Do you have a tagging framework or a segmentation method for your email list?
Let’s assume for the sake of brevity that you are segmenting your list at least to the point of people who have bought and haven’t bought from you.
If you are like me, you are tag happy, they want to track everything someone on their list does and so they tag everything.
This is great, but if you don’t do anything with the information, it’s just clutter in your CRM or email marketing platform.
There really are 2 things to focus in on when you are segmenting your email list.
Intent
The first is intent.
Why do people buy from you? What problems are they trying to solve?
Intent is essentially the buyer’s goal. It’s what they want to achieve when they buy from you.
Someone’s intent is all the benefits that are important to them that they will get from you, your solution or product.
It’s their motivation behind the purchase decision.
For example, you want to buy a big screen TV because the big game is on and you are having a party.
The intent here is you want everyone to see the game, and maybe impress your friends a little too.
That’s the motivation behind the purchase of a big screen TV.
Another example, and maybe a bit more relevant is a non-profit wants to redesign their website so that they get more signups for their fundraiser.
The intent here is that the non-profit needs signups to get more donations so that they can fuel their mission.
The motivation behind the purchase of a redesign is that it will result in more signups.
How you obtain this intent is either through asking them and recording that as a tag.
Or the more efficient way of getting that intent is by asking someone who just bought from you what they hope to achieve from their purchase.
Then you can take that information and turn that around into headlines on your website, maybe even case studies or articles too.
Interest
The second segment to focus on is interest.
This is harder to do, but when carefully planned out is powerful. Because interests is where you are able to really hone in on the language so that you can craft a proper buying journey for them.
Interest is a big area to cover because it has a wide range of possibilities. It’s actually where most get stuck in the weeds about, which in a minute I’ll share how you can avoid that.
For the sake of choosing the easy road first, demographics is a part of interests.
In the case above with the TV, the one making the decision obviously likes sports, has expendable income, and even has a time crunch to make a purchase.
In the case of the non-profit, well, that’s the first demographic. The age of their existing site and the number of signups they have for their fundraiser are also demographic data points.
Simply because they need a redesign doesn’t mean that they will convert into signups. You are the professional understand all the parameters that go into that conversion. Traffic, word-of-mouth, social, etc are all factors they don’t know about. If those are all good then moving a signup button around on the site make work. However, if there isn’t enough of that, a redesign may not even help. Maybe a paid ad campaign would be better for them.
The more difficult but intentional road to travel is creating opportunities for a potential buyer to engage with you that illustrate interest.
For example, if you’re like me, then you prefer video and audio content on the web over reading a 15,000-word article.
You can find this out by having various types of content that talk about the same thing. One type is video, another is a podcast and the other is the long form article.
This is an interest segment that allows you to give specific content types to them, but also know that if you are selling a book, they may be more interested in the audio book rather than the hard cover book.
How to start finding a subscriber’s interest
This segment is where most get into the weeds a bit because figuring out all the specific data points of interest is hard to do. So instead you tag everything and everyone.
If you are tagging everyone, then I suggest that you look at all those tags. See how many of your customers are in a particular tag.
Are you seeing a pattern of particular articles, videos, resources, lead magnets? If so, that’s where you start.
Those tags are telling you the story of your customers, that you’ll want to tell leads the same story.
Running your freelance business
More episodes in this topic:
17
What do you do when a crisis hits?
18
How to start building an email list as a freelancer?
20
How do you manage time wearing so many hats as a freelancer?
28
What software tools do you use for business? What is best?
32
How do you prevent, manage scope creep in your projects?
34
Do you schedule in time for exploring or reading articles online?
38
What is the best way to get income fast?
40
What happens if you can’t define a scope of work on a call?
41
What do I do first thing Monday morning?
47
How can I focus on my business when I’ve got a ton client work?
53
Do I have to be concerned with GDPR?
65
What are the tools and services that you use and would recommend to freelancers?
70
How do you have time for all that you do?
74
What podcasting gear do I use?
78
Does live chat bring you in business?
81
How do you followup with a lead after a proposal?
84
Did hiring a mentor really help you with starting up your business or your career?
87
What is my writing process
88
What is the easiest way to get a remote testimonial?
91
How do you determine a quality prospect?
115
How do you step away and actually take a vacation?
116
Are job boards reliable?
123
How to decrease the sales cycle or time to close?
127
How would you write a cold outreach email?
130
How to present different services that could potentially diminish your abilities in the minds of clients?
132
Should I bundle projects for clients or keep projects separate per client?
133
What product do you use for your business that you can’t live without?
135
What makes you stand out from other freelancers?
136
Do I drop this client?
142
How do I set a goal?
143
Do you meet leads and clients face-to-face?
144
How do I work “ON” my business and not “IN” my business?
147
What is the best structure for setting a goal?
152
How do you do a review of your week?
156
What do I say when a potential client says I’m too expensive?
159
What is activity based selling?
165
How to get more clients?
167
How to have a productive week?
168
Do you use a CRM for your business?
171
How do you choose the technology for your clients?
180
What is the structure of a weekly review?
181
What is the structure of a monthly review?
191
What are lead generation techniques to get me out of the feast and famine revenue cycle?
193
How do I know if I should buy a course?
198
What’s a polite way to tell existing clients you are raising your rates? And what is a reasonable percentage to go up?
199
How many email follow-ups should I send to a lead?
201
What do I do? I’m afraid to filter the tire kickers coming into my business because they are the only leads I have.
202
How to take the next step from contracting resource to solo business owner?
205
What do you think about Gutenberg? Schmutenberg!
206
How do I get better at sales?
207
How to overcome objections in sales?
208
How do I respond to an RFP?
209
How to respond to “I don’t need strategy, can you just do…”?
210
If you don’t have experience, how to you prove the quality without the education/experience?
212
How do you handle a client that has ghosted?
218
What do you ask during a sales call?
219
How to improve your sales process as a freelancer?
222
How to charge more as a freelancer?
225
How do you push past the imposter syndrome?
229
How do you segment your email list?
236
What to say when a client insists on adding something new?
257
What kind of content should I promote to potential clients?
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