Email marketing is a huge driver of sales in the B2B space, in part because email is integral to the professional life. But email list segmentation can make email marketing wildly more effective. Segmented email campaigns show a 50% higher click-through rate than non-targeted campaigns, and marketers who send segmented campaigns notice a 760% increase in revenue.

Why are emails that use segmentation so much more effective? It’s because of the greater degree of targeting segmenting allows. For instance, 74% of users get annoyed at email campaigns that are irrelevant to them. Sharing only relevant offers signal to users that you understand them, their needs, and preferences – building implicit trust between your brand and its audience.

But where do you begin? We break down email list segmentation and how to do it in this article.

What is email list segmentation?

Email list segmentation is the process of organizing your contacts into lists, each one with a core commonality. You might segment your email list according to demographics, sales activity, or product preference. Examples of different types of segmentation include:

• Behavior-based: Is someone a past customer, or a prospect who hasn’t yet converted? What do they browse on your site? If they’re already a customer, what have they purchased and from what brand?
• Active subscribers vs. “zombies” who don’t open your emails: You might send a re-engagement campaign to inactive subscribers or, alternatively, additional promotional emails to engaged contacts.
• Traditional demographics: Gender, age, nationality, location, job title, education level, interests and hobbies, marital and family status
• Type of customer: Repeat vs. one-time

A young entrepreneur who operates a small office isn’t going to be attracted by the same marketing content as a middle-aged VP of sales at an enterprise — and vice versa.

Benefits of email list segmentation

Segmenting your email list has major benefits for your email marketing campaigns, your customer relationships, and your overall business. Here are a few of the biggest advantages of email list segmentation.

Maintain list hygiene

Emails are abandoned all the time, so it’s important to keep your email list “clean” and tidy by removing inactive email addresses. If your subscribers aren’t engaged — if they aren’t receiving relevant emails they want to open — your emails might land in the spam or junk folder. Try to re-engage inactive subscribers with a re-engagement campaign; if it doesn’t work, it’s time to pull on your rubber gloves and start scrubbing that email list.

If you’re segmenting your email list, your list will most likely be clean and updated already — meaning you don’t have to invest additional time into email list hygiene. You can simply remove abandoned addresses, or add them to a suppression list, while you’re defining your segments. This will improve your bounce rate and the effectiveness of each send.

Improve open and click-through rates

Email list segmentation helps you send the most relevant content possible to each subscriber — and when your audience receives content they actually want to consume, this will increase engagement. Creating a personalized experience that resonates with consumers is a good way to boost your open and click-through rates.

Mailchimp discovered the average open rate across industries to be 21.33%, and the average click-through rate to be 2.62%. You can get your numbers higher by using email segmentation to strategically distribute the right kind of content for each group of consumers.

Boost sales leads

Email segmentation can help you get more (and better) sales leads. You’ll be able to tailor your opportunities and offers more specifically to interested prospects. Segmenting your email list allows you to send more relevant content and offers to those who are most likely to purchase.

Over 50% of marketers believe that email marketing is one of the most effective digital lead generation strategies. When you know your target audience, you’ll be able to design an offer they can’t resist. Then use email to walk them all the way through your sales funnel.

Grow your revenue

The numbers don’t lie: list segmentation pays off. Segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all email revenue. What’s more, marketers who use segmented campaigns have seen a 760% increase in revenue. And over 76% of marketers use basic segmentation as an integral part of their email marketing strategy.

If you want to grow your revenue through email marketing, segmentation isn’t negotiable. Remember that young entrepreneur? Let’s say you send them a personalized email around the end of the quarter, touching on their pain points, and offering relevant SaaS solutions. They are much more likely to convert and make a purchase than if they received a generic email — or if they received an email tailored to the needs of a sales VP.

That’s what email segmentation is all about. And that’s how your revenue — and your business — is going to grow.

Let Extu segment your contact list

Should you segment your email list? Based on statistics, the answer is a resounding yes. When done right, email segmentation will improve your open and click-through rates. It will also help you see more sales leads and a higher revenue.

At Extu, we help channel partners engage with their audience more effectively by providing tools to segment their email list. When you send your clients relevant, targeted content, you’ll experience higher campaign engagement that produces greater revenue. Partners using our campaigns can easily segment their lists right on our email platform whenever they want. To learn more about our program, visit our IT partners or brokers program page today.