If your subscriber list is small (or even new) and you haven't yet captured significant data, then you can start by segmenting according to province or city, age, group and gender. This information alone helps you to send more relevant email campaigns and newsletters to the right target audience. Think about it, if you are a 30-something woman living in Cape Town, would you really have any interest (or need) for a special on men's clothing at a franchise store in the Free State? Probably not.
From here, there are any number of aspects that you can segment, each and any combination of which will take you one step closer to effectively segmenting your audience and delivering content that in turn delivers desired results.
It's really important that you separate these groups because, in all likelihood, you'll have different campaigns for each of them. In the beginning stages of an online relationship with a subscriber, and when you're still 'wooing' them, offers and promotions for prospective customers are generally more 'generous' and you tend to pay them more attention. This isn't to say that you should overlook your existing customers, it's just that if they 'accidentally' get sent a bigger discount or voucher offer that was intended for a prospective customer then they aren't going to feel very valued.
With existing customers it might be a better idea to set up a type of 'loyalty' programme where they receive discounts and vouchers based on the amount of money they've spent over a given period of time. If you let your existing customers know that you're doing this, then it might also encourage them to purchase more frequently, knowing that they are essentially being rewarded for their loyalty.
You might have some subscribers who are happy to receive your emails daily or weekly and those who would prefer to receive them only once a month, so for this reason it's a good idea for you to segment here too. Again, this is an aspect you can monitor. Are the people who are receiving your emails monthly converting more, or less than those who opted in to receiving your emails daily or weekly? Which of the groups spend on average more money with you? This data can then also be linked to a loyalty programme or special offers and discounts.
This is another good aspect to segment. How often do they purchase from you? How big or small is each order? Of course this is dependent on the type of product or service you are offering but you definitely need to take into consideration those that spend a significant amount of money with you and those that have signed up but haven't purchased anything, or those that have purchased in the past but have since gone quiet.
Again, this links to point number one, with existing customers vs. prospective customers. A lot of times your subscribers might be interested in what you're offering but are waiting for the right time to purchase, and this is where you can help them along. Prompt them with a nice little discount voucher or shipping voucher and then offer them a further little 'thank you' off their next purchase, so they have a reason to come back.
Although this isn't as common as other segmentation groups, if your list is big enough then you might want to consider segmenting according to their social network of choice and/or whether they prefer to read their email on a mobile device. The reason for this is that creating email campaigns that render correctly on a mobile device is very different to creating an email design that is going to be read on a PC or laptop. In terms of segmenting according to their social network preferences, some brands are going so far as to have different campaigns for Twitter and Facebook, which require users to perform different actions if they want to benefit from a special offer, voucher or discount.
When it comes down to it, the more highly segmented your subscriber list is, the more targeted your email campaigns are going to be, which means you have a better chance of getting your subscribers to convert the way you need them to.
