ICCFA MagazineGo to

www.iccfa.com/ads

for one-click access to advertisers

➤

Ruiz-McPherson is a virtu-al marketing consultant andpublicity assistant providingmarketing and publicity con-sulting services to deathcare establishments as theDeath Care Publicist.

➤

She writes the MarketingMisfit Blog and produces abi-weekly e-newsletter aboutmarketing.

www.mayraruiz.com www.mayraruiz.com/ deathcare

➤

Her experience includesserving as assistantdirector of marketing for theUniversity of Maryland’sProfessional StudiesDivision, director of Webcommunications forATM/debit network STARand director of marketing fora legal technology firm anda health care facility in theWashington, D.C., metroarea.Ruiz-McPherson wasalso communications activi-ties manager for the ICCFAfrom October 2007 to May2008.

Targeting your e-mails so thatrecipients will open and read them

ant better results with your e-mailmarketing efforts? Then you’ll needto start targeting your e-mail marketinglists rather than using a “one-size-fits-all”approach,because in today’s consumer-intimate marketingarena,one size no longer fits all.If you want better market penetration of yourmessage,try e-mail list segmentation.Here’s the typical e-mail scenario:Your funeralhome or cemetery has been collecting e-mailaddresses for quite some time. Someone at yourdeath care establishment is responsible for addingthe e-mails into one large master e-mail list.Maybe people sign up to your e-mail newsletteronline from your Web site. In that case,someoneat your funeral home or cemetery is responsible fordownloading those subscriber e-mail addresses intothe one large master e-mail list.Does this sound familiar?Notice here the master e-mail list being refer-enced in the scenario just described is singular andnot plural,meaning there is only one master e-maillist. This means that when there are special mes-sages,announcements or news your organizationwants to share with your e-mail subscribers,a“one-size-fits-all”approach is taken. The messageis developed and then sent to everyone on themaster e-mail list. It’s fast and inexpensive,andalso a scattershot approach.That’s the extent of most e-mail marketingapproaches by funeral homes and cemeteries.But some other businesses are miles ahead in theire-mail marketing efforts. Their e-mail marketingapproaches offer benchmarks the funeral and ceme-tery business can look to in order to reap the realbenefits of this highly targeted,low-cost direct mailvehicle.E-mail marketing times have changed. Thetime has come for the “one-size-fits-all”school of thought to grow and mature into a more targetedapproach. Don’t you want to know who is who onyour e-mail list and what group A wants in compar-ison to groups B and C?Surely recently bereaved families may not beas interested in learning about your columbariumdedication as those who are in the process of pre-planning a cremation service.Segmenting your e-mail lists can help you boostthe overall performance of your e-mail marketingprogram by improving revenue opportunities,listquality and e-mail deliverability.

 Revenue opportunities.

Subscribers are morelikely to open and act on mailings that more closelyreflect their needs and interests. Jupiter Researchstudies have shown that you will see a greaterreturn on your investment when you target yourmailings. A campaign that uses segmenting basedon past behavior,such as opens,clicks or conver-sions,can bring in nine to 10 times more revenuethan one in which the entire list receives the samemessage.

• List quality.

Segmenting can help you keepyour mailing list fresh and engaged. For example,you may wish to target subscribers who haven’topened or clicked in your e-mails for a while andtry to re-engage them with new messagingapproaches and incentives.

• Improved deliverability.

When your e-mailmessages are more targeted and relevant throughsegmentation,they will stand out in subscribers’already overflowing inboxes.Ultimately,your subscribers will be more likelyto open and act on your e-mails and less likely todelete them or report them as spam when the mes-sages are relevant and expected.

A segmentation example

Let’s say your funeral home has an e-mail mailinglist of 583 subscribers. How many of those sub-scribers are preneed clients rather than preneedprospects who have yet to prearrange anything fromyou? Do you know which e-mails belong to guestswho attended a service as opposed to familiesyou’ve served directly?Your list of 583 subscribers could be segmentedinto niche marketing groups deserving of their own

E-mail marketing is easy to send,but it’s easy to delete, too.If you want people toread your e-mails, you need to learnhow to target them to different markets.

by MayraRuiz-McPherson

mayra@mayraruiz.com

ICCFA MAGAZINEAUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

MARKETING/TECHNOLOGY

Editor’s note:

When sending e-mails, businesses must remember to comply with applicable laws and regulations regarding spam, such as including opt-out information.