Email Personalization: The Most Powerful Email Marketing Strategy

Email has undoubtedly remained one of the most critical communication channels that is used by almost every business of the present times. Many marketers have already been employing personalization tactics in their emails to some extent. As a matter of fact, emails per se are the most personalized modes of communication when compared to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Imagine, a subscriber abandons a shopping cart due to some technical issue in the payment gateway. And soon after, an email from the eCommerce brand pops up in their inbox that offers to help, in case they have any trouble placing the order.
Wouldn’t it encourage the prospective customer to complete the purchase and warrant a pleasant shopping experience for them? That’s exactly how personalized emails work.
Are you wondering how to collect data for email personalization? Here are a few effective tips for data collection:
1. Email capture forms
You can add fields like gender, birthday, location, etc. in addition to name and email address in your email capture forms. This will help you get more subscriber details and send more personalized emails.
2. Integration of email marketing tool with CRM
You can import details like past purchases and lifetime value of the customers by integrating the email marketing software with your CRM, eCommerce platform and accounting package.
3. Preference center
Use the email preference center to draw out the interests of the subscribers and send them emails that they would want to receive.
4. Behavioral Website Tracking
Track the subscriber’s browser activity to understand how they interact with your website. You can send more personalized emails based on this information.
5. Third Party Tools
Personalization is all about using the subscriber data wisely. Integrate third-party apps into your email platform to get access to the customer data.
However, make sure you follow the GDPR best practices and you have permission to use this data.

Personalization creates relevance

According to studies, the greater number of personalization elements in an email, the better is the response rate. The least you can do for personalization is addressing the recipients by their first name. In the end, email personalization zeroes in on creating relevant emails tailored to the specific subscriber and their preferences.
The way you approach personalization depends on the kind of email you plan to send.
Here are some ideas to create engaging personalized emails:
1. Segment your email list based on subscriber data
Create segments based on age, gender, demographics, geographic location, purchase cycle, purchase history, browsing history, average order size, etc.
2. Use personalization in your subject lines
Personalizing the subject lines makes the emails more intriguing for your subscriber. Find innovative ways to personalize the subject lines of emails according to the recent actions of the customers or a recent event they attended.
3. Include dynamic content in your emails
Dynamic content in emails is a form of personalization that works by creating sections of dynamically changing content. You can use geographic and demographic data to encourage the subscribers to make a purchase. It gives the customers a pleasant email experience, thereby building a better brand reputation.
4. Set email automation to send triggered emails
Through email automation program, you can send triggered emails in line with the buyer’s journey. You can send out replenishment emails to let your customers reorder the consumable products or a reengagement email to remind your customers to engage with you again.
See how Nokia sends out a personalized feedback email to their customer who has recently purchased their product.

 
5. Employ artificial intelligence and machine learning
Artificial intelligence and machine learning use specific algorithms to determine the behavior of the subscribers and engage with them on a personal level. You can send out more meaningful emails by employing the principles of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. That’s the basis of hyper-personalization in emails.
6. Create buyer personas
You can execute effective email personalization by creating buyer personas that match the stages of the buyer’s journey, namely awareness, consideration and decision.
Take a look at the example below where Sprout Social sends an email sharing the upcoming webinars and prompts the subscriber to take the desired action, increasing the likelihood of generating conversions.

 

Final Thoughts

Promotional emails without personalization are nothing except a boring sales pitch that delivers no value for the recipient. To make sure that your subscribers find the emails useful, don’t miss out on including personalization elements that aid in enhancing conversions and boost business growth.
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About the Author:
Chris is the Director of InboxArmy, a professional email marketing agency that specializes in providing advanced email marketing solutions from production to deployment. He has worked directly with Fortune 500 companies, retail giants, nonprofits, SMBs and government bodies in all facets of their email marketing services and marketing automation programs since almost 2 decades. He enjoys sharing his distinctive thoughts and insights into email marketing best practices at his blog.