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Capitalizing on CRM Lists, Tags, and Segmentations
When you segment your contacts, you create easily searchable databases. Think of it as a sorting system. You wouldn’t just throw all of your important documents into a pile in your file cabinet! You take the time to organize them according to what they are and how they’re used.
Fortunately, with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, like ActiveCampaign, this is a fairly straightforward process. Here are the key elements you need to know:
Lists
The highest level of segmentation is the list. Think of these as your folder.
What lists you use will depend on what your needs are. A clothing company’s marketing strategy would be poorly received at a real estate firm. Likewise, you wouldn’t want to try the same gimmicks you used when marketing to teenagers to elders at a retirement home.
To get you started, here are a few examples of lists that might be utilized:
- One of the most common lists—and one that is highly recommended that you use—is the testing list. This would include contacts for people who’d be your testing market when you run a new campaign.
- Another generally useful list to create would be subscriber status lists. This includes both financial levels (such as membership tiers) and email subscriptions. In the case of emails, being able to easily filter out individuals depending on how long they’ve been enrolled in your emails is always useful.
- For real estate, there might be lists based on the type of customer you’re dealing with. Examples include:
- Age ranges (first-time homeowners, established individuals, and retired or elderly individuals),
- Buyer types (such as single, married, or families),
- Property types (apartments, condos, houses, and so on),
- Or geographic area.
- A clothing company might want to create lists that cater to wide target markets and demographics. Some ideas for this are:
- Gender-based lists, which break the market into an easy binary;
- Age-based lists (children, teen, young adult, for instance);
- Or style type (punk, grunge, preppy, etc.).
In general, you want your lists to be broad but handy. You don’t want to make a list so overreaching that everyone is included in it. At the same time, a list that only has two or three people in it is just as useless.
Tags
The second level of organization in your CRM toolbox is the tag. Think of these as your sub-folder or category. In the filing cabinet analogy, this would be where you’d insert a divider, perhaps to keep your home improvement receipts separate from all coupons you’ve been getting from retail stores.
Tags can be applied to individual customers within your database.
When dealing with email marketing, they’re extremely handy. Good tagging allows you to find and email deals and information to people who are interested in narrow scopes of products and services. Proper tag use can prevent you from disengaging from customers by keeping their content relevant.
If you’re still a bit confused, some examples might help!
- Regardless of your industry or practice, one handy thing to have as a tag is customer engagement level. Knowing who your best customers are is always important, and it enables you to send them some of your more exclusive deals.
- Another great use of tags is to keep tabs on temporary offers, sales, or clients who might need to be followed up with. This is especially handy when you have a team of people dedicated to this purpose.
- On a more specific level, a mobile gaming company might have tags for:
- Purchasing frequency and amount,
- Age range of the client,
- The platform they play on,
- Or the amount of time they spend playing the game every day.
- A real estate company may utilize tags to handle:
- The stage of a purchase a buyer is in,
- What sort of architectural style an individual prefers,
- Lifestyle preferences (active, solitary, or social, for instance),
- Or the neighborhoods that a client is looking for.
- At a retail venue, tags might be even more varied. Moreover, when it comes to retail, tagging is crucial. A store that sells decorations might sort client with tags such as:
- Purchasing habits (seasonal, frequent, and so on),
- Preferred styles,
- Seasonal favorites,
- Shopping preferences (online, brick-and-mortar, or a bit of both),
- And occupation.
When it comes to tagging, you should be aware that less is more. While it’s always fun to make new categories, doing so may cause excessive and unnecessary strain on resources and databases. Keep your tags consistent, relevant, and organized.
Segmentation
Some of the best uses of segmentation are email campaigns. When you’re creating offers, deals, and showcases, you want them to be shown to the people most likely to buy those products and services. Sharing something someone is disinterested in won’t help you much; in fact, frequently missing the mark may just lose you a customer!
Being able to target individuals based on their preferences is always handy, and it can also apply to virtual (or physical) newsletters or coupons. Some examples of savvy tag use might be:
- A real estate firm sending out curated lists of homes to single clients who are most interested in modern style abodes,
- A retail venue offering a discount on a variety of candles based on past scent preferences,
- A toy company offering deals on toys for individuals who have rowdy toddlers,
- A jewelry company sending emails to prospective engagement ring purchasers whose preferences lean towards non-traditional offerings,
- And a fashion brand debuting a sportswear aesthetic to that particular demographic and within a certain age range.
Once you’ve grasped the basics of listing, tagging, and segmenting your prospects and clients, your campaigns can be impactful and drive efficient and effective results; so long as you utilize it properly.
Engage 2 Engage is Here to Help!
Conducting a marketing campaign strategy to the right segment contacts is key. There is a lot of time and research needed to group contacts to promote based on characteristics and behaviors to what you are offering. The risk in the lack of time put into the research and preparation is unsubscribes to your email list.
Engage 2 Engage is here to help with your decision-making regarding lists, tags, and more. As the number of products and services grows with your offering the more complicated organizing it all can get. Learn more about our programs where we help simplify and streamline the process so you can maximize results.
