Email marketing started simply enough: build a list and send to everyone.

Compared to other channels this was a godsend. Rarely, if ever, had marketers been granted access to such a cost effective, real-time channel to their prospects and customers.

We’ve come a long way since then. At the core of that progression has been segmentation but having seen a few markters struggle with this tactic, let me suggest a different approach.

Wastin’ Away
All marketing has waste. Either you’ll pay to put a message in front of someone that never sees or notices it, or you’ll blow the rare slice of attention you get from a skier by putting the wrong message in front of them.

This exists in social, it exists in print, it exists in video and, of course, it exists in email.

But unlike other channels, email has the ability to reduce that waste which, in my book, is a pretty darn cool feature.

Reduce, Reduce, Reduce
The next time you put together an email campaign, instead of building from the ground up, start with that same newsletter list of everyone and asking.

• Who is not going to care at all about this message?
• Who would be better reached at a different time with a different message?
• Who simply can’t act on the stuff I’m about to send?

Besides serving as a helpful starting point, I think some attempts at segmentation are overly restrive. It’s like inviting people to a birthday party. Coming up with a list of names from scratch and you’ll always miss someone but identifying who you don’t want to come sometimes serves at a faster means to a more accurate end.

Perhaps
This doesn’t work for everyone and it doesn’t work for every situation, but I’ve had some interesting conversations about segmentation lately and thought I’d share this approach that had worked for me.

Like I said, all marketing comes with waste. Because email comes with the ability to fight back, sometimes thinking about in terms of simply reducing waste is a helpful tweak.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.