In a recent sales training webinar, we discussed email drip marketing and part of that process is to segment your email list. This is an important step of the process as it will allow you to tailor the content and timing of your emails according to the different groups that make up your email list, enabling you to optimize your results.

Here are some ways that you can consider segmenting your email drip marketing list.

1. Suspects
The first segment that you can break out can be labeled as suspects. These are the contacts that you think might be a fit with what you have to offer but you have never spoken with them and they likely do not know who you are.

A good example of a group of suspects that might end up in your email marketing list is a list of target contacts that you purchased or downloaded somewhere. Regardless of how much you paid for this list or how qualified you have been told they are if you have not interacted with them in any way and if they have not directly opted in, then you need to be aware of this and factor this in when strategizing how you are going to communicate with them.

2. Prospects
The next step up from suspects is a category of prospects. These are target contacts that we have interacted with in some way. It could be that we exchanged emails with them, spoke to them briefly on the phone, or maybe the target contact opted in on our website or a landing page.

What would be ideal is if there has been some sort of that took place on one of the initial interactions and that will allow you to promote a suspect to a prospect. For example, we might speak with the target contact on the phone in a cold call and ask them a couple of questions to determine if there might be a fit.

3. Clients / Customers
You will want to separate your clients or customers from your email drip marketing list. Even though they are purchasing from you or have purchased from you in the past, there is still a benefit from continuing to drip marketing emails to them.

Although, the emails you send to a customer can often be different than what you would send to a prospect, and as a result, segmenting this group in your email list can lead to improved results.

4. Referral Partners
You may want to include a segment in your email marketing list for referral partners. These are contacts that would likely never purchase from you but they could refer business to you. It is very important to use email drip marketing with these contacts so that you stay fresh in their mind to improve the probability that they think of you when a referral opportunity presents itself.

Also, Read How to Develop Content for Email Drip Marketing