Segment — it pays

By segmenting on activity you can give your active recipients a particular offer — they are, after all, the ones keeping the business running. And you can target the inactive ones with something designed to bring them back.

Many of the people who read your newsletter are the same people every time. That is simply how it is: a core group reads what you send, while a good number rarely open anything. There is only so much to be done about it. Those are the rules of the game in newsletters and email marketing.

You probably recognise it from your own inbox. You get mail from a shop you once bought something from, where you signed up at the checkout so you would not forget them next time, or to get a discount code, or for some other reason.

The subject line in the message you keep receiving might be interesting, but it is not something you need right now, or you have no time — so you put it off and eventually delete it, or forget it.

That does not mean those customers never come back. They do, but only when they need what you sell. Sending consistently and with segmentation is how you stay the one they think of when that moment arrives.

We do not recommend sending to dead recipients forever, though. If someone has been inactive for six months and still does not open after an attempt to win them back, remove them from the list.

An example from ordinary life

Not long ago I built a bed and ended up joining a DIY chain’s customer club. Now I get mail from them once or twice a week. I rarely read it. But when I needed a jigsaw and a few other bits, and had just had an email offering free delivery, that is where I bought them — not only because of the delivery, but because they were the ones I remembered, having heard from them regularly. That I had a good experience as a customer the first time naturally fed into it too.

A food delivery service I use does something similar. There can be long gaps between my orders, so every so often I get a message with a code for 10 or 20 per cent off the next one. I always end up using it. It sits in the back of my mind, and it gives me a good excuse not to cook — or an easy option when my colleagues and I are at the office late.

What to take from it

You can use the same mechanism on inactive recipients. If you have a group, large or small, who have been quiet for a while but whom you want back, send them a code for free delivery, 10 per cent off, or something comparable.

It is worth asking whether the customers you give that discount to only ever buy when a code arrives. The question is then whether it pays. As long as those recipients generate a profit when they do buy, it should not matter a great deal that they are only active when there is a good offer.

Which brings us to the active ones. Your active recipients are the people keeping the business going, and they deserve to be rewarded for that engagement at least as much. Give them unusually good offers, articles, things others do not get. It improves their experience of you, and it gives them a reason to talk about you — which brings goodwill, loyal customers, and new customers through word of mouth.

Finding your active and inactive recipients

The statistics and segmentation in Ubivox show you which of your recipients are active, so you can design and send mail based on that activity and give them something extra. The same place shows you who is not active, so you can build the campaign that brings them back.

If you have questions about how to set it up, you are always welcome to call us or use the live chat on this site.