Note: this blog post contains affiliate links. 💰
I hate to do it, but let’s talk about BuzzFeed-style quizzes.
People tend to have strong feelings about them – very love ‘em or hate ‘em – but I love them but good.
Partially because a “Which Beyonce Are You?” quiz once told me I was I was the Beyonce from the Countdown video. That’s basically telling me I’m Beyonce AND Audrey Hepburn, and well, that’s just how you earn a fan for life.
But ALSO for other, more rational, “serious business” reasons.
They’re proven and popular tactics for growing your email list, with super brag-worthy results like increasing weekly list growth by 233% and bringing in 55.8 conversion rates.
I mean, I want me some of that. 💁🏻
I don’t know why you wouldn’t.
BUT there’s one part of these lead gen quizzes that doesn’t get talked about very often, even though it’s definitely one of the coolest things about them.
That’s the fact that they segment your subscribers as it converts them – not something any other lead magnets do.
This is what I want to dig into today.
Because if you’ve never considered an opt-in quiz for building your list, you’re probs missing out on oodles of subscribers and leads.
And if you’re using lead generation quizzes but NOT taking advantage of the segmentation coolness, you’re missing out on incredibly useful data about your new subscribers that can help you improve your email marketing strategy.
So let’s do this thing. 🙌 I even made a video for you:
Okay, But Why Does Email List Segmentation Even Matter? 🤔
Your audience and your customers are NOT all the same. Nope, far from it.
While business strategy exercises usually have you map out your ideal client, in reality, you have multiple buyer personas in your overall audience.
For example, I’m a content marketer with a productivity and business blog. People on my email list are interested in different things, running different kinds of businesses, at different stages in their career, and stuff like that.
The one thing they have in common is that they’re trying to make their online, content-based businesses run better. (And that they want to be my BFFAEAE.)
So why would I send them all the same emails all the time?
I do not, sir, I do not.
I love to talk about how tech has gotten so smart that we don’t always need to be, and so that kind of “spray and pray” email marketing doesn’t cut it so much anymore.
Email segmentation is the alternative, when instead of sending an email out to your whole subscriber or customer base, you choose a selection based on certain characteristics. And you JUST send to those people, the ones that are most interested in what you’re saying today.
People get soooo many emails, a lot of them pretty irrelevant to them – don’t be part of that pack. The key to keeping your list engaged and taking action is to make each message as relevant and personal as possible…especially as your list starts to get up there in size.
Segmentation can get ya improvements like:
- Increasing open rates
- Increasing click-through rates
- Earning more conversions
- Lowering spam scores
- Getting away with sending email more frequently because each one is SOOOO personal it’s like “did you send this just for me?!” 💁🏻
Ways to use email segments 📨
So, what kind of segments can you build? How should you slice and divide up your subscribers (in a TOTALLY non-painful, non-violent way!)?
A few of the different characteristics you can segment by include:
- Customer vs. non-customer
- Subscriber location
- Interests and topics of engagement
- Industry/niche
And that’s just getting started! And using email automation, you can move a subscriber into a segment at any point in the buyer’s journey.
You can segment them as they opt-in, based on the subject of the opt-in offer. Or, when you get set up with a lead generation quiz like we’re talking about today, you can also segment subscribers based on the specific results they got for specific parts of the quiz.
Then you can segment them further at any time, once you have their email. Based on clicks and opens of specific emails, based on buying behavior, etc.
The struggle with segmentation 😫
So segmentation is clearly very, very awesome. The one downside is in most cases, to segment subscribers well, they need to be actually engaging with your emails.
With most opt-in types, you can’t segment new subscribers right away. With something like a cheat sheet or webinar opt-in, you simply don’t collect enough information about someone to tell what they’re interested in.
Because of that, you then need to wait until they start opening and clicking on emails to segment and therefore personalize their marketing.
Oh nooooo!
It kinda sucks when you think about it.
But that’s the problem that a lead generation quiz can solve SO naturally.
What Makes Lead Generation Quizzes So Great? ⁉️
These quizzes are really popular for brands right now, and as someone who hates the status quo, I understand looking that and going, “are they REALLY so great?”
And to that I tell you:
Lead generation quizzes are conversion machines disguised as party games that give you an ego boost.
Who is NOT going to love that?
A good quiz is good for everyone, everywhere.
The user gets a fun quiz that tells them something helpful or confirming about themselves, the marketer gets an engaged new subscriber, possibly a social share, and (when done right) a qualified lead that can easily be segmented into a relevant sales funnel to make 👏 that 👏 money. 👏
When done right (Social Media Examiner has great tips on the strategy of it all), quizzes are:
High converting 📈
Lead gen quizzes, according to Econsultancy, can convert at over 50%. FIFTY PERCENT, PEOPLE! 🙌
And you don’t even need to force people to opt-in. Once you’ve spent question after question proving, “yeah, I get you, I know you, I see inside your soul,” people are more than happy to fork over an email.
Because they ACTUALLY want more content from you.
Super shareable 📱
Strategic quizzes also use results meant to make your reader feel strongly. Think about the quizzes you’ve really loved.
The results probably made you laugh, feel proud of yourself, cautious or skeptical fear, etc. Whichever way they lean, they lean in hard enough to pull a strong reaction from you.
Dare I say…strong enough to share?
Especially when you really rock the results description, people don’t want to keep their result to themselves.
Segmentation superstars 👌
Finally, when your lead gen quiz is part of a larger sales or marketing funnel, the segmentation options you have are way better than other opt-in offers.
Think about something like a video/webinar, ebook, or cheat sheet. The only way to get information to segment brand new subscribers is to add more form fields to the initial form or landing page. But we all know to be reeeeeally careful about the number of fields our forms have.
So that leaves you having to choose which trade-off you want: getting more info for possibly less conversion, or getting more subscribers but less info on them.
With quizzes, segmentation is built-in based on how they interact with the form.
For example, I use Interact and ConvertKit for my quiz + email situation. With how they integrate, I can send subscribers into specific sequences or sales funnel based on how they took the quiz. I send each quiz result into a separate ConvertKit sequence, but you can even use answers to individual questions in Interact to segment.
Then, there’s even MORE fun when you use those sequences to create further automation rules to give subscribers permanent tags based on quiz results. 😍
Seriously, y’all, segmentation out the wah-zoo.
So let’s walk through setting up a segmentation quiz.
How to Segment Subscribers With a Lead Generation Quiz
Let’s do this with Interact, since that’s what I’m comfortable with.
1. First, start a new quiz.
You can either create one from scratch or choose from a ton of pre-made templates:
2. Then customize the quiz “cover page.”
You can set the title, description, and button, and add a photo.
3. After that, head over to the “Styles” tab.
Here’s where you can customize the quiz colors and branding.
4. Set the quiz results next.
I know lots of us assume questions come first, but nope! In order to set up the questions correctly, we need to already have results to “map” them to.
You’ll want to set the quiz result as the title, add a photo, and write a description. The result descriptions are your chance to really relate to the reader and make them go “OMG this is so me,” so they HAVE to share.
You can also add a CTA button driving people to a link. This is great for driving traffic to a landing page.
5. NOW it’s time for questions.
Now you can add the questions one by one. For each, you’ll add a question, an optional image, and the results. The more you can play up your brand voice and resonate with your reader, the better.
6. Map correlations between answers and results
Next, click on “edit result correlations.” This part’s important, it’s where all the different questions come together. You need to tell Interact which result each answer option is related to, so that they each “guide” the reader to the best overall result.
7. Set up the email opt-in
Yayyyy, your quiz is set up! Now you need to adjust the settings so you can capture leads from it. All this is handled from the top-left corner of the quiz editor:
You can choose which form fields people will need to fill in, customize the copy, and choose whether opting in is optional or required (I recommend optional).
You’ll then be walked through connecting your email service provider. It’ll differ depending on which service you use, but I’m using ConvertKit.
8. Segment it all
Now it’s time for the exciting and cool part: actually using the result answers to segment your list. You have two options: segmenting by the overall result or by an individual question. By result has been just dandy enough for me, but you can go further if you need to! 🙌
With the ConvertKit integration, you can add subscribers to specific sequences and forms:
Then you can use those as triggers for ConvertKit automation rules to tag and segment people further, like for personalized welcome sequences. Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s data-filled wonder for your email list!
Setting up actions for individual answers is just like doing it for results.
After that, just follow the rest of the email list set-up instructions, and publish the quiz! 🎉 Once it’s live, you can share it as-is or embed on a landing page.
Have you ever used a quiz to grow your email list? How did it work for you?
