How to Segment When Your List is Small. Where Do You Even Begin?

Data is one of the most important aspects of effective email campaigns. With it, you can segment your audiences, improve profitability, and, therefore, grow your brand awareness rapidly.

But, what happens when your data is limited, such as when you have just started out as a business owner? This is a question we have received a lot recently. So, we’re here to help you understand what you can do to ensure your email database remains effective, even when it may be sparse.

Build Strong Foundations
Whether you have 100 or 100,000 emails, the secret to successful email campaigns and flows is all in the foundations of your segments. Start with a focus on demographics, age, VIP data, repeat purchase data and potential purchase data. Leverage purchase history analytics too, where possible, to predict the future and lifetime value of your customers. This can provide detailed insights into the worth they will add to your business.

As your data continues to grow, these systems will also guarantee your segments are organised, which is critical for sending the right message to your customers at the right time.

Quality Always Beats Quantity

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a small email list is ineffective. With a small list, you won’t need to spend time worrying about significant data cleansing to drive down the cost of your email service provider. Instead, you can direct your focus toward the quality of each subscriber. Take the time to nurture them effectively through powerful flows, including a welcome series and a post-purchase-thank-you series. These actions will make them more loyal to your brand, which makes them more likely to buy.

Once you've maximised the quality of your current data, it's then time to grow your list. We recommend doing this slowly and focusing on driving the right value traffic to your list. For example, asking people to sign up upon entry of your website will almost always make them a more engaged customer than if they opted in at the checkout without realising.

Remember, ONE warm lead is much more powerful than even hundreds of disinterested and unengaged ones.

Need help understanding how to attract the right data? Contact us.

Optimise Your Sign-Up Process
Once the foundations are in place and you’re confident that you’re nurturing your data perfectly, you can begin the list growth process. Test various sign-up systems, including different types of forms. Pop-ups and embeds are always great forms to split test against one another.

You must also give audiences a good reason to sign up, such as a discount, exclusive gifts or early release to new product launches. Doing this will improve the conversion rates of your form, which is critical for growing your database efficiently.

Email By Design is here to help

We understand that managing email databases isn't for every business owner. So, if you're still stuck, we're here to help. Book a complimentary 15-minute call today to find out how we can optimise your current and future email data.