As an interesting case study to the importance of segmentation in email marketing, one brand considerably improved the success of its email campaigns by sending out over 130 versions of its newsletter.
The brand, “HealthyPet,” which produces email and direct mail appointment reminders and educational content for over 4,000 veterinarians nationwide, launched its advanced segmentation campaign in January 2010, and has since seen its unique click rate triple, and its click-to-open rate go 2.7 times higher than a year ago.
HealthyPet decided to segment its database by age of pet and tailor the content of its newsletters accordingly. The company sends six emails during the pet\’s first year of life and quarterly messages thereafter. Each message is triggered by the pet\’s age rather than by the calendar, which helps to smooth out the flow of outbound messages and avoid high-volume bottlenecks.
In addition to creating specific messages depending on the age of the pet, HealthyPet also segmented its list by pet breed , since a German shepherd, for example, is likely to suffer from different health and wellness issues than a Chihuahua. What\’s more, each vet and veterinary hospital that is a HealthyPet client had the option of including promotional content within each newsletter.
The brand didn’t just stop at segmentation either, opting for as much personalization as possible. For example, The \”from\” field features each veterinarian client\’s name, and the logo, phone number, and postal address of the specific vet sender is inserted into the newsletter. What\’s more, customer-specific registration codes are embedded into all links to personalize the Website experience.
While it took some time to setup the initial segmentation, HealthPet says maintaining it takes minimal effort. \”We get the information from our veterinarian customers,\” the company said, \”and it\’s automated from there.\”