The most valuable asset you have in marketing and communications is your customers information - their PII (personal identifying information, like their name and contact information), demographics (where they live), buying patterns, and more.
Since this information is so important, we thought it had to be conveniently accessibly to you. Beyond just having access to your customer data, we also knew that we needed to make it easy to break down and combine customers into useful segments that you can use for targeting communications.
So what exactly is a segment?
A segment is just a collection of customer records that share one or more common attributes. You could have a segment of all customers who have purchased in the last two months, or maybe one of all customers who spent over $100 this week.
Or, you could go deeper! Maybe you’re rolling out a big announcement about your upcoming family programs featuring local performers and you wanted to offer a discount. You could make a segment of customers who are local (since the performers are also local and they might have more name recognition there), customers who like family programs (since that’s the type of event) and customers who usually buy discounted tickets (since you’re offering a discount. )
Got it, I know what segments are - how is this helpful in Activity Stream?
Let’s use that last example above - the local family programs with discounted tickets. Combining those segments and using them in your campaign ensures that only the most relevant people get your communications, saving you time (and money)! Additionally, this means that you’re only emailing to a small group of your potential email recipients, freeing up your other recipients to get other promotions (and, if they’re not going to be interested in family programs, why bother messaging them about one?)
Okay, I’m convinced - segments are useful. Now, how do I get started making them?
Anyone can make segments in Activity Stream! In fact, you may have already created some segments without realizing it. Segments can be created right from the Customer Overview by clicking on different criteria, or in a more detailed way using the Segment Mixer.