that fit that bill exactly.

If you can, reach out to these “A-list customers” and ask them for some input. Ask them their two favorite and least favorite things about your product!

Not only does this give you some insight into what your customers like and dislike, but if multiple customers in the same segment come back with similar feedback, it gives you a strong sense of what those sort of people appreciate most – and that’s what you should mention in your campaigns!

Other Segmentation Techniques

There are plenty of other ways you can segment your lists besides analyzing your existing customers. Almost any data point you can think of can be used for segmentation:

• Demographics (factors like age and gender)
• Geography or location
• Buyer persona
• Interests
• Shopping habits, past purchases, and purchasing frequency
• Employment, organization, or industry
• Education level
• Job title or seniority
• How long they’ve been a customer

Ultimately, it comes down to you to decide what factors make the most sense for your specific audience and industry.