Your company spends a lot of time and money securing leads for your sales and marketing efforts. They got a booth at a trade show, maybe hired a company to design a cool website with forms to fill out for additional information about your product or service. Once those leads are in your lap, however, you need to start segmenting your Multifamily email marketing lists.
Email marketing segmentation is simply the division of the emails into smaller groups based on specific criteria. How you decide to segment will likely depend on the source of the lead or how long that lead has existed. It doesn’t even have to be a lead – your client list is just as important to consider.
Why segment your email marketing lists?
Simple – because segmenting your email marketing list creates more meaningful messaging to your recipients. And when you have a thoughtful, more individualized message, your marketing efforts generate some great (and sometimes surprising) results.
As a result, segmenting your email marketing list can generate a mind-boggling uptick in opens and clicks than sending a “blanket” email out with no thought into who the individual recipient might be, according to the results of MailChimp’s research.
As a Multifamily Vendor/Supplier, you may have decision makers at one or multiple levels within a management company. Here are five ways to segments your email marketing list to ensure your messaging is on target.
Geography
Geography can play a large roll in your segmenting. Your product or service may have benefits that are more attractive to properties or management companies in certain cities or states than others. The climate in one state is completely different than others. One city may be concerned with eco-friendly benefits. One market can have a very high average rent while another does not. It’s not just about where you do business, it’s about the message that you want to convey to your decision makers based on geographical factors.
Company Size
There are over 11,000 management companies in the United States. Of those, just under 70% of them have 5 or fewer properties in their portfolio. Over 79% have 10 or fewer, and 91% have 25 or fewer. Only 8.5% of management companies in the country have 26 or more properties. Large companies have very different problems and needs than small companies, meaning they should be treated quite differently.
Trade Show or Other Multifamily Event Attendance
Separating properties or contacts who have visited your booth at a trade show or exchanged business cards with you at an event is an excellent way for you to engage. Just make sure to follow up in a timely manner, because personnel can change in the blink of an eye in this industry and you want to make sure you’ve touched base with those you’ve already talked with about your company.
Past Purchases
This segment can be quite powerful because the properties or people on this list are likely more familiar with your name and brand. Even this one segment could be further divided by how much they spent.
Send a renewal notice, offer similar products, perhaps what they purchased requires refills or replacement. Not only does this segment require less education on who you are and what you do, but it gives your company the chance to show off your customer service skills!
Market/Property Statistical Data
Statistical data may sound a little scary, but basic Multifamily research doesn’t have to be difficult or even time consuming. Do you sell a product or service that helps update the look or functionality of an older property? Segment them out and center your messaging around that fact! Even knowing the average rents and occupancy of a property or their overall market will aid in your messaging strategy. These types of highly targeted segments will certainly set you apart from your competition!
Conclusion
Although there are only five examples listed above, email marketing segmentation can (and often should) get very specific. Not only will your emails get higher open and click rates, but you’ll also have fewer unsubscribes and bounces. There are also a lot of tools available – some are even free – that will help you determine how to segment your email list, such as Google Analytics. With Google Analytics, you can easily see the traffic to your website based on location. You can even see what device your visitors are using!
If you’re looking for a feature-rich platform for researching properties and management companies that also supplies email addresses for you to segment, drop us a line and we will tell you about our user-friendly solutions.
This article was originally published July 17, 2017, and has been updated in 2019 to account for management company counts and percentages.