Customer segmentation and personalization, along with better vendor selection, can help boost your e-mail marketing results.

By Reported Donna Loyle

One way to personalize messages is to use category purchase history and then carefully craft the message to the recipient. McDonald offers an example: Say you sell men’s apparel, and you know that people who buy leather jackets also tend to buy baseball caps. “You can use all the data you have on that customer segment to personalize messages. For example: ‘Jack in Evanston, Ill.: How about a Chicago Cubs baseball cap to go with that Wilson’s brown leather jacket you bought from us last week?”