You Need to Segment Before You Can Automate, Episode 162 - officehours.fm

officehours.fm

Putting WordPress to Work

You Need to Segment Before You Can Automate, Episode 162

with Chris Lema on May 03rd, 2018

LinkedInGoogle+

Chris Lema is the Vice President of products and innovation at the hosting company Liquid Web. He spends his time building out WordPress offerings and WooCommerce hosting. In this episode, we discuss how to segment your audience by their behaviors and interests, and the importance of segmentation before automation.

Show Notes

Vegas Exemplifies Segmentation

When you arrive in Vegas, you can go in one of three directions after you get your bags.

Most of us will go left or straight out the door, rather than take a limo. Those few who do take the limos are what Chris calls whales, accounting for 45% of the revenue, but only representing 2-3% of the people in Vegas.

Whales are unique, but you wouldn’t catch them without the dolphins and minnows who represent a larger demographic but contribute less to the remaining revenue percentage.

This is real-time segmentation: there is something for everyone, but the big fish wouldn’t want to go if there were no minnows, and the minnows wouldn’t show up if the whales weren’t there. However, they’re each treated differently.

Segmentation before Automation:

10:52 “The real power in segmentation is that everybody gets treated the right way, not necessarily that everybody gets treated the same.”

Before you start automating, make sure your content is tailored to your audience.

Tools:

Through MailChimp, don’t be afraid to ask your customers to self-select what they are interested in.

12:40 “Segmentation doesn’t have to be hidden in the background… It can just be blatantly like, ‘Tell me what you are most interested in so I can only give you that’.”

Chris uses ConvertKit, which allows you to change the call to action buttons for different audiences, and allows you to tag customers with the information they are interested in which becomes crucial for segmentation.

Managing and Organizing:

Chris says you need to start with defining the segments.

The whole point of segmentation is sending the right people the right information, with the expectation that they will all take the same action.

  1. Create a list of people who buy everything, and ask them what they want to purchase from you. Those people who have spent the money on you should be the customers you’re listening to.
  2. Create segments that are interest related and behavior related.
  3. Track who has made a purchase recently, in three months, in six months, or have never purchased.
  4. Understand where your customers are coming from and let that inform how you shape your message.

Remember, you’re going to treat whales differently than dolphins and minnows.

RightMessage is a powerful tool that lets you change the message and content displayed to your users in real time, based off of their behaviors on your site.

31:10 “The first thing I have to do is figure out who are these segments, and then I start shaping my message.”

By creating automation that is based off of what the segmented users’ behaviors and interests are, you will automatically see higher conversion rates and build real trust.

Contact: