Snaptastic Blog

You simply don’t receive VIP status from normal behavior. In order to get on the VIP list you either need to know someone important, or you have to be hand-selected.

You mean to tell us you don’t know someone on the inside? No worries, we’ll give you the secret on how to get hand-picked. Do something of value.

That’s it? Well at least if you were a customer on an email subscription list, that would be it.

How to segment a VIP email list

Just like waiting in the VIP line for a special event, your customers should be just as excited to be on your VIP email list. As we said earlier, you don’t just get on “the list” for no reason; you have to add some sort of value to the other party. In the case of email marketing, that value can be a click, an open, or an opt-in. It’s up to you to determine which action will gain your customers access to a spot on your newly-segmented list.

If you want to create a subscriber list that is extremely exclusive, you may want to add customers that directly choose to opt-in to the new list from a Facebook app, or within your current email communication. You can send a campaign thanking them for showing interest in your email communications while asking them to subscribe to your exclusive VIP list in order to receive even more savings, special event invites, and product specials. If you’d like to be the one to decide who gets on the list, you can export your campaign reports and combine them in an Excel document of all customers that have opened your email campaigns within the last month. Don’t worry about adding duplicates when you upload them back into your email marketing system, most providers eliminate duplicate entries. Just be sure to explain to them that they have “received VIP status” or “are on your a-list” because of their involvement with your communications. If you’re a SnapRetail subscriber, you can easily export an Excel document from your Reporting section in order to begin creating another segment.

You can even combine both methods, create a VIP list of most engaged customers (those who open) and tease others within your social network who aren’t on the list. This is a great tactic to gain more email subscribers as well. You can thank everyone on Facebook or Twitter that took advantage of a coupon sent solely to your VIP list and explain to those who missed out that they can opt-in to the list from your Facebook application.

Aside from all other benefits, segmenting your email lists is an awesome way to learn more about your target audience while re-engaging those who haven’t been responding as well. Sometimes it just takes a little incentive and a few email marketing tricks to add more value to the online relationship between you and your customers.