It is that time of year. Some businesses look forward to creating heartfelt holiday messages. Others dread the obligatory messages of gratitude to jump into the new year with optimism. Whichever end of the spectrum you put yourself, there is usually a common denominator. The common denominator is waiting to the last minute and rushing to get the emails out to your customers and prospects.
The last-minute reaction to holiday emails creates stress and Follow Up Fatigue in the midst of wrapping up other responsibilities before a holiday. With that in mind, we want to explore the use of segmentation with your CRM for holiday email marketing, so you can be proactive without the stress.
What is segmentation?
Your customers buy from you because you can help them, but that does not mean they are alike. Your audience can include…
- Homeowners and property managers
- College students and senior citizens
- Living in Texas and living in New York
- Patrons of the arts and sports fanatics
Segmentation is grouping your prospects and customers together with common traits and communicating to each segment with the traits in mind. Segmentation allows you to customize your messages, so they are more personal. There is a time for blanket and broad messages, but personal messages are more effective and make your customers feel valued by you. The holiday season is especially true when speaking of personalized email messages.
Therefore, we would like to share how you can use your CRM to personalize email messaging with segmentation.
Start planning now
What happens when we do not plan? We run out of time and quickly put together a generic holiday email. This is not effective and sometimes customers can tell when it is an afterthought.
Now is the time to start planning by asking yourself these questions.
- Which holidays do I want to observe during this season?
- What are the segments within my audience that I want to target?
- What offerings do I want to promote during this time?
- What are my Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the holiday email messages?
After you can answer these questions, you have a direction. Having a direction or a plan of action is the first step to being proactive with marketing during the holiday season.
Create demographic-relevant content
Your audience may have the same needs. However, your segments speak different languages, and we are not necessarily referring to spoken language. For example, in multi-generational audiences, pop culture references will be different. If you make a reference to Bob Hope, your younger audience might say, “who?”. Likewise, an older audience might say the same thing if you reference Lady Gaga.
When you segment your audience for holiday marketing, you need to customize personalized content so each segment knows that you take the time to understand them. Keep this in mind when you are making holiday references.
Automate messages according to your segments’ customer behavior
Automation is a beautiful tool in your CRM. It can be used for holiday purchases and messages. Because each segment in your audience may have a different path in the customer journey, you can use automation to guide them. For example, one segment may historically take longer to decide, but, in the end, they usually buy more than a segment that makes quick decisions on a purchase. You can use automated drip campaigns to deliver messaging for both segments but add an extra “drip” for the segment that needs a little extra guidance to be certain of their purchase.
Automation can also be used to deliver message greetings at the best time for each segment. For example, if you have a segment that usually takes the whole week of Thanksgiving off and another segment that works a partial week, you can send your holiday message at a time when each segment would most likely open the email before they go on vacation.
Track the engagement
In the case of reactive email marketing, we send the holiday message and then move on to the next task without looking back. The problem with this reactionary mode, you do not know if it was effective. By planning ahead, you already have defined your KPIs. You can set up KPIs in your CRM and track the effectiveness of the holiday email campaign. For example, if you received a large quantity of out-of-office replies, you may want to take note of that and send your holiday messages earlier next year. Tracking the engagement will help you plan better for the next holiday campaign.
Conclusion
You want your customers to feel happy and valuable. The holidays this season is a way for you to express your gratitude through heart-felt messages and offerings. Segmentation is a great way to personalize your messages through your CRM. If you have questions about holiday segmentation or would like to schedule a demo of X2CRM, contact us today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”More CRM and Marketing Topics” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_empty_space][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”2″ element_width=”6″ orderby=”rand” grid_id=”vc_gid:1635945581645-5b9d516d-6377-4″ taxonomies=”9, 35″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
