Everyone doesn’t need to know everything.
We understand the skepticism around email marketing. Many arts organizations question its effectiveness, and with good reason—we’re all experiencing inbox fatigue. Most people receive dozens of marketing emails daily that don’t align with their interests or needs.
The challenge isn’t that email marketing is ineffective, it’s that untargeted email marketing is ineffective.
Consider your own experience receiving emails from organizations you initially connected with:
- You signed up with specific interests, but received communications about everything
- Subject lines like “This Week at [Theater Name]” gave no indication of relevant content
- Over time, you began ignoring or deleting these messages without reading them
This experience is precisely why many arts organizations question the value of email marketing – and they’re right to be concerned.
A More Respectful Approach: Email Segmentation
Email segmentation divides your audience into smaller groups based on specific criteria, allowing for more relevant, targeted communications. Rather than overwhelming your entire list with every announcement, you can deliver information to those most likely to be interested.
This approach respects your audience’s time and attention while improving your results.
At GGM, we typically recommend using segmentation for multi-email campaigns. While an initial announcement might go to your full list, follow-ups and reminders are best sent to smaller, more focused segments. This will help you avoid unsubscribes, while keeping your core target audience for a specific event or service engaged and informed.
You might segment by things like:
Demographic Relevance
- An in-person only event: Don’t blast your nationwide or international audience with emails.
- Promoting your dance company’s tour: Segment out your local fans.
- A show geared towards kids: Don’t send multiple emails to your college-aged audience.
Past Sales & Engagement
- Promoting a niche performance art show: Focus on folks who’ve attended similar events in the past.
- Another kids’ event: Same deal, structure your reminder emails around the families in your audience.
- Upcoming live music concert: the dance fans in your audience might not be thrilled to receive three emails about it.
- TIP: If you include a checkbox during checkout inviting people to sign up for your emails, you can use that moment to capture what types of events they’re interested in.
Email Interactions
Participation records aren’t the only way to gauge potential interest. This is why we recommend sending announcement emails to your full list…
If someone clicked the “learn more” or button on your announcement email, it’s safe to assume they’re interested in the thing you’re promoting. Include them in your segmented reminders to reach people who’ve already shown interest!
Stated Preferences
The most obvious—but often the hardest to collect—segmentation data is your audience’s interests.
When you have this information, you don’t have to rely on assumptions based on demographics, past attendance, or email behavior. You can communicate based on what your audience has explicitly said they want to hear about.
The best time to gather this information is during the email signup process or by including an “update your preferences” call-to-action in your welcome email. (We can help you build a great signup form.)
Implementation Without Overwhelming Your Team
Effective segmentation doesn’t necessarily mean preparing and sending dozens of different emails. Start with:
- Announcing major events to your full list
- Sending targeted follow-ups only to relevant segments
- Gradually refining your approach based on email interactions and stated preferences
This approach reduces total email volume while increasing relevance – addressing both your concerns and your audience’s preferences.
Ready to boost your conversion rates and keep your audience engaged?
Drop us a line! (We can help you implement these tactics in email services like Mailchimp and Kit.)