If you sell products online and have customers all over the United States or even worldwide, using the same marketing message for everyone might not be the best idea. For example, you might want to tell folks in Florida about your same-day shipping because that's where your business is, but you wouldn't want to send that message to all your email subscribers and confuse people in other locations. So, this is where you as a Shopify store owner, need to create a strategy called email segmentation. This way when you use advanced segmentation for Shopify emails, you divide your customer in a way that helps grow your business, limit costs, and maximizes ROI.
With Shopify email segmentation, you can categorize subscribers based on specific factors that matter to your business, such as their location, type of store, or the amount they've spent on purchases.
Here is what advanced email segmentation is and the various ways to segment your audience, target your ideal client, and grow your business via advanced segmentation.
How can Advanced Email Segmentation Help your Business on Shopify?
Advanced email segmentation allows you to engage with diverse target audiences, each with specific needs and challenges that they look to your business to address. When customers feel like your messages speak directly to them, it enhances the likelihood of them forming a connection with your brand and potentially making a purchase. Moreover, email segmentation proves beneficial in acquiring new customers by providing discount codes to first-time purchasers, re-engaging customers who haven't made a recent purchase, sharing location-specific deals, or sending abandoned cart emails to those who have been browsing but haven't completed a purchase.
1. Purchase History
By categorizing customers based on their purchase behavior, you gain valuable insights. For instance, segmenting customers based on their purchase level at different price points. This provides you the opportunity to send targeted promotions to your high-value clients. Moreover, aligning your emails with the buyer cycle ensures your messages just hit at the right time. Whether clients are looking for seasonal promotions or a big rebrand, understanding their seasonal cycles allows you to send emails that resonate when they're ready to make a purchase. It's personalization that powers conversions.
2. Demographic Information
Demographic segmentation is a kind of an advanced segmentation for Shopify emails that involves categorizing customers based on factors like geographic location, age, gender, or marital status. If your customer list is opt-in or primarily relies on purchase history, you might lack extensive demographic data. In such instances, you'll need to actively seek this information by requesting customers to provide details about themselves. This can be achieved through surveys or interviews, allowing you to enhance your understanding of their demographics and tailor your marketing strategies accordingly.
3. Engagement Level
Customer engagement level involves categorizing customers based on various interactions with your brand, extending beyond website visits and email engagement to include a broader range of customer interactions across all channels, both offline and online. The definition of engagement varies depending on factors like your company's identity, industry, the products you offer, and the diversity of your product categories. In general, more engagement is seen as better experiences with your brand and more frequent interactions, indicating positive results.
4. New Subscribers
Creating a list of newly added subscribers allows you to send a welcoming email. As individuals subscribe to receive updates from your business, they enter your sales funnel, yet their readiness to make a purchase may vary. A welcome email serves as a means to engage these recent additions to your subscriber base and gently push them towards their customer journey.
5. Referral Source
Understanding how your contacts discovered your business impacts your communication strategy. Clients referred through word of mouth or Shopify’s App Store have different levels of familiarity with your work. Tailor your approach by educating them differently and offering unique perks. Clients from the app store may require a longer nurturing period, warranting additional email touchpoints during onboarding. For these clients, provide resources like client reviews, differentiators, or success cases. Alternatively, offer guidance through the onboarding process. Segmenting contacts by referral source allows personalized email targeting, ensuring unique messaging and timing tailored to each group's needs.
4 Apps for Advance Segmentation for Shopify Emails
1. Klaviyo: Do predictive analytics and considers factors such as list presence, SMS subscriptions, activity and behavior, and custom properties to construct detailed segments.
2. VibeTrace: Utilizes a robust Customer Data Platform to gather customer data and assist in defining custom segments and audiences. It relies on personal, transactional, and events data to create detailed subsets of the audience.
3. RetentionX: Aids in outlining segments based on RFM, 1st Order Behavior, Overall Purchase Behavior, and Marketing Journey, allowing for adjustments based on your specific needs.
4. Segments App: Comes with 30 pre-built segments, helping you identify High spenders, Active repeats, At-risk One-timers, At-risk Repeats, and Churned Loyals. Additionally, it offers data integrations and the ability to create custom segments.
Final Thoughts
As by now, you might have a clear idea of the segments to begin with, or perhaps there's some experimentation in your future. Regardless, the segments you choose should align with your company's objectives and the relationships you aim to cultivate with your clients and users.
In the end, advanced segmentation for Shopify emails helps you to engage with your clients and contacts without overwhelming them with irrelevant messages, transforming your emails into more of a conversation and less like spam. So, what's holding you back?