Targeted Email Marketing: How to Tailor Content for Your Audience

There’s a lot of competition among e-commerce retailers. Increasingly, getting your products or services noticed means anticipating customer needs and meeting leads where they are — that’s where targeted email marketing excels. When done right, it can increase conversions, encourage repeat sales, and help customers build a more personal relationship with your brand.

What is targeted email marketing?

Targeted email marketing involves creating email campaigns that send messages to subscribers based on demographics or interests. Rather than sending the same content to every subscriber, a targeted email campaign differentiates its messaging based on customer segmentation. Customer segmentation is the process of grouping new leads or existing customers based on characteristics like age, location, gender, occupation, and purchasing patterns. Creating these groups involves gathering customer data either by requesting it from customers directly or by analyzing website visits and previous purchases. These groups can be as broad or as detailed as you want them to be. You can start small by defining two or three different customer segments, then widen your segmentation into additional groups as you gather more data. Gathering more detailed data can take more time and effort, but the more detailed the segmentation is, the more relevant your message will be.

Benefits of targeted email marketing

Email marketing revenue is on the rise and is expected to continue increasing in the coming years. Every company can benefit from email marketing, but for e-commerce businesses, it’s an essential tool to keep your brand top of mind. Here are a few of the perks you can look forward to when you embark on a targeted email marketing campaign.

Improving email relevancy and ROI

Your subscribers are more likely to act on messages that relate to their needs. Use segmentation to create target messaging that speaks to their interests. The greater your email’s relevancy, the more likely they are to read it and take action.

Building better customer relationships

Targeted email marketing helps you develop stronger relationships with customers. Rather than sending generic emails to your entire subscriber base, customizing your message for different segments gives your marketing a personal touch, and tells customers that you care about their needs beyond selling a product.

Enhancing customer retention

When segmenting based on purchasing patterns, you can appeal to existing customers by sending timely reminders about products you know they’re interested in. By anticipating their purchases and offering products tailored to their tastes, you can dissuade them from switching to the competition.

Increasing response and revenue

Customized emails will increase your response rate in the form of more opens and clicks. Higher response rates mean more subscribers moving down the sales funnel, which results in more conversions down the line.

How to create a targeted email campaign

Developing a targeted email campaign strategy starts with identifying your goals. What are you hoping to achieve with your email marketing? More site visitors? More purchases? More demos? Decide what outcomes are most important to your business strategy, then build your campaign around them by following these steps.

1. Define your customer segments

The first step in creating targeted email marketing lists is defining how to segment your audience. Typically, marketers divide their segments into several different categories:

• Profile data: A customer’s profile data includes identifying information about them, such as demographics, age, gender, and location.
• Campaign activity: Marketers can separate subscribers based on their prior engagement, such as open rates and click rates.
• Shopping behavior: Your customer’s shopping behavior includes previous purchases, browsing activities, and abandoned cart items.

You can create multiple segmentation categories based on the data you have.

2. Gather necessary information for targeted marketing

To begin your targeted bulk email marketing efforts, you’ll need information about your subscribers. Use any data you’ve accumulated from their interactions with your brand to initiate the process. One option is to include requests for a few key pieces of demographic information in your email list sign-up form. This helps subscribers self-segment into your targeted email content. You can also ask for customer details when they make a purchase. If you allow your clients to create an account on your website, you can track the pages they interact with to learn more about their interests. Once you know who your customers are, you can segment them into different groups based on the details you have.

3. Use a CRM to manage customer data

A customer relationship management (CRM) system helps manage all your customer information in one place. You can connect it to all of your different marketing channels, including social media accounts, email messaging platforms, text messaging services, and other tools. Your CRM can help you in the segmentation process, allowing you to securely and conveniently store customer data and use it to develop your campaign.

4. Create buyer personas for each customer segment

A buyer persona outlines the characteristics of your customer base, including their demographics, motivations, pain points, potential objections, and interests. Once you’ve gathered enough data from your customers, you can develop these personas to help you better understand their needs and goals. You can use the insights from buyer personas to create targeted email campaigns that align with your subscribers’ needs.

5. Choose the right email marketing service

There are many different targeted email marketing services on the market, so it’s important to choose one that offers the tools you need to craft effective emails. Some helpful features to look for include:

• Pre-designed email templates: Email templates speed up the time it takes to produce your emails. They also make your emails appear more professional and streamlined.
• Mobile optimization: A large portion of your subscriber base will read their emails on mobile devices, like phones or tablets. Look for an email marketing service that provides support for mobile optimization.
• Robust analytics: Reviewing the results of your email marketing campaigns allows you to determine if your strategy is working or if you need to make adjustments. Choose an email marketing service that offers tracking and analysis tools as part of the package.
• Third-party integrations: Some email marketing services integrate directly with third-party apps and subscription services, saving you manual effort and streamlining your marketing processes.
• Automation: With automation tools, you can establish email sequences and schedule your campaigns in advance.