The Power of Micro-Segmentation
arpReach already has many ways to segment your list into target groups.
For example, when scheduling a broadcast, you can use simple segmentation by targeting contacts who are subscribed to a particular autoresponder or who belong to certain categories.
On a more advanced level, you can create segments and add multiple criteria to narrow down the contacts you want to target. So, for example, you could create a segment of contacts in Arizona who subscribed to your "Real Estate Updates" autoresponder within the last month and who opened your broadcast from last week.
That's all fantastic stuff and ensures that you're sending your sales messages, offers and information to people who want to receive it.
But they're not enough. We can do better.
Much, much better!
Why?
Because segmenting your contacts correctly is probably the most profit-inducing thing you can do in your business. Delivering timely, highly relevant content to your contacts based on their interests, needs, wants and desires creates maximum impact and the highest response rates from your communications.
Imagine you had a system that monitored the actions of every single contact individually and delivered personalized, timely and highly targeted content based on each individual's interests.
Imagine you had a system that could note a contact's needs and interests individually and tailor their specific follow-up schedule accordingly.
Imagine you had a system that could ensure your contacts individually always received precisely the information that's keeping them hooked.
This is EXACTLY what you'll have with the arpReach update we're launching early next week.
It's micro-segmentation or, put simply, segments that consist of one individual contact. Removing the generic nature of email communication and targeting each contact individually allows you to create email-based sales funnels that are tailored to the needs of every *individual* prospect, not shoe-horned into a one-size-fits-all approach which is MUCH less effective.
I'm about to explain in detail everything we've put in place to allow you to set this up. But you also need to know how to do it correctly for maximum impact. And, of course, you need a list too.
I'll help you with both of these at the end of this article.
So what have we added to arpReach to make all this possible? Well, four new things (and a few supporting bits and pieces).
- single emails
- tags
- events (or triggers)
- actions (they're instant!)
...and I will explain each of them in turn.
Single Emails
arpReach now has "single emails". These are very like broadcasts except they are designed to be sent to only one contact at a time. They also don't have the schedule settings that broadcasts have. Think of them as completely-ready-to-send templates (plain text or HTML) that can be sent to any contact at a moment's notice, with full personalization.
In arpreach, the editor for single emails has all the facilities you would expect such as preview and the ability to send "test" versions of them to your own email address prior to setting them live.
You will find "Single Emails" as a new option in the "Content" menu.
Tags
Tags are an extremely powerful but simple way to "mark" a contact's interest or an action they have taken. They usually consist of a few simple words. A contact can have any number of these. Here are some examples and, as you can see, they can be almost anything.
- expressed interest in widget #1
- came to our exhibition stand
- opens our weekly newsletter
- downloaded our price list
- viewed widget #1 data sheet
- clicked link to our widget #1 current offer
- opened message #1 in widget #1's sales sequence
- opened message #2 in widget #1's sales sequence
- opened message #3 in widget #1's sales sequence
So with tags, you have a simple way of flagging a contact's interests, needs, wants and desires by monitoring the actions they are taking in the course of your communication with them and attaching (or removing) the relevant tags to the contact's record.
Tags are a hugely important part of the new micro-segmentation philosophy of arpReach.
And equally (hugely) important, we need a way to monitor exactly what each contact is doing out there. So we also have...
Events (or triggers)
An event (or trigger) is an action that your contact has taken. This could be
- clicking a link in an email
- opening a broadcast
- opening a follow-up message
- opening a single email
But the best is yet to come.
Micro-segmentation only works if you take carefully planned action based on the expressed interests and actions of your contacts. Sure, it's great to note what they're reading, clicking and downloading but what's the point if you don't use that information to invoke your most wanted response from those contacts.
So allow me to introduce...
Actions (and yes, they're instant and real-time)
An action is something that happens...
- automatically
- instantly
- in real time
...in response to an event (an action your contact has taken).
And, what's more, you can assign *any number* of actions to an event so that many things can happen in the background automatically and instantly that your contact generates an event *the instant* your content sparks interest or desire in them.
So I bet you're wondering what kinds of actions you can make happen when an event triggered by a contact action occurs.
Well, there's quite a list!
- Add one or more tags (remember those?)
- Remove one or more tags
- Add to one or more contact categories
- Remove from one or more contact categories
- Subscribe the contact to an autoresponder
- Unsubscribe the contact from autoresponder(s)
- Delete autoresponder subscription(s)
- Delete all autoresponder subscriptions
- Send a single email (remember those?)
- Send the contact record to other software via http
- Add contact to your suppression or ban list
- Remove contact from your suppression or ban list
- Delete the contact
...and, don't forget, a single event can trigger any number of actions that you want.
An example follows after the break.
Micro-segmentation is not difficult to do and it's obvious how it can work in almost any sales situation. It's the ultimate in automated follow-up marketing (which you're already sold on, right?) but we completely believe that you should do it right from the get-go. So, at the end of this article, I'm going to recommend a course that, in our reckoning, rates as the best follow-up email marketing course we have ever seen. And the good news is that EVERYTHING it teaches is now possible with arpReach.
Sure, you can easily use all the new functionality that I'm describing but this stuff is so powerful and so flexible that it's as easy to get it wrong as it is to get it right.
And we're not just making this up. We have taken the course on board and it now forms the basis of our entire email marketing strategy.
It's worth saying here too that this thing includes a free list-building strategy too so EVERYTHING you need is covered.
I'll give you the link at the end.
So here's an example which uses all four of our new toys
- single emails
- tags
- events
- actions
Let's say you have a squeeze page on your website. It's designed to build your list and offers a free 30 day course on weight loss, with one email being sent per day.
The business model is that you have a series of paid-for exercise videos and you are also an affiliate for several products in the weight loss and fitness area. You promote those products to the individuals who show interest by the actions they take in response to your 30-day course emails.
So a contact comes along and fills out your subscription form. They get added to the list and the sequence begins.
The first couple of days, your emails set the scene and introduce yourself including your experience and credentials, all designed to build trust and credibility.
So nothing seems to be happening but, importantly you created an event/action that tags your contact if they open each follow-up email. All good information for later!
On day 7, your follow-up email contains information on the importance of keeping fit to reduce weight. You provide a lot of information on how it's vital to have a program of exercise. You tell your contact that you have a free information sheet containing an exercise program. To get the information sheet, they simply need to click a link in the follow-up email.
No forms to fill in.
No confirmation emails to contend with.
And, of course, some of your contacts will click that link. And when they do, several things happen instantly and automatically, thanks to events and actions in arpReach:
- they are tagged "interested in exercise"
- they are added to the "funnel step 2" category
- they receive an email with the information sheet attached
- they are added to your "Exercise Videos" sales sequence
...all happening in the background, completely transparently to the contact.
And it's the 4th action that's so powerful because your new subscriber on your "Exercise Videos" sales sequence has voted with their mouse and shown interest in the product.
Can you see how you could construct a VERY effective profit-building structure? All you're doing is responding INSTANTLY to your contact's interests and desires, moving them down the path to your most wanted response.
And that's just a very simple example of one step in what can be a highly targeted and highly profitable sales funnel.
AND FINALLY (for now)...
There are two more things to tell you about and this is an advanced feature for people with programming experience or expertise in their organization.
- One of the actions you can take automatically in response to a contact event/trigger is to send an http post to a remote URL. The entire contact record including custom fields is sent as a post request.
- By calling a special arpReach URL along with a new access key setting, you can trigger any of your actions from a remote script. So imagine you have an ordering system that accepts a PayPal IPN and adds a customer to your membership software. You can now remotely run any number of actions to tag them, subscribe them to autoresponders and do any number of the other actions described above.
In a nutshell, arpReach now sits in the middle of your entire software platform - accepting requests to perform actions on your contacts and issuing its own http posts to other software you run.
It's immensely powerful.
It's unbelievably flexible.
It's arpReach with NO MONTHLY FEES.
These new features will be available for download early next week.
Have a great weekend.
arpReach Team
PLEASE REMEMBER (because this is the last time we'll be saying it)...
To take full advantage of the immense business-building power of the new facilities, you're going to need all four of the new features. But at least one of them (maybe two) are going to be exclusive to arpReach Gold and not available in arpReach Standard.
As always, all existing arpReach Standard, Gold (and their previous names One, Five and Ten) users will automatically be grandfathered in to all these new features. This includes people who order the lowest priced arpReach Standard before we push the launch button early next week. Click the link below to get in now at the low "Standard" price.
» Order now to lock in all the new features at the arpReach Standard (low) price
If you're looking for that link to the micro-segmentation email marketing course (with free list-building supplement), then here it is. We thoroughly recommend it - it's a perfect match for arpReach's new functionality and we're using it ourselves for ALL our email marketing. Our marketing manager (Hi Helen!) identified incremental sales in 6 figures using this method and that's if we convert just 3% (that's T-H-R-E-E) of the opportunities we've found.
It's formidable marketing, pure and simple.
Hey, if you just want the free list-building course then it's available here.
...we just need you to be a little patient as we wait for the DNS propagation to take place around the globe.
