The average office worker receives 121 emails daily and spends 28% of the workday reading and answering emails.
But it’s not only the time spent interacting with emails that adds up, as employees spend over 90 minutes per day recovering from email interruptions. This is how long it takes to refocus and start working at the same rate they were before shifting their attention to an email.
When there’s so much already on their plate, it makes sense that people don’t want to spend a second more on emails than needed. If an email isn’t relevant to them, they’ll likely skim over it and may not even click on it at all.
Nevertheless, according to data from SaneBox, 62% of the emails in the average inbox are unimportant or irrelevant to the recipient.
Create impactful B2B email marketing campaigns with list segmentation
When you send marketing emails, to get the most out of your efforts and cut through the noise, you need to cover relevant topics and insights that your recipients are genuinely interested in.
Often though, companies send one generic email to their entire mailing list, which includes all types of contacts with vastly different interests.
For example, you might provide several different services, so what’s helpful for one recipient could be completely irrelevant to another. But if you try to cater to everyone at once, you risk emails becoming too generic.
By segmenting your mailing list, you can avoid emails becoming too broad and, instead, target specific groups of recipients with tailored content more applicable to their unique interests and needs.
Mailing lists can be strategically segmented based on factors like job title, industry, company size, or past purchase behaviour. When these groups receive targeted messages that resonate with them, this increases the likelihood that they’ll take the desired action.
Benefits of list segmentation in B2B email marketing include:
- Improved open and click-through rates: Targeted emails are more likely to be opened and clicked on, as they are perceived as more relevant to the recipient’s interests. Mailchimp found that, compared to non-segmented campaigns, opens were 14.31% higher and clicks were 100.95% higher for segmented campaigns.
- Higher conversion rates: When sending personalised messages that address the specific pain points of each segment, it’s more likely that recipients will convert.
- Better engagement: 74% of marketers say that personalisation increases customer engagement. By tailoring your emails to each segment, you can establish a stronger relationship with your audience and improve their overall engagement with your brand.
- Increased ROI: Sending more relevant emails to your subscribers maximises the ROI of your email marketing campaigns. Segmented campaigns can lead to a 760% increase in revenue.
How to segment your B2B email marketing lists
- Identify your segmentation criteria: Start by identifying the criteria you will use to segment your email list. Consider factors such as job title, industry, company size, location and interests.
- Collect relevant data: Collect the data you need to segment your email list based on your identified criteria. This might include information from your CRM system, website analytics or previous email campaigns.
- Clean and organise your data: Make sure your data is accurate and up-to-date. Remove any duplicates, invalid email addresses, or inactive subscribers.
- Segment your list: Divide your email list into segments based on the criteria you have identified. Depending on your email marketing platform, this might involve creating custom fields or tags for each segment.
- Create targeted messaging: Develop targeted messaging for each segment. This involves creating different email templates, subject lines, calls-to-action and email content for each segment.
- Test and optimise: Test your email campaigns on each segment to see what works best. For example, A/B testing is a great way to experiment with different elements of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, email copy or images. Analyse your results and optimise your campaigns based on what you learn.
- Monitor and adjust: Monitor your B2B email campaigns over time and adjust your segmentation strategy as needed. Pay attention to changes in engagement levels or conversion rates, and make changes to your segmentation criteria or messaging accordingly.
Get in touch to discuss your B2B email marketing goals
At The Lead Agency, we are an experienced B2B marketing firm that has worked with various industries across the B2B sector. If you’re interested in developing an effective B2B email marketing strategy, get in touch with us today.
