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

By Reported Donna Loyle

That’s what Andrea Vitale, vice president of direct marketing at 1-800-Flowers.com, is doing. Her team devises customer communications based on recency. That is, customers who’ve purchased in the past 12 months get a different message from those who haven’t bought in more than a year. Gift-givers get an altogether different message, one that reminds them of their last purchase and suggests similar merchandise. Vitale says those customers “probably are our highest-responding” group because of the relevancy of the offers being made.