The Importance of Segmenting Your Email Distribution List

Email distribution is one of the most powerful marketing tools that companies have at their disposal. For example, our clients’ customers who receive the emails we send for them purchase much more often than their customers who aren’t receiving the emails—two to three times more often. Plus, according to an ongoing survey we conduct where we ask customers of a B2B company what their preferred method of receiving marketing messages is, 75% of their customers report that email is their preferred channel for marketing.

Emails are incredibly effective, but they will only work if you’re sending them to the correct people using the right messaging. That’s where list segmentation is important. Segmentation means dividing your email distribution list and separating your recipients into groups based on specific criteria.

In this article, we’re going to look at the benefits of dividing your list and sending specific messaging to your different groups.

How to segment your email distribution list

How you separate your list will depend on the industry that you’re in and the differences and similarities between different parts of your customer base. For example, heavy equipment dealers may have customers that primarily work in road building and other customers that primarily work in demolition. If there isn’t much crossover between those two groups, then it could be to their benefit to send emails about road building equipment, parts, and best practices to one group, and demolition centered topics to the other.

By tailoring your messaging to specific groups and making it less generic, you will be better able to encourage sales and present yourself as the expert in the given industry.

Benefits of email distribution list segmentation

There are many advantages to dividing your email distribution list. Here are the primary ones that matter most for your marketing:

• Boost open rates—Email marketing is a battle to get recipients to open, read, and act on your messages. The more relevant your email subject lines and content, the more likely your emails will be read and clicked on.
• Increase clicks—After opening your email, people are more likely to interact with it if the topics are useful to them. For example, if you have a sale or service that is relevant to their business. The best way to make it relevant to them is to tailor the messaging to their specific type of company.
• Make more sales—The closer we are to a goal, the more our motivations and efforts increase—in consumer psychology, it's known as the gradient goal effect. Once your targeted marketing emails bring the right people to your site, the more likely they are to make a purchase, schedule a consultation with you, or take some other action.
• Greater email marketing ROI—By tailoring your content to match specific interests, each email becomes a targeted pitch, leading to more effective spend and a stronger financial return for every message sent.
• Reduce the number of people who unsubscribe—It’s important to be growing your email distribution list constantly. Sending out too many irrelevant emails could encourage people to unsubscribe from you for the sake of decreasing noise in their inbox.
• Avoid being labeled as spam—Even if someone doesn't personally unsubscribe from your emails, their inbox may flag your attempts as spam if they are considered irrelevant or if the recipient never interacts with them. Email distribution list segmentation helps increase deliverability and engagement.

At Winsby, we send highly effective emails on your behalf that significantly increase the purchase frequency of your customers. We handle the entire process, from crafting copy, designing, and programming, to segmenting your list and providing performance reports for each email.

If you have any questions about list segmentation or about building your email distribution list in general, contact our team today!