I was talking with someone a few days ago who was building a new product to help people with retirement planning. I asked, “who’s it for,” and the response was “everyone.” Gasp!
There are over 7.5 billion people it the world – the product can’t possibly be for everyone.
Too often we approach the outreach to learners in a similar way. You may have an email list of 500, 5,000, or 50,000. Who you send your marketing email to, is a choice you have.
The cool thing about technology, especially email marketing services, is you can segment your audience…and you should. Using the segmentation and email management features will certainly help you. If you have a home grown product, ask IT if it is already an option.
People have a limited amount of time and when they read emails from you that are not applicable, they unsubscribe or stop reading altogether. You may have heard the worst medication for a patient is the one they aren’t taking. Well, the worst email for your company is the one your audience isn’t reading.
To zoom in a bit more – your email list might include practitioners from different care settings (e.g. hospital, community, long term care, etc.). Each of these learners has a slightly different focus and interest level in what they are learning. Making that assumption, you can create “tags” or separate audiences to better segment your email list and send content that people are interested in reading.
Also worth noting: There are a many people who are already in a niche environment and might think – cool – but not for me. However, there’s typically a way to further breakdown the list. For example, if you create content for hospitals, you can add tags for IT, oncology, ED, administration, etc. etc.
Be creative. Try a segmented list and see what the response is. You get to choose.
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash