For email marketing success, segmenting your email lists is a no-brainer and can help you increase your open rates by 19% and click-through rates by 22% (Source: Zapier). To put that in perspective, the average open rate is 10-15% and the average click-through rate is 7.17% (Source: Constant Contact). And the best part is with an email marketing platform list segmentation is easy. Here are four different ways to segment your contacts in Constant Contact.
To get started, go to your "Contacts Menu," and from there select "Segments." Then hit the blue "Create Segment" button on the right.
Now you will see three options: Contact Activity, List Membership, and Contact Details. Let's take an in-depth look at each one and how you can combine them.
1. Contact Activity
This category relates to contact engagement with your previous Constant Contact emails and can be broken into specific action items or overall engagement level. You can see performance on any of your last 5 emails, a specific email, or any email filtered by date based on:
- Were Sent: This option allows you to see any contacts that were sent a certain email.
- Opened: This option allows you to see any contacts that opened a certain email.
- Clicked: This option allows you to see any contacts that clicked on a certain email.
- Did Not Open: This option allows you to see any contacts that did not open a certain email.
- Did Not Click: This option allows you to see any contacts that did not click on a certain email.
- Were Not Sent: This option allows you to see any contacts that were not sent a certain email.
The other option in this category is to select "Engagement" and to see whether engagement is or is not high, moderate, or low. Some examples of when you would use the Contact Activity Segmentation would be to send a follow up email to a group that opened a product offering or to send a piece of content to a group that did not already receive it.
2. List Membership
This category is a way to further break down existing lists in your database. For instance you might have "New Contacts June 2020" or "May 2020 Customers." You have the option to select one of your lists or to find contacts that are or are not on a list. An example of when you would want to use this feature is if you want to avoid sending a product offering to a customer that just bought that product. Imagine getting a 50% off email for something you just bought for full price.
3. Contact Details
This category helps you organize your contacts by specific information you have on each one. You can break down each of the categories by is, is not, contains, starts with, or is blank. The options include:
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Company Name
- Job Title
- City
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State
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Postal Code
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Country
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Date Added
- Birthday Month
4. Combine Contact Criteria
Now you can combine all the above criteria by using AND and OR. AND means the contact meets all criteria, and OR means the contact meets at least one criteria. It is important to understand the difference between AND and OR because they will give you different results. For instance, if you organize a list of contacts in Paris and in France, you will get back a list of contacts in Paris, France. If you organize a list of contacts in Paris or in France, you will get back a list of everybody in Paris and everybody in France.
The combination option allows you to really target your emails for optimal campaign success. You can email people who are in Texas AND highly engaged with your database. Or you could email all loan officers in Texas. Again, the key to successful emails is to send emails to the people who want them.
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