This is Part 3 of a 7-part series. Check out the full series below.
- Part 1: Why Text Marketing
- Part 2: List Growth Strategies & Consent
- Part 3: Segmentation Strategies (You are here)
- Part 4: Campaigns & Automations
- Part 5: Composing Great Messages
- Part 6: Measuring & Improving Results
- Part 7: Now What?
Hello again. You’ve made it to day three!
And so far we’ve covered the value of text marketing, compliance, and list building.
At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what comes after you have built a large list of quality subscribers.
If it wasn’t clear from the title of today’s lesson, the answer is segmentation.
Why segmentation?
This may not be news to many of you, but you’d be surprised how many health and beauty brands we talk with who are still sending messages to their entire list.
As a result, they are getting lower engagement and see higher unsubscribe rates.
And that highlights the first two reasons why it’s important to segment your list.
When you focus your sends around thoughtful segmentation, your audience receives more personalized messages.
As a result, they’re more engaged with your messages (even happy) and it results in fewer unsubscribes.
Why does this happen? It comes down to the fundamentals of how humans engage with messaging.
The different members of your audience are likely to behave differently toward your brand at different stages of their journey with your brand.
A subscribing non-customer will interact with your messages differently than a first time returning customer who will also interact differently from a long time loyal customer.
In short, if you’re trying to talk to everyone, you’ll end up talking to no one.
You need to tailor the right message to the right person at the right time to maximize your chances of driving a sale.
So how do you do segmentation?
At this point, I realize it can get really overwhelming thinking about all the different ways you could segment your audience to hyper personalize your messaging.
But the best way to approach your segmentation is with a crawl, walk, run approach.
Start with the big picture segments. Then, over time, you can get more granular.
For most health or beauty brands, you can get off to a good start with three main segments.
- Non-customers who you want to become customers
- One time customers, who you want to order again
- Repeat customers, who you want to buy again and increase loyalty.
In short, you’ll want to focus your efforts on moving as many of your subscribers as possible from the first to the third category.
Let’s dig into each and discuss how you might approach each messaging differently for each one.
Segment 1: Non-customers who you want to become customers
This is your activation segment. You’ve acquired them onto your list, but you’re trying to make them an active customer.
At this point, they are potentially interested in buying, but they need an incentive to overcome the friction.
There are a few ways you can overcome this friction with messages including:
- Showing creative with the product in action.
- Use social proof to highlight others overcoming the friction
- Offer discount with a limited redemption window
Segment 2: One time customers, who you want to order again
This is your retention segment. This is an important stage because if you can convert them from a one-time customer into a repeat customer, you’re well on your way to the next stage.
At this stage they have already experienced your products once so your messaging at this point should encourage them to stick around and minimize any buyers remorse. Some good ways to do this include:
- Educational content sent after order confirmation to prep them for their product
- A survey asking some open-ended questions about why they purchased
- A review request at least a week after they have received the order
- A promotional message offering a special discount to related/similar products
Segment 3: Repeat customers, who you want to buy again and increase loyalty.
This is a continuation of the retention segment but at this stage, these are your brand fans and you want to do everything you can to keep them around, encouraging cross-sells of your other products and even elevating them to influencers and brand ambassadors.
Here some good approaches with this segment:
- Promotional messages centered around cross-sells relevant to their previously purchased product.
- Special invitations to private events
- Invitations to a private product feedback community
- Surveys for improving the customer experience
Now it’s time to get more personal
I hope that you took away some good insights and ideas from today’s lesson.
The bottom line is, you’re destined to get better results when you focus on sending the most relevant and personal message to your customers. And segmentation is simply the best way to do that.
Next up, we’ll be talking about the two core messaging campaign types – automations and promotions.