(NOTE: This is part of a series. Check out the previous entry here.)
Segmentation is one of the first things I look at when auditing a client’s email marketing account.
Mailing “sections” of your list content relevant to that particular segment (based on behavior, purchase history, demographics, etc.) pleases your subscribers, builds loyalty, and boosts the chance that they buy (for the first time or again).
Now, did you know you can arrange new customers to “auto-segment” themselves upfront?
It’s easy:
Just make the customer do the work themselves!
All you have to do is send an email with links whose anchor text represents the broad topic categories (and thus content-focused segments) you mail about.
The user clicks the link, and is put into the relevant segment automatically.
It sounds abstract, so I broke down one of these “self-segmenting” emails below. It’s the
About Tonia Kendrick
Tonia Kendrick is a business coach specializing in helping female solopreneurs systematize their businesses and boost productivity overall.
I stumbled upon her site while looking for a way to store content ideas for my other business, Start Carnivore.
I Googled “content ideas storage spreadsheet template,” and she was among the top few results. She had the best spreadsheet template, so I downloaded it in exchange for my email.
Lesson in there — she used this template as a lead magnet. I’ll talk more about that in the Takeaways section at the end.
The Email: Expectations and Segmentations
We’ve arrived at the last email in the welcome flow:
As you can see, it’s a bit of a longer email and all text-based. You also can see a bunch of links near the end.
That’s because the point of this email is to set the reader’s expectations for future emails (now that they’re finishing the welcome flow) and try to segment them for more relevant messaging.
Let’s see how this email performs in these regards.
The Subject Line: “[Email 4 of 4] You can do this YOUR way!”
An interesting choice of subject line:
It’s vague enough to inspire a bit of curiosity. The reader will want to know what they can do their way.
I like how Tonia all-caps “Your” to grab attention and add a bit of emphasis. The exclamation is a nice touch for the encouraging angle here.
The Body Copy
Tonia takes a familiar angle in the opening — the agreeable statement.
This one hits home more. It’s common in this niche (haha) to hear “pick a specialty” or “niche down”.
And furthermore, many in the audience will maybe feel a bit of antipathy toward the statement…
Because they don’t know which niche to pick.
But instead of being purely contrarian, Tonia acknowledges it works… while qualifying her claim with the fact that it’s not the only way.
A lot happens here.
Tonia addresses the objection without alienating people who believe in niching down. This also displays trustworthiness — she’s not trying to cause controversy just for marketing polarization purposes. She’s giving each side a fair shake. Niching down does work, and she doesn’t deny it.
And, of course… the people who don’t want to “niche down” have a solution that works for them. Tonia’s copy here gets them excited to do so.
A graceful balancing act.
Next, Tonia makes the abstract concrete to relate to the reader and to avoid making her email a generic “belief-shifter” on a topic:
Tonia offers her own career as social proof of her claim that you don’t need to niche down. That speaks to the reader far more than the claim itself.
It shows the reader that what she claims is actually possible — powerful for getting them more invested in her brand.
Tonia also explains why she didn’t “niche down”. This helps relate to the reader further. After all, they may not want to niche down for the same reason: Too many interests to choose just one.
Tonia also starts to set expectations for future emails in this section. She continues in the next chunk of copy:
Kind of like the first email in the welcome series, Tonia’s prepping the reader for what topics to look forward to in her emails.
She’s also offering a chance to unsubscribe, just like that first email. This boosts trust and may even paradoxically reduce unsubscribes. Oh, and it cleans off people who wouldn’t engage anyways…
Helping deliverability and list health.
Tonia then offers several topic buckets readers can choose based on what they want to hear about:
Those links take you straight to a “thank you for updating your preferences” page.
Know what that means?
Segmentation.
Tonia puts you into a segment based on the link you click… and sends you content relevant to that segment.
So if you click Marketing Tips, you get more emails about how to improve your business’s marketing.
As a result, you’re more likely to open, read, click, and even buy. Everyone wins.
I appreciate how she notes that you can change these at any time, too. Without that, a customer who misclicked a link might feel doomed to receiving irrelevant content. When in doubt, overexplain.
We arrive at our closing:
Tonia adds a copy that justifies all the links to the content: “It’s all about choices, right?”
She follows it up by showing gratitude for the reader letting her email them, then closes with the signature block and social/site links.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
The copy here is conversational, thanks to the writing style… but also the line breaks and bolding.
Something I appreciate: Like some of her other welcome emails, Tonia uses an “agreeable statement” in the opening that connects with a reader pain point. Such a lead rarely fails to hook in the reader.
Tonia also uses list formatting where possible to break up the text further and group items together logically. You can see this with:
- The overall tips she will be mailing about in the future
- The segment links
2. The Email Structure
We can see a modified version of the problem, agitation, solution (PAS) framework at play in the first half:
- Problem: Lots of people say you have to niche down.
- “Agitation”: That’s one way to do it, but not the only way. Forcing yourself to niche down doesn’t work for everyone.
- Solution: Make your own niche by combining things you love.
The “agitation” in this case is more of “expanding on the main argument”. But it does agitate the pain point by conveying to the reader that although niching down can work, it hasn’t worked for them.
The “solution” offers an interesting segue into the main point of the email — the segmentation — which also happens to be the CTA.
3. The Overall Strategy
Since this is the end of the welcome sequence, the reader will likely move into a regular broadcast segment. Tonia’s strategy is to ensure the reader gets relevant content moving forward.
Good for their sake, but also her own. More relevant content = more engagement = better deliverability and more sales.
Notice something about that idea I just discussed:
I didn’t receive Tonia’s regular broadcasts until after I had received the final welcome email.
You don’t want to hit new people with too many disparate emails. That can overwhelm and distract them from your welcome flow’s “orientation” goal. You want them focused on a particular flow first. You want to familiarize them with the brand.
After you’ve brought them into the fold, they’re ready for broadcast emails.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below for more Email Breakdowns and other helpful marketing content.
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Share this post with someone who would find it helpful or insightful.
- Check out Tonia Kendrick if you need help organizing, systematizing, and streamlining your business!