Micro segmentation tops marketers wish lists.

(written by Jordie van Rijn, emailmarketing consultant at emailmonday and member of the Dutch DMA.)

Brands can totally change the nature of their email marketing program by applying techniques they have not used in the past. We would all like to know what email marketers will do next to evolve their email programs. The strategies that attract the most interest are those that are not yet in use by the enterprise e-mail senders, but are on their wish list.

The first part of the 2014 Forrester Wave Email Marketing Vendors report showed the results of an customer reference survey amongst global email marketers in the enterprise market.

Email strategies that attract the most interest
The tactics and strategies employed are sorted based on how long they have been used. The strategies that attract the most interest are those that are not yet in use by the enterprise e-mail senders, but are on their wish list. This show the following wish list results:

Micro-segmentation and targeting (66%)

Personalization based on time of opening (61%)

In-email transactions (58%)

Video (43%)

Micro-segmentation

With 20/20 hindsight, micro-segmentation is not a big surprise. Segmentation has been in the top ten desired strategies for years, but it is now being taken a step further. In micro-segmentation the segments are very refined usually combining several segmentation criteria.

Micro-segmentation does not imply per se that the resulting groups are very small – due to the scale of email lists, the resulting groups are large enough to obtain a nice return on email investment.

Because the technology is now available to make segmentation easier to use, and even automatically segment, it is also within practical reach of more senders. Unlocking more and more and more data from website tracking or linking to other channels from the ESP, is an interesting movement and a prerequisite for micro-segmentation.

Due to the research methodology's use of closed questions, the report gives interesting insights into the use of new e-mail marketing techniques. Are these really the tactics that you are going to deploy in 1-3 years then they need to be in your RFP when searching for new “future-proof” e-mail marketing software.

Large brands deal with data integration in different ways. The availability of new APIs and the choice of a central all-in-one solution will surely play a large role in the future applications of micro-segmentation.