In email marketing, the contact management and segmentation strategy is essential to get the maximum benefit from the promotion of a company's products and services. A proper organisation of contacts guarantees the success of the campaign. This is achieved by having a database managed and organised according to the stage of the sales funnel in which the users are. In this way, the appropriate content is delivered in each context to attract customers. Establishing a relationship with the right contacts serves to encourage interaction with the brand.
According to data provided by HubSpot, software for contact management and segmentation, campaigns that are based on segments decrease their desertion rate and increase their clicks. The contact management system provides greater engagement with customers and unifies information in one place. This must be accessible and understandable for digital marketers. It also allows tracking users by identifying their weaknesses, interests and needs. On the other hand, segmentation offers a range of possibilities by dividing the audience according to different criteria to achieve efficient communication. Incorporating both elements into the marketing strategy improves the results of future actions.
In Inbound Marketing, contacts are key to any action. Therefore, you should focus on offering them the most value to grow your business. Contact management is one of the fundamentals of digital marketing. It can be done with software such as HubSpot Marketing Hub. It should be combined with contact segmentation to have a broader picture of each user and offer the best service. By dividing the message into groups, it can be adapted to achieve a greater impact.
There are different types of segmentation based on the criteria by which users are grouped. These are the main ones:
Every contact management and segmentation strategy must follow a series of steps to achieve a positive impact on users:
The first step is to find out what results I want to achieve with the campaign, i.e. what is the output I want to receive. Based on these KPIs, you decide what marketing actions to perform and who to target. For example, if I want to increase loyalty, I will focus on sending emails to existing and active customers with the brand. To do this, I will need contact management and segmentation tools.
In digital marketing, a contact is any person or entity with whom the company communicates. Contact information should be stored in a database. This should be cleaned periodically by eliminating contacts that are of no interest to the brand. In turn, it should be optimised and organised according to the needs of the business. Zendesk, Salesforce or HubSpot offer tools to organise databases.
To carry out a correct strategy, it is essential to know your buyer persona. Your information must be updated and revised infrequently. This is due to the emergence of new commercial profiles that must be taken into account to ensure sales. The habits and attitudes of the buyer persona evolve over time as digital environments are constantly changing.
The database is built from information gathered from landing pages, surveys, forms, chatbots or social networks. This data will be necessary to segment the groups.
Depending on the stage of the customer lifecycle, users will be grouped into different segments. These groups will be made more precise by dividing subscribers based on different characteristics.
Segmentation of the database is done by following different criteria or by looking at the stage of the user's sales funnel. At the same time, segments can be divided into three methodologies. These are also known as types of scoring: