Every marketer knows that personalization can help brands make money online .
In fact, 90% of leading marketers say 8 Email Personalization Techniques That personalization contributes significantly to business profitability .
But personalization is more important for some channels than others. In particular, email personalization can have a huge impact on performance. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened , while marketers who segment their campaigns have seen a 760% increase in email revenue.
However, not all customization is created equal.
If all you’re doing is starting your email with “Hi, {first.name},” that’s just basic, surface-level personalization, and that’s not enough.
According to one study, emails with advanced personalization (which goes beyond mentioning the prospect or company name) get an average response rate of 17% . But this drops to just 7% for emails without advanced personalization.
So, personalizing emails effectively takes a bit of effort. Here are eight ways to do it:
Technique 1: Use Contact Forms to Profile Your Audience
Personalizing emails is all about understanding your audience.
After all, if you don’t know who you’re talking to, how can you expect to target them with personalized email marketing messages ?
Now, that’s all well and good if you’re targeting existing customers, people who have been with you for years. Presumably, you already know pretty much everything you’ll ever need to know about them.
But what happens when you’re nurturing leads?
These could be people whose only interaction with your brand is downloading an eBook, attending a webinar, or subscribing to a newsletter.
Often, businesses know little about their potential customers beyond their name and email address. And, as I noted, simply adding someone’s name to a subject line doesn’t really count as personalizing emails.
Fortunately, you can change this fairly easily by asking a few simple questions on your data capture forms, such as:
Flamenco does this in one of their forms by asking just two questions with multiple choice options for the subscriber to easily answer. This allows them to personalize the emails later on and also segment their email subscribers.
One word of caution, though: Only ask one or two of these personalization-oriented questions. The more fields you include in your forms, the lower the response rate will be .
Technique 2: Personalize your subject lines
I’ve already pointed out that emails with personalized subject lines are more likely to be opened, so this is a total no-brainer.
But don’t assume that simply adding the prospect’s name or company to the subject line will magically do the trick. You need to be more sophisticated than that.
Taking a quick look at my inbox, it’s easy to find examples of clever subject line personalization. For example, Wayfair personalizes their subject lines (and all of the content of their emails) based on the types of products I’ve been browsing:
Once you understand who they are and what they’re interested in, it’ll be much easier to write highly personalized subject lines that compel them to click.
Technique 3: Personalize to the recipient’s time zone
This may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how often brands get it wrong.
Sure, if you only serve a very specific geography that only covers one time zone, there’s no need to worry.
But if you have clients all over the United States (and even further afield), you don’t want to send them an email at 6 p.m. with a message that starts, “Rise and shine, it’s a beautiful morning!”
Fortunately, many email marketing software platforms make it easy to schedule messages to arrive in your audience’s inboxes at the desired time, regardless of where they are located.
Technique 4: Send cart abandonment emails
Cart abandonment is a huge problem in the world of e-commerce, with research from the Baymard Institute revealing that the average documented rate of online shopping cart abandonment is nearly 70%.
Customers abandon shopping carts for a variety of reasons, from the price of additional costs like shipping and taxes to unsatisfactory return policies:
But just because they abandoned you once doesn’t mean you can’t convince them to come back with a well-timed cart abandonment email.
Abandoned cart emails are a great example of personalization because they are tied to a specific action taken by the customer. They couldn’t be more relevant.
Let’s say you abandoned a checkout because the extra fees were too much, and a day later the retailer sent you an email with a 10% discount code. You’re likely to come back and buy, right?
So it’s no surprise that these emails consistently have sky-high open rates – above 40% :
Technique 5: Welcome new subscribers
In the same way that abandoned cart emails are so effective because they are a direct response to a recent action taken by the recipient, “welcome” emails increase the chances that new subscribers to your email list will follow up on their initial action by making a purchase.
Simply put, every time a new member signs switzerland email list up for your newsletter or gives you their email address, you should immediately send them a welcome email.
That email should lay out your value proposition, remind the recipient why they signed up in the first place, and direct them toward the next action you want them to take.
She speaks directly to me and uses passionate, persuasive language that compels me to complete my registration. That final half-sentence about how her adorable pets can’t wait to meet me, is an absolute killer. I’d need a heart of stone not to click “Join Now”!
Technique 6: Mark key milestones
Don’t forget to celebrate your audience’s key milestones, such as birthdays and anniversaries.
Many brands do this because it’s a very effective personalization tactic. Again, I just did a quick search in my inbox for the word “birthday” and found countless results, like this one from the flower delivery service Bloom & Wild
For example, travel brands could send a reminder 12 months after the day you jetted off on a Caribbean vacation. “Remember Jamaica? Book your next trip!”
The possibilities are endless; anything can be turned into an anniversary if you have enough audience data and a good imagination!
Technique 7: Personalize your copy for different audiences
Whatever type of product or service you sell, chances are you have more than one type of buyer.
To give a simple example, an audience 10 may special category of personal data segment might know everything there is to know about products like yours. They don’t need to be told about the features and benefits; they are ready to convert based on their own needs.
For these people, you don’t need to worry about using complex terminology or explaining complicated concepts. You just need to be there with a compelling offer when they’re ready to pull the trigger.
On the other hand, another audience segment might be newcomers to your product category. They need a lot of help before they are ready to buy. With these prospective customers, you will need to keep things simple. Avoid jargon like the plague; be friendly and reassuring at every step.
As you can see, those two audiences require very different approaches, which should be reflected in the type of language you use in your email copy .
Technique 8: Extend personalization to key landing pages
Email personalization shouldn’t end in the recipient’s inbox, but should extend to your website design.
Think about it. Let’s say I received a highly personalized email that addressed my specific needs and pain points. The text was precise and highly relevant, so I clicked the CTA at the bottom and landed on a landing page…
…but I felt like that landing page was speaking to a completely different person. It mentioned a totally different set of features and benefits that didn’t fit my needs. The price was in the wrong currency. And there was no reference to the “special offer” I was promised in the email copy.
As expected, it bounced back immediately.
That’s exactly what will happen if your landing pages don’t feature the same levels of personalization as your emails. I always recommend hiring a freelance graphic designer if you don’t have the in-house expertise to do it yourself.
Putting it all together
Sure, personalizing emails takes a little more time than just writing a generic message and sending it to everyone on your email marketing list.
But it will position you to make more money twd directory online because it helps you speak directly to individual customers’ preferences and needs. And that’s definitely worth the effort.
About the author
Freya is the founder of the personal finance blog Collecting Pennies which teaches readers how to increase their passive income, save money, improve their credit score, and manage their debt. She has been featured in publications such as Business Insider, Fox Business, Huffington Post, and GoBankingRates.
