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Hyper-segmenting for a
merry experience!

Here’s an important caveat for holiday email marketing…

Consumer shopping behavior will be different from the rest of the year. That’s because people are actively shopping for others — not themselves.

For eCommerce marketers, the strategic challenge is determining how to segment and personalize your list for people purchasing gifts.

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Enchanting Ways of list segmentation for the holidays

Delve into Demographics

3 ways you can segment your customers based on demographics

Gender
  • Men shopping for men/ women
  • Women shopping for women/ men
Geographic location
  • Weather specific
  • Holiday specific - Christmas/ Hanukkah
Family/Household
  • Partners shopping for each other
  • Parents (shopping for kids/teens)
  • Grandparents (shopping for kids/teens)

Build on their Behavior

6 ways you can segment your customers based on their behavior on your website

Shopping preferences

You may already have their preference data if you have asked them the same during sign-up. If not, you can do it now and send across relevant content during this time.

Average order value

Segment your customers by their Average Holiday Order Value. This way you can send across targeted offers to boost chances of conversion

Browsing behavior

Your customers’ browsing behavior during the last holidays and that before the upcoming holiday season can help you create smaller segments and send targeted messaging.

Purchase frequency

Knowing how often a customer purchases from you through the year can define your segmentation strategy for the holidays.

Shopping behavior

What did they buy? For whom did they buy (gender/ age), and when did they buy (month/s)? This data from the last holiday season will help you plan this year’s segmentation strategy.

Cart profile

Study your customers’ cart behavior. Are they abandoning your cart often? Are they waiting for a price drop? Segment price-sensitive customers separately; send holiday offers accordingly.

Based on the collective data - demographic and behavioral - you can create even more targeted messages and thus make the most of segmentation for the holidays.

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Awesome Segmentation Possibilities for the Holidays

Acquiring/ converting new subscribers
(Build your list ahead of the holidays)

Optimize your opt-in messaging and its positioning on your site for holidays. New subscribers you acquire during this time of the year are more likely to buy from you than those you acquire during other times of the year.

Target them separately. Change your welcome email design/copy to a holiday theme. Consider a distinct promotional campaign targeted at these newbies.

Targeting early holiday shoppers
(Encourage pre-Black Friday purchases)

Segment by past purchase history and shopping behavior to identify a segment of your list that likes to get their holiday shopping done early.

Then queue up an “early-bird” sale to this segment.

Gift guide
(Figure out who they’re shopping for ahead of the holidays)

Create a gift guide email well before the holidays; organize it by "persona" - Gifts for Mom, Gifts for the Outdoorsmen, Gifts for the Fashionista, etc.

This will provide browsing data on the different kinds of gifts and people your subscribers are planning to shop for, and you can segment them accordingly.

Survey
(Discover trends to enhance your email strategy)

You can plan a pre-holiday survey to inform segmentation strategies. This way, too, you will get to know a lot about what’s on your subscribers’ minds this holiday season.

It can help you create even smaller segments and target the segments accordingly.

Last-minute shoppers
(Create FOMO/ urgency)

Analyze customers’ purchase history to identify a segment of your list that generally shops last minute.

You could target the “late” shoppers and prod them to get on the holiday gift shopping sooner.

Last chance shipping
(Final push to get items delivered before it’s too late)

Depending on where your fulfillment centers are, you could segment by geographic location and target people on the other side of the country.

Then queue up an email to this segment prompting them to purchase in time for their gift to arrive by the holiday.

Advanced Tools for Smarter Targeting

To leverage segmentation, you need efficient tools or you may end up spending a lot of your time and ultimately dragging down your email ROI during this crucial time. There are hundreds of tools available in the market; all you need to do is know what exactly you need and what budget you can spend on them, and choose accordingly.

ESPs
(like Mailchimp, Mailjet, Sendinblue, etc)

To get behavioral and demographic data like engagement, geolocation, device type, etc.

eComm store and CRM
(like Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, etc)

To get behavioral data like purchase history, average order value, purchase frequency.

Holiday Email Pre-development Testing

Because email marketing drives success during the holidays, it’s important to make sure you deliver perfection. Pre-deployment testing should include an email checklist covering:

  • Inbox display optimization
  • Spelling, grammar, profanity checks
  • Link/CTA checks
  • Accessibility
  • Deliverability
  • Email previews on popular clients and devices

You’re investing a lot of time and effort into a holiday email strategy. If your campaigns fail to display as intended, personalization won’t matter. Email pre-deployment testing provides quality assurance for the ideal subscriber experience.

Interactivity can be your best bet when it comes to holiday emails. Need inspiration?
Get inspired
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