Segmentation: What they tell you explicitly - Preferences 101

What is the ultimate goal of email marketing? To provide relevant, valuable content to those that have asked for it at the right time. Most marketers at this point are probably saying, "Okay, great, but how do I do that?" One of the many tools you have in your arsenal to accomplish this goal is segmentation. Segmentation is boiled down into two main concepts:

1. What subscribers explicitly tell you on the sign-up form, preference center, within the purchase process, through surveys, customer service calls, etc.
2. What subscribers implicitly tell you through their behavior within the email, on your site and their purchase behavior.

In this post we'll dig deeper into #1. In subsequent posts I'll cover #2 and RFM modeling and how you can use that data to your segmentation advantage. Let's address the top questions so you can get started with explicit segmentation today:

Q: Where do I ask?

A: You will have several opportunities to ask for profiling data, but the most effective ways are on the sign-up form and within the welcome message. I recommend placing any preference and profiling questions on the confirmation page of the sign-up form to reduce friction to sign-up. The reasons these two places are most effective for collecting this data is that they have the highest visibility (all subscribers see a sign-up form of some sort and the welcome message tends to have the highest open rate of any marketing message) and subscribers are the most engaged with your brand at the beginning of the relationship. At various points during the subscriber relationship you should also consider a dedicated email or survey to gather preferences.

You should also include a passive ask in every email whether it lives in the footer, the navigation bar, in the preheader...to encourage updates during every point of the relationship.

Q: How do I ask?

A: You need to be crystal clear on the benefits of providing additional information. Remember the subscriber mantra: "What's in it for me?" What will you do with the data? Similar to requesting subscribers join you on social networks, detailing the reasons to build out their profile and how that information will be utilized is key to getting to the desired action.

Here are some additional examples from Petco and Bass Pro Shop for inspiration.

Q: What do I ask?

A: Ask for information that is critical to providing relevant, valuable content to your subscribers that is also central to your overall goals. Most importantly, only ask what you can practically act on today. If you are not ready to start sending 5 versions of an email campaign based on brand preferences, for instance, don't ask until you are ready. Some examples for questions to ask could be:

• Birth date to send a triggered message with a gift
• Favorite brands/product lines if you sell different types of SKUs
• Who they typically buy for - are they buying for themselves or purchasing gifts?
• Social networks the subscriber is a part of to encourage connecting on those sites
• Desired frequency

ULTA, for instance, asks whether the subscriber typically buys at the brick and mortar store or online or both. On the other hand, I would not recommend asking questions that you can gather from your data like purchase history.

Q: How do I use the data?

A: I want to reiterate that you should only ask what you can act on in your email program. Many marketers miss this VIBP (Very Important Best Practice) and send "batch & blast" emails to their entire list that aren't relevant that aggravates and turns off their subscribers. For example, ULTA sends me messages regarding hair care even though I've shown no interest in it within the preference center. ShopItToMe is one of the brands that gets the personalized, valuable messages right as each and every send is 100% targeted at my brand preferences. Not only that, they always include a prominent way to modify my preferences in every section of the email. If complete customization of your marketing messages isn't feasible at this point, even small steps toward personalization help move the needle like including store details as seen in this Zales example:

The key takeaway is that the results are in: personalized content works. Every little step you can take to further customize the message to provide more relevant, valuable, targeted, timely content will produce incremental results to your bottom line.

Next we'll cover the other side of the preference coin: behavior. Stay tuned.

Kelly Lorenz
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
@KNLorenz