Email Personalization is pretty much a self-explanatory term. However, email personalization in context with email marketing is the practice of writing emails to your customers or prospects using the data or information you have about them. This information can be their first name, last name, last order they made at your store, discarded products from the cart, their location, or any other important information with regards to your business you have about them.
Introduction
There can be different levels of email personalization. The most common and very basic level of email personalization is using the receiver’s name in the subject line. A more advanced level of email personalization can be changing the content of the email based on gender, buying behaviors, location, etc. Personalizing your email content is a proven way of increasing your open and click-through rates. Personalization of emails can have a measurable impact on your ROI and revenue. Research has shown that emails with personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened as compared to non-personalized subject line emails. When you have meticulously drafted your marketing email in a highly personalized way, it will make your prospect engage more with it. Similar subsequent emails sent as a follow-up communication will gradually build trust and loyalty.
Best Practices
Having known what email personalization is, the following 3 elements are the most important areas of practice.
1. Relevancy of the email – One of the most important parts of email personalization is that the content of your email should be very relevant. Having a subject line with the recipient’s name is just not enough. You need to gather some important data or information about the user to further personalize the message which grabs his attention. If your email doesn’t directly make an impact on users, your efforts in email marketing are most likely to go down the drain.
2. Timing of your email – It is important to keep a track of your subscriber’s / users’ customer journey. Sharing a customized recommendation or Call-To-Actions (CTA) can bring a huge conversion out of your email marketing activity.
3. Humanlike sending – The receiver of your email will trust and relate to it more if it was sent by a person and not by a business. You need to add a person’s name in the “from” field and a profile picture instead of the logo.
Statistical Summary of Email Personalization
According to a recent survey Emails with personalized subject lines are 24.5% more likely to be opened and the click-through rate is just above 3.8% compared to a non-personalized ones. More than 70% of marketers say that personalized emails increase customer/ prospect engagement. Personalized emails deliver 4x higher transaction rates compared to non-personalized emails. On average, 34% of prospects have expressed an interest in buying personalized products or services. Personalized calls to action convert 64% better than default calls to action.
Importance of Email Personalization
1. Customer retention and brand loyalty – When you send personalized emails to your prospect or the existing client, It makes them feel special and also establishes a better connection. This makes the clients/ prospects develop an interest in your brand/service and stay longer with you.
2. Provide better recommendations – As we have seen a big technological advancement in email marketing, we can also send “event-based or triggered emails”. If we personalize these emails, the relevance of these emails will be good and you can get more conversions out of your email marketing activity
3. Generate more revenue – analysis has consistently shown that email marketing with a personalized message results way better than a non-personalized email message. Relevant “subject lines” increase the open rate and the personalized message inside engages the audience better, and you get more conversions. It helps you close more sales and generate higher revenue.
4. Faster sales – Email Personalization not only helps you generate revenue but also achieves the same faster. The most important reason for the same is the personalization of the email helps the reader make the decision faster. A non-personalized email doesn’t attract attention as well as it can be seen as a fishy activity
5. Increase conversion rates and engagement – With the help of tracking systems in place, marketers can create email lists for dedicated campaigns based on user behavior, consumption pattern, location, language or even event tracking. With the segregation of email IDs, one can create a separate communication for each email list which will get more open rates, click rates and conversions
Ways of Email Personalization
1. Asking the Right Questions – One way of personalizing email for your customers is to ask them the right set of questions. Let them choose the type of content they are interested in. Once you know the preferences of your audience you can create emailing lists and personalize your message for them.
2. Build Customer Personas – It is very important for marketers to know their customers. When you define certain attributes of your customers such as location, age, interests, preferences and problems etc. you can have accurate communication in place.
3. Personalized Recommendations and Landing Pages – track your customers browsing history on your website, keep a track of abandonments of the cart, Interaction with CTA buttons etc. With this data, you can be in the right place at the right time. Promote the products they often view, upsell a modernized product version, and cross-sell useful items.
4. Set up behavior trigger emails – When users perform a particular action, an email is sent to them in response, these emails are called trigger emails. For example, when someone subscribes to an email list, you can have a system in place that sends him a welcome message. Similarly when someone orders, fills up a form, asks a question, etc. a personalized email can be sent to him. You can even send reminder emails to those who didn’t open your emails in the last six months. These emails have high open rates, better engagement, and more CTR.
5. Using Merge Tags – Merge tags are one of the most powerful tools in the email marketer’s toolbox. A merge tag is a specific code that allows you to insert unique user data from your mailing list into emails. You can use merge tags and address your users by name. This helps to grab their attention, and it also helps to build a personal relationship with the reader. Your target audience (email list) contains audience fields (probably on the excel sheet) that refer to your contact’s information. Each audience field corresponds to a unique merge tag, which looks like a snippet of text wrapped in special characters: *{{CUSTOMIZE}}*. When you insert a merge tag into your campaign, It replaces the tag with the content stored in the corresponding audience field.
For example, to include your contacts’ names in your email, you would place the *{{NAME}}* merge tag in your content where you want your contact’s name to appear. When your contact receives the email, they’ll see their own name where the merge tag was placed.
By using merge tags you can personalize your email content in creative ways for example – If you are a pet-care business, you can personalize an email for your client saying – “We haven’t seen Milo in the last six months. Time for a check-up!” or you can also personalize with info of the user’s last order that is “Enjoyed your cheese pizza on Sunday? Here’s a list of coupons exclusively for you!”
With the help of merge tags and conditional merge tags, you can hyper-personalize your emails. Dynamic emails work way better than just segmenting the email lists.
How are merge tags used? What are some of the ways to use merge tags and conditional merge tags to hyper-personalize your emails?
Conclusion
Email personalization is one of the most important things in your cold email marketing strategy. Personalization with the use of merge tags helps you build a strong connection with your customers. Email personalization makes the reader feel special and makes him engages with the content. This brings more open rates, click-through rates, and conversions from your cold email marketing activity.
