Interesting article from ClickZ To Send or Not To Send an Email…That is the Question

My thought is this: Highly targeted campaigns will outperform un-segmented ones every time in conversions and ROI.

Untargeted email newsletters still have a place in the email world but they must be used sparingly. Legitimate email newsletters account for 70% of all “this is spam” complaints! People opted-in to those lists - they wanted the company to send them emails. But, over time, the emails didn’t meet their expectations and weren’t useful so they clicked the “this is spam” button instead of opting-out.

When you’re designing your email campaigns, think about your target audience and segment your customers accordingly. Sure there might be one or two people who would have purchased the item but they didn’t get the message; but for every one customer that MIGHT have purchased, there are dozens who will report the message as spam because they aren’t interested at all. That will kill your reputation and deliverability.

Segmenting your list into targeted groups is THE BEST thing you can do. The targeted messages will keep customers engaged - and engaged customers will visit your site regularly and will even purchase things outside of their segment. For example, I shop on Banana Republic’s website often for myself. I know they sell men’s clothes and someday I might buy a shirt for my husband. But that doesn’t mean that Banana Republic should add me to the men’s clothing segment. There emails just have to keep me engaged by sending me the items I’m MOST interested in. That’s what will get me shopping on their website.

Targeted emails will also increase the lifetime value of each customer. Email ROI and conversions will increase and your reputation will be safe.  You just don’t get those benefits from untargeted campaigns.

Questions? Comments? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you.