11 email segmentation strategies and how creators can use them

Everyone loves to feel seen, so personalized emails from your favorite brand (hello, Starbucks Birthday Rewards!) really hit the spot.

The secret of this effective personalization?

Email segmentation.

It may seem complicated, but in this article, we’ll show you how to segment your audience using different criteria and how Kit makes the process easy and seamless.

Email marketing segmentation: the basics

What is email segmentation?

Email segmentation is the process of categorizing your email subscribers into groups based on specific criteria. You can then send customized emails to each group to match their unique needs.

For example, if one subscriber is a topic newbie, you can specifically send them your intro-level ebooks for free and put them into a sequence to teach them the basics of your topic. This helps gain their trust and build brand authority.

But if you find that another subscriber is more knowledgeable, send them one of your more complex ebooks and add them to a sequence that eventually pitches them a more expensive and advanced product.

Email list segmentation in Kit

Kit makes it easy to group subscribers by email list segmentation. The platform allows you to tag subscribers, which is another way of organizing your mailing list.

Tagging and segmenting are different in a couple of ways.

When you tag a subscriber, you create a fixed group labeled with a certain characteristic.

For example, you can tag subscribers based on indicated preferences when they sign up (e.g., baking posts only, cooking posts only, etc.). Each subscriber can have more than one tag at any given time.

With segments, you can build fluid subscriber groups matching a certain filter.

Segments allow you to group subscribers in multiple tag categories. For example, you can create a segment with subscribers who live in a certain country and have a specific tag.

You can also segment your mailing list based on the sign-up forms they joined your list from and other criteria.

Caption: You can add tagged subscribers to a segment

Why should you segment your email list?

Segmenting your email list helps you produce and deliver highly targeted content that matches your audience’s needs. This builds trust that translates to higher engagement and sales. Your customers will feel convinced that you understand their needs.

If you’re emailing your entire list of subscribers who may or may not be interested in the topic, you risk losing them as a subscriber.

A good email segmentation strategy tracks who clicks on your links and then sends targeted emails to those people with a reminder about any details, FAQs, or anything else they need to know to seal the deal.

Emailing only the people who have shown direct interest is not just a smart business move. It makes you look like a real human on the other side of the computer screen too.

Here are five more benefits of segmenting your email list:

• Increase conversion rates: Targeted content that is valuable to your audience and feels personal to them keeps your audience engaged and ready to convert, whether you’re selling products or driving traffic to your blog.
• Improve open rates: Email fatigue is real, and people feel more protective of their inboxes. But when your email content resonates, especially with subscriber segments, they’re more likely to open your emails.
• Decrease unsubscribes: Using segmentation will minimize unsubscribes to people with whom your content no longer resonates. Instead, you’ll have more subscribers who cherish your content and receive value from it every single time.
• Avoid the SPAM filter: When email service providers see subscribers always open and engage with your newsletters, they’re less likely to mark your emails as spam. This improves your overall deliverability—no new subscribers will have to dig your welcome email out of their spam folder.
• Understanding your audience: Segmenting your audience also helps you understand their pain points better because it often requires that you collect some data about your customers and their preferences.

What data is collected to segment a list?

You can collect two broad data forms to segment your list effectively:

Demographical data

This includes statistics such as your audience’s age, location, language, ethnicity, income level, and marital status.

Behavioral data

This data category includes information about their customer journey, such as where they joined your marketing funnel. For example, did they sign up on an opt-in form, landing page, or a specific website? Which freebie did they sign up to receive?

Behavioral data also covers what they bought or didn’t buy, which web pages they visited, and whether or not they attended a specific webinar.

Both demographic and behavioral data teach you a lot about your audience and help you group them into useful categories based on their needs, circumstances, and interests.

11 segmentation strategies to create super-targeted email content

We’ve rounded up some practical email segmentation ideas for your mailing list. Here are 11 factors you can use to segment your subscribers:

1. Customer journey point

This refers to the exact stage of the customer journey your email subscriber is in. Knowing this initial starting point will help you know what level of skill, knowledge, and engagement your subscriber has with your topic.

How to use this segment

In your introductory email, ask your subscribers what their main struggle is by offering multiple options to choose from. The reader will respond by clicking on the link they identify with.

You can set up link triggers so subscribers who click on a certain link get labeled accordingly. Then you can group them into a segment.

From there, it’s easy to add a segment to a Sequence and pitch products to help them solve their pain points. (More on link triggers later!)

2. Products/services they’ve bought from you

If you’re using a third-party ecommerce provider, create a label called “Purchase: Product Name” for each product and mark customers with that label once they make a purchase.

If you’re selling your digital products through Kit Commerce, that is all taken care of as you create your products.

How to use this segment

Knowing what a subscriber has already purchased helps you in a couple of different ways:

• You can exclude that person (through the “Purchase: Product Name” mark) from further communication about that product. They don’t need your sequences pitching that product anymore since they’ve already bought it.
• You can guess what other products they might enjoy based on their first purchase. Then set up a link trigger that sets them into a new sequence that pitches your subscriber that complementary product.

3. Interested in a product/service but hasn’t bought

Sometimes, people are interested in the product but don’t follow through with the purchase because they’re unsure, don’t have the budget, or would like more information about it. Segmenting your audience can help you speak directly to this group.

How to use this segment

We recommend creating an email segment titled “Interest” for this group. To get even more specific, you could title the segment “Interest: Group Coaching” if they’re interested in one of your upcoming coaching programs based on their link clicks.

Send them targeted emails, asking what’s holding them back. That’s how you get those abandoned cart emails and what Gillian Perkins did when I clicked the link to her course’s sales page.

One way to segment these customers is by adding a tag to customers who purchase your products (e.g. Tag “Bought Coaching Course”) and another tag to those who click on the link (Tag “Clicked Coaching Link”).

Then, create a segment that includes all subscribers tagged “Clicked Coaching Link” but excludes those tagged “Bought Coaching Course” and follow up with them. You can exclude tags but toggling the “any, all, none” filter and choosing “none.”

4. Customers that refer your products/services often

If you have customers who constantly refer you to new clients or other businesses, it’s a good idea to create a tag for them. These customers are your biggest advocates, and you should give them extras occasionally. You can discover who’s referring your business when you use a newsletter referral program like SparkLoop.

How to use this segment

You can use these advocates as beta testers when you have a new product coming out. And to give them extra incentive to keep referring you, send them extras like discounts, free trials, or even set up an affiliate system.

5. Webinar attendee

People who join webinars are generally excited to learn.

A webinar attendee has already given you their email address so they can attend your webinar, so make sure to make the most of this list growth by adding them to a webinar segment.

How to use this segment

​​You’ve most likely given away a free product or pitched something on a webinar, so you know that anyone in that segment already has a basic knowledge of what you do.

Parlay that knowledge by adding that subscriber segment to a sequence that teaches them more in-depth about your webinar topic and ends with a hard pitch for one of your products for sale.

6. Live event attendee

Don’t miss the opportunity to reach out to leads and potential customers you’ve already connected positively with at a live event.

How to use this segment

Segment your email list depending on the type, topic, or theme of the event or even to RSVPs who didn’t make it out. You’ll be able to keep inviting them to events while sharing relevant content offers based on what you learned about them from past events.

7. Where the subscriber’s sign up came from

Knowing the type of content your subscriber originally found you on can tell you a lot about what kind of content they like and how they like to consume it.

For example, did your new subscriber sign up because of your podcast or video show? Did they read a guest blog post you wrote or find you through a product contest?

How to use this segment

If a subscriber finds you through your podcast, you know that you can push any products you have related to that podcast’s theme.

If a subscriber found you through a guest post, you can create content and products that relate to the core topic of the blog that hosted your guest post (or at least reach out to more blogs in that industry to expand your audience).

8. Referral or affiliate the subscriber came from

If you already have an affiliate program set up, it’s smart to keep the sign-ups for each affiliate separate. Every affiliate will cover their own niche topic, so knowing which affiliate a new subscriber comes from helps you craft content specifically for them.

How to use this segment

If you blog about baking cakes and you have an affiliate that blogs about wedding inspiration, you could create an ebook or another small free giveaway about popular wedding cake flavor combinations or color schemes that you can send to subscribers who came specifically from that affiliate.

9. Interests

If you teach different topics, it’s essential to keep all your readers grouped into their correct interests so you’re not talking to them about the stuff they don’t need.

How to use this segment

Run a survey asking your readers to click on one of five topics you teach. The link they click will tag them by their favorite interest, and now you know more specifically who to send content to when you deal with multiple topics.

10. Current customers

Whenever a subscriber buys anything from you, give them a ‘customer’ tag. Knowing what subscribers have purchased from you lets you know they might be willing to buy other products.

The difference between the “interested in” tag and the “customer” tag here is big. It’s the difference between sending a subscriber through another teaching sequence and offering free incentives or sending them through a sequence with a hard pitch that doesn’t involve as much trust-building.

How to use this segment

If a subscriber purchases your course on “How to use gluten-free flour in baking,” you can assume they might also purchase another course from you on a similar topic. You could send them into a sequence with a hard pitch on your more targeted course, “Gluten-free bread baking.”

11. Birthday special

Everyone likes to feel like they are celebrated and remembered on their birthday. You can offer special sales, discounts, free digital products, or even just a special message to customers on their birthdays.

How to use this segment

You’ll need to collect subscribers’ dates of birth for this email segmentation strategy. Then create email segments for each month of the year and segment your email list by their birth dates.

You could even schedule special emails a year in advance! Simply go to the Kit dashboard and hit the Broadcasts tab. You can then schedule 12 emails (one for each month) to be delivered on the first day of every month.

Creating your email segmentation strategy with Kit

If you’re ready to start segmenting your email newsletter subscribers, here are five steps to make it successful.

Step #1 – Sign up for the Kit Creator Plan

The Kit Creator plan allows you to segment your audience, set up visual automations, and build unlimited email sequences, among other benefits. While it’s our first choice email newsletter tool, you can use any other email marketing tools that offer audience segmentation.

If you’re not ready to commit, you can also test Kit’s Creator plan for free for 14 days and decide if it’s the right fit.

Step #2 – Create a lead magnet

Next, it’s time to create a lead magnet that incentivizes your audience to sign up for your mailing list. Your lead magnet could be an ebook, free checklists, free wallpapers, or even a discount code that visitors will receive when they sign up for your mailing list.

Choose something your audience finds valuable enough to swap their contact information for.

Step #3 – Set up an opt-in form or landing page

When you’ve made your lead magnet, the next step is setting up a page to advertise your newsletter. You can use opt-in forms which pop up or are fixed on any page, or devote an entire landing page to gathering sign-ups.

To build a landing page or opt-in form, go to Grow > Landing Pages & Forms and build one using one of Kit’s many templates.

Step #4 – Write your email sequence

When subscribers sign up, you need to have a plan for taking them from the incentive to making your first sale or at least providing more value through blog content or YouTube videos. An email sequence helps with this.

The easiest way to start an email sequence is by sending a welcome email to your new subscribers. To create a new Sequence, go to Send > Sequences.

When you create a new Sequence, you can add new emails and choose how long after each email the next one should be delivered. To get your Sequence to start delivering, you’ll need to choose a trigger.

Go to Automate > Visual Automations.

You can now choose to add subscribers to a Sequence when they sign up to a form or purchase a product.

Step #5 – Add link triggers to your emails

One of the easiest, most hands-off ways to segment your email subscribers is by using Link Triggers.

To set up a Link Trigger, go to Automate > Rules > Add New Rule.

If you’re creating a Link Trigger, select “Clicks a Link” from the drop-down menu under the Trigger column and paste your desired URL. Give the intended trigger a name to easily find it on your Rules list after it is published. This name will be used internally, so it’ll be seen only by your eyes.

Now you’re ready to choose an Action. From the drop-down, you can choose from a number of options. This includes segmenting your subscriber, subscribing them to an email sequence, tagging them, and more.

Once you’ve done this, return to your welcome email to connect your Link Trigger Rule. Do this by highlighting the text you want to create a link with and clicking the Link button. You’ll see an option to the right of your URL to create a Link Trigger.

From the dropdown, select your desired trigger.

More best practices to segment your email list

It may seem like there are a lot of email segmentation types and options.

If you’re overwhelmed, start with a few simple steps. You can also grow your targeted email marketing strategy as your subscriber count grows. For now, here are some best practices to keep in mind.

Create personas for your ideal customers

Conduct audience research to learn more about your customers and what they need. Then create a customer profile so you know the types of customers you want to attract. This will help you understand the email segments you’ll want to create and what data to gather.

Create offerings geared toward each of your email segments

If you segment your audience by their level of expertise in your niche topic, start by creating different tiered products that take them deeper into your marketing funnel.

When you are ready to test a product or content idea, you can send your email subscribers a survey or even an interactive quiz to help you gather data that will influence your content creation process. This data can be used to thoughtfully segment your subscribers even further.

Layer your segments to find the most targeted groups

You may find that some of your email segments overlap. For example, someone who purchases your ebook on beginner’s yoga might also attend a local yoga meetup you host. When subscribers purchase multiple offerings, you can layer the segments to reach loyal customers.

Start segmenting your email list today

Figuring out the best way to segment your email marketing lists can be a huge undertaking. But the more you segment, the better you can target your emails with content that feels tailor-made for each subscriber.

Are you ready to start segmenting your email list to serve your followers better? Create your free Kit account and get started!