How many times have you received an email, and your response is “this has nothing to do with me, so why did I receive it?”. This happens when messages are sent to everyone with no segmentation. It annoys the recipients and also is a waste of time for the sender.
When you segment your contacts by industry, profession, buying behavior, geography, and demography, you can tailor your outreach using specific examples relevant to each segment. All of a sudden, your emails are personal and your email open rate goes up.
Don’t Segment and Lose
Earlier this year, we featured Sandy Jones, owner of 3Js which sells home maintenance services. During the past year, 3Js implemented a CRM that enabled automatically segments its customers and prospects and sends emails based on specific characteristics of each segment.
In the past, 3Js sent the same emails to all contacts. For example, they ran a promotion on new kitchen cabinetry and sent the promotion out to everyone. Immediately, they received 5 calls from unhappy customers where 3Js had recently installed cabinetry. Each asked for a refund based on the promotional rate even though the work was completed months earlier.
Sandy is smart, refunded the promotional discount, and maintained good relationships.
Segment and Win
Now, 3Js customers are segmented by service type, product type, and last service date. Customer outreach is organized as follows:
- Remodeling completed within the last 1 year – Customers receive monthly homeowner tips by product type (kitchen, bath, or additions).
- Remodeling completed over 1 year ago – Customers receive quarterly tips with calls to action including signing up for maintenance contracts.
- Repair services completed within the last year – Customers receive monthly homeowner tips about repairs with calls to action for maintenance contracts.
- Maintenance contracts – Customers receive quarterly tips, phone calls, and semi-annual visits.
Each of 3Js client groups has told the 3Js sales team that the tips are great, and they appreciate receiving the information.
Why is Segmenting a Winner
When you deliver a message that is about a prospect’s or customer’s pain, you grab their attention. When you deliver a generic message, you are likely to turn off your reader. Which do you prefer?
To get your buyer to buy, you need to build their confidence in you and your service or product and reduce their perceived risk of buying from you. Impactful messaging that nurtures and educates your buyer is the way to build buyer confidence and reduce buyer risk. Consistent delivery of valuable content is the goal.
Segment Automatically
How do you organize your contacts? A robust CRM provides the tools to help you segment your prospects and clients based on the conditions you set. Every time you add a new contact that meets the segment’s conditions, that contact is added automatically to that list.
So, when you go to email a specific group, your list is up to date. No fuss, no muss. Just draft your important tailored message and select your segment’s dynamic list. Watch as more recipients open and read your emails.
Next Steps
Sandy Jones and 3Js sales team have increased their sales by 25% since implementing their CRM nearly 12 months ago. In addition to segmenting contacts, they have built automation and now track prospects and clients through their sales funnel. They created a library of email templates tailored to each segment and accessible by each salesperson for outreach.
Tailored, personalized, and automated emails are a great way to reach multiple audiences. Make your contacts feel important and they will read your emails. Thinking about how to segment your contacts? Let’s meet to see the best way for you to segment your audience and close more sales with less follow-up fatigue.
