Simple Ways to Segment Your Audience: Keep It Simple, Make It Smart
Estimated Reading Time:
11 Mins., 7 Secs. ‧ 2,225 Wrds. *
When it comes to email marketing, segmentation can feel intimidating—like there’s a mountain of data to sift through or a complex strategy to master. But the truth is, it doesn’t have to be that way. Segmentation starts with small, simple steps that can make a big difference. Organizing your audience into meaningful groups, even using basic criteria, helps you to start crafting more relevant and engaging emails without breaking a sweat. Even basic segmentation can help you send emails that feel less generic and more like they’re meant just for the person reading them.
Why Start with Simple Segmentation?
Simple segmentation is a great starting point for making your email marketing more efficient—and effective. Using basic data points like demographics, location, or purchase behavior, you can group your audience in ways that make sense and are easy to manage. These groups don’t have to be perfect—they just need to help you send emails that feel a little more personal. Starting with broad categories, like age or geography, can make a big difference without overwhelming you. The goal is to take small, manageable steps to help your audience feel seen and understood from the start.
If, for example, you’re a clothing retailer, segmenting by gender is a simple way to make your emails more relevant. Women’s fashion emails go to one group, men’s to another. It’s not complicated, but it instantly makes your messages more targeted—which is the whole point. Over time, you can build on this by adding layers, like casual versus formal wear preferences, or grouping people by seasonal shopping habits. Starting with these easy wins helps you get comfortable with segmentation and build confidence. It’s all about testing things out, seeing what works, and gradually refining your strategy as you learn more about your audience.
Demographic Segmentation: Understanding Who They Are
Demographic segmentation is one of the simplest and most effective ways to group your audience. By using traits like age, gender, location, income level, or education, you can tailor your messaging to match the basic characteristics of your subscribers. This method is a great starting point for personalization, especially if you’re new to segmentation or working with limited data. Because demographic traits often correlate with specific needs or preferences, this approach allows you to create relevant content even with minimal information. Demographics are easy to collect through sign-up forms or surveys, making it a practical first step in understanding your audience.
A local restaurant, for example, can use geographic segmentation to promote specials at the location closest to each subscriber. At the same time, an online boutique might segment by gender to send updates on relevant products like women’s dresses or men’s casual wear. Adding layers such as age groups or income levels can refine your messaging, like offering senior discounts or promoting student-friendly bundles. Demographic segmentation works because it helps you make quick, meaningful connections between your audience’s traits and the content you send. It lays the foundation for more advanced segmentation strategies, allowing you to deliver targeted and engaging emails from the start.
Behavioral Segmentation: Actions Speak Louder
While demographics tell you who your audience is, behavioral segmentation shows you what they’re doing. This involves grouping subscribers based on their actions, such as past purchases, browsing history, email engagement, or even cart abandonment. Unlike demographic data, behavioral insights provide a real-time view of how your audience interacts with your brand, offering a direct window into their intentions and needs. Behavioral segmentation is about recognizing patterns in how people interact with your brand. By focusing on these actions, you can deliver messages that feel timely, relevant, and aligned with each subscriber’s journey. This makes behavioral segmentation incredibly powerful, reflecting real-world intent rather than assumptions about what someone might like, allowing you to craft more relevant and impactful messages.
An e-commerce store, for instance, could identify a segment of customers who have browsed but not purchased. A targeted email offering discounts, free shipping, or personalized product recommendations might be the nudge they need to convert. Similarly, a SaaS company could segment users who signed up for a free trial but haven’t upgraded, sending them resources highlighting the benefits of a paid plan, like success stories from other users or features they haven’t explored yet. Whether providing solutions to specific pain points or rewarding loyal customers with exclusive perks, behavioral data helps create a dynamic and personalized experience. Behavioral segmentation also works well for re-engagement campaigns, such as contacting lapsed customers with a “We miss you.” email and a special offer to bring them back.
Interest-Based Segmentation: Knowing What They Love
If demographics tell you “who” and behavior tells you “what,” interests reveal the “why.” Interest-based segmentation groups subscribers by what they care about most, such as specific products, hobbies, or content topics. This approach goes beyond surface-level traits, helping you understand what motivates your audience. A travel agency, for example, might segment its audience into adventure seekers, family vacationers, and luxury travelers. Adventure seekers could receive emails about hiking and rafting trips, family vacationers might get kid-friendly destination guides, and luxury travelers could see offers for exclusive spa getaways. By aligning emails with their passions, you’re not just delivering information—you’re delivering inspiration and demonstrating that you truly understand what excites your audience.
Interest-based segmentation is easy to implement by asking subscribers about their preferences when they sign up. Including a preference form with different topics or categories, like “adventure seekers,” “family vacationers,” or “luxury travelers,” provides instant insights into what they want to hear about. Over time, you can refine these segments by tracking engagement. If, for example, a subscriber consistently clicks on emails about spa retreats, you can tailor future messages to include similar luxury-focused offers. This segmentation helps build stronger relationships by ensuring your emails are always relevant and aligned with what matters most to your audience.
Lifecycle Stage Segmentation: Meeting Them Where They Are
Another easy way to segment your audience is by where they are in their relationship with your brand—the customer lifecycle. Are they in the awareness stage, just discovering who you are? Or maybe they’re in the consideration stage, exploring if your product is the right fit. Lifecycle segmentation helps you align your emails with these stages. For instance, new subscribers in the awareness phase might get a welcome series introducing your brand. At the same time, those in the consideration stage might receive product guides or customer testimonials to help them decide. Customers in the decision stage could benefit from a special offer to make their first purchase, and loyal customers in the retention stage might appreciate early access to new launches or rewards for their continued support.
By tailoring your emails to these lifecycle stages, you’re doing more than just sending out messages—nurturing your audience’s journey with your brand. Loyal customers, for example, can be encouraged to refer friends with a special discount or share their positive experiences on social media during the advocacy stage. And re-engagement emails, for example, might help inactive customers reignite interest and move them back into the cycle. This approach ensures your emails feel relevant and thoughtful, whether you’re helping someone learn about your product, make a purchase, or share their love for your brand. Over time, meeting your audience where they are builds trust, strengthens engagement, and turns customers into advocates who stick with your brand and spread the word.
When it comes to segmentation, demographics are all about the basic characteristics that describe who your audience is. This type of segmentation focuses on traits that don’t change often, like age, gender, income, education, or location. It’s a simple way to understand your subscribers better and lays the groundwork for more targeted messaging. While behavioral segmentation looks at what people do, interest-based segmentation digs into why they care, and lifecycle stage segmentation focuses on where they are in their journey; demographics answer the question of who they are. If, for instance, a big chunk of your audience is young professionals in cities, you might focus on promoting convenient, tech-savvy, or trendy products. Demographics give you a solid starting point for grouping your audience and creating campaigns that make sense for their core traits, setting you up for better personalization and results.
Tips for Collecting Data to Start Segmentation
If you’re wondering how to gather the information you need for segmentation, don’t overcomplicate it. Start with what you already know and build from there. Here are a few tips:
Sign-Up Forms: Use your sign-up forms to gather basic information like location, interests, or preferences. For instance, ask subscribers if they want updates on new products, exclusive offers, or industry tips. Keep it short and sweet—too many questions can discourage sign-ups. A simple checkbox or dropdown menu can make it easy for subscribers to share their preferences without feeling overwhelmed.
Surveys: Periodically send out surveys to learn more about your audience’s needs, preferences, or challenges. Ask, for example, what types of products or content they’re most interested in or how often they’d like to receive emails. To increase participation, offer a small incentive, like a discount code, free shipping, or a downloadable resource. The insights you gather can help you refine your segments and deliver more relevant content.
Email Engagement: Dive into your email analytics to see how subscribers interact with your messages. Are they clicking on links to specific categories, like blog posts or product pages? Are certain subjects or topics consistently driving higher open rates? Use this behavior to guide your segmentation. For instance, create a segment for subscribers who always click on sale emails or engage with educational content, then tailor your messaging accordingly.
Website Analytics: Tools like Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into what your audience cares about. Track which pages visitors spend the most time on or frequently revisit. For example, if a significant portion of your audience is browsing a specific product category, create a segment around those preferences and send targeted emails highlighting related items or promotions. Website data can also reveal trends, such as seasonal interests, helping you craft timely and relevant campaigns.
Keeping your data collection efforts manageable and aligned with your goals is key. You don’t need every piece of information—just enough to make your emails more relevant. Asking for excessive or unnecessary details can overwhelm subscribers and even deter them from signing up. Additionally, it’s important to consider the legalities of data collection. Regulations like the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) emphasize that you should only request information necessary for your stated purpose. Be transparent about why you’re collecting certain data and how you plan to use it. If, for instance, you’re asking for a location, explain that it’s to send local offers or event updates.
Start Small and Build Over Time
The beauty of segmentation is that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. Starting with one or two basic segments—like new subscribers versus long-time customers or geographic groups—can immediately make your emails more relevant without overcomplicating things. These initial segments also provide a solid foundation to build on as you gather more data and insights. As you see results and gain confidence, you can refine your strategy and add layers based on your learning. This gradual approach makes segmentation manageable and ensures you’re meaningfully targeting your audience.
A fitness studio, for example, may begin by segmenting its audience into members and non-members. Members could get updates on class schedules or exclusive discounts, while non-members might receive promotional offers to join. Over time, the studio could expand its segmentation to include groups like yoga enthusiasts, strength trainers, and beginners, tailoring content to each group’s interests and needs. Segmentation is an ongoing process that evolves as you learn more about your audience. By starting simply and building from there, you can steadily improve your results while creating a deeper connection with your audience.
Segmentation doesn’t have to be complicated to make a difference. By starting with simple techniques like demographics, behavior, interests, or lifecycle stages, you can create emails that feel more personal and relevant to your audience. It’s not about having the perfect strategy from day one—it’s about taking small, intentional steps to understand your audience better and meet them where they are. As you get more comfortable with segmentation, you’ll find endless opportunities to refine and expand your approach. The key is to stay curious, keep experimenting, and always put your audience at the center of your strategy.
*Read time is the time an average person takes to read a piece of text while maintaining reading comprehension silently. Based on the meta-analysis of hundreds of studies involving over 18,000 participants, an adult’s average silent reading speed is approximately 238 words per minute (Marc Brysbaert, 2019).
References
Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047
Want to learn “what” segmentation is and “why” it’s valuable in email marketing? Enroll in the Academy and then register for SEG. 100 ‧ Pre-Introduction to Segmentation. Lesson 3: Simple Ways to Segment Your Audience teaches simple criteria like preferences, demographics, and behaviors that can help you create more relevant messages.
Author: Kenyana David, MBA, DBA(c), is the principal of 81Eighteen™, LLC and the Fe-Mail Marketing for Entrepreneurs (FEMME) Academy™, or “the Academy.” She's HubSpot certified in email marketing, inbound, inbound sales, inbound marketing, content marketing, frictionless sales, and social media marketing.