List segmenting is a very powerful tecniqure for your company email lists. By targeting a smaller subset of your general list, you can give more specific messages based on what you know about that group. Many powerful tools are emerging that will let you segment your lists to the nth degree, but for the rest of us, here are some simple ways you can try out list segmentation: 

1. Recently Active

Creating a list out of who opened your emails on the past few campaigns can give you an idea of who's most interested. Not only is this information useful for you as a marketer, but it can also be a signal that someone is interested in buying from you, or highly engaged. Sending out a special message to the people who always open your emails can be a great way to engage your most fervent fans. Try sending them a special offer or some way of saying thanks. Treating your biggest fans to something special is always a great way to get them spreading the good news about your company, and maybe even get more people to join your list.

2. Location

Sending out Geo-targeted content is a great way to present information with more context. There's two ways you can do this: either by using the information you've gained that comprises your list, or by looking at the geographic information from where people are opening their emails. Depending on what tool you use, the second may or may not be available, or provide enough granularity to be useful.

Once you have people separated into different locales, you can begin to tall them about events in there area, point them to a location closest to them, or refer them to a salesperson in that area. Done right, localized content can be really effective for engaging your list.

3. Mobile Devices

This one has the same rules as above, so the tool you use may determine it's effectiveness. Looking at who frequently opens up your emails on a mobile device can tell you a few different things. First, you definitely want to either target them with a mobile layout, or check to how your standard layout looks on a mobile device. 

Second, you want to make sure your emails are extra succinct for a mobile user. If you have a form, make it shorter. If you have a call to action, make it sweeter. If you're notifying them of something, get to the point sooner. Mobile users can be looking to just clear out a bunch of emails quickly, so treat their time extra valuably, and adjust for this.  

4. Who's Clicking

Lot's of powerful email tools will let you build out information on customers based on what they click and other behaviors. Well, there's an easy way for you to do a simplified version of that. You can go through and see who clicked on what in most programs and create a new list based on that. Now you have a list of people who were really interested in something you sent them. 

From there, you can create an email (or a mini-campaign) that tries to provide them with more content and identifies if they're interested in different things. By performing even small campaigns like this, you can learn what's most appealing to your ideal customers, and what you can do more of to keep them engaged. It can also be a great way to begin to nurture your most interested prospects through the buying cycle. 

This experiment can product a lot of good feedback on what connects with customers, and who may be ready to talk to someone soon.

5. Old-timers

Email lists decay on average 25% annually, so if you can get people who were once interested segmented out, it can be beneficial to reconnect. Try sending out messages targeted at the least active parts of your list and see if you can get them to re-engage with messages about "We've missed you!" and "See what's been happening while you've been gone" if that works. 

Finding out what was originally interesting to them about your website or company can help you figure out what is likely to get them visiting again. Maybe you haven't written about a topic in a while that was interesting six months ago? Try updating your content with how things have changed, and see if that can help to pull them back in. 

Sometimes emails just go bad, or you've been marked as spam and are unlikely to recover. If you aren't able to get them to open your emails or engage, then it may be time to clear them from the lists so that your lists stay clean and your percentages are more accurate.

Conclusion

There's lots of simple ways you can experiment on your email lists. They're not only helpful in getting prospect more involved, but they can also help you learn more about the people you email, and what you're doing that they engage with. Plus, when the time is right to look into upgrading to a more robust email solution, like Hubspot, you'll already have a good understanding of how to segment your list, and how targeted emails (and maybe even automation) can be helpful down the road.