Email marketing is a tried and true strategy. But in today’s digital age, cutting through the clutter of your customers’ inboxes is trickier than ever before. Today, an estimated 333 billion emails are delivered and received every day.
But brands have found a way to rise above the digital noise: By personalizing their email marketing campaigns. By using this strategy, businesses are able to reach more customers, boost engagement and build stronger relationships.
To help you get started, we’ll cover why email personalization works (hint: it makes people feel heard) and the tips and tricks you need to effectively personalize your email marketing campaigns.
The Issue With Generic Emails
Generic emails are impersonal, and this comes with consequences. For one, customers don’t want to be treated like numbers. Brand communications should make customers feel valued — not another sales grab.
On top of that, you also risk sending a message that comes across as pushy and irrelevant. Customers are likely to unsubscribe from your mailing list if they feel like they’re being spammed with promotional messages they don’t care about.
The solution to this problem? Use email personalization. This can include addressing each contact by name and offering relevant content that meets their interests at that moment in time.
The key to sending personalized emails is to have a strategy in place. Are your emails too text heavy? Do you make the most of your customer data? We’ll share our best tips and tricks for effectively emailing customers with a personal touch.
Greet Users by Name
Personalizing your email content with your subscribers’ names may seem simple, but it can make a big difference. One place to use your customer’s name is the email subject line. Let them know the email they’re about to open is personalized just for them.
Once you’ve added a personalized subject line, greet your customer by name in your actual email. By adding personal touches to your email content early on, you avoid a common mistake: Being too vague with your personalization. Be upfront and explicit that you’re not just addressing another customer — you’re speaking to every individual.
Leverage Your Customer Data
Another common mistake marketers make? They think personalization begins and ends with customer segmentation. While this can be effective, better personalization goes beyond looking at demographics, customer personas and even time zones. It’s about using your data to give every customer the individual attention they deserve.
Just take a look at Amazon. The ecommerce giant has nailed their personalization strategy with carefully curated recommendations for every shopper, based on their previous purchases, browsing history and more.
Check out this video from PHH Mortgage as another example.
Imagine receiving this explainer video in an email. From your official start date to loan type and more, this explanation is completely personalized to what you need to know. Apply this same level of personalization to your email marketing strategy to send customers email content they’ll actually want to engage with.
Make Your Messages Visual
To take your personalized content a step further, swap blocks of texts for visuals to better engage your audience. Send every user a relevant message in a matter of seconds with a personalized GIF. Recap key points tailored to every viewer with a personalized infographic.
Don’t forget about video, which we’ve seen work especially well to boost metrics like reengagement, conversions and CTR. A report by Forrester shows including a video in an email can increase click through rates by 200%-300%. And personalization makes your video content even better.
From welcome emails to upselling, try adding Personalized Videos to whatever type of email you want to send. Take a look at this personalized year in review WW (formerly Weight Watchers) sent out to members to celebrate their biggest wins.
The brand leveraged an omnichannel approach, distributing the video both in-app, via a dedicated video landing page, and through email. Each video highlighted the viewer’s best moments and gave valuable insight into all they achieved.
Videos like these can take your email content beyond their inbox and onto social media platforms, too. Viewers can share their video with family and friends to show off their progress, see how they stacked up against others and more. The upshot? Your customers get bragging rights — and your brand gets free advertising.
Send Personalized Triggered Emails
Timing is everything, and triggers are no exception. When you send a triggered email campaign, you can customize the content of your messages based on the actions of your customers. For example, if they abandon their shopping cart, purchase history or purchase intent might be good triggers to use.
You can also use triggers to improve your customer service. Send an email reminding customers of upcoming deadlines and other important dates to avoid points of friction that can hurt your customer experience. Check out this personalized policy renewal reminder from Zurich as an example.
By leveraging marketing automation, this brand was able to send out a reminder to customers exactly when they would need it most. A proactive approach like this shows your brand’s commitment to giving every customer the 1:1 attention they deserve.
Send Out Custom Recommendations
Recommendations can be a powerful tool in the customer retention arsenal. When used properly, they can increase repeat business and boost your revenue.
But this strategy also comes with risks. Done wrong, sending irrelevant offers can irritate your customers — and are often easily ignored. To get customers to click through emails offering coupons and deals, personalize your product recommendations and other offers.
By tailoring your upselling strategy, customers receive emails with recommendations that speak to their wants and needs — making it more likely they’ll engage with your email content and convert later on.
Effective Email Personalization for Your Business
You now have a guide to the best practices for email personalization. The bottom line is that personalizing your emails makes them more effective and allows you to connect with your target audience on a deeper level.
Smaller brands are able to manually personalize their emails to customers. But if your business operates at a larger scale, giving customers the individual attention they demand is all but impossible without the right tools.
The solution? Connect your database to your video creative to create Personalized Videos at scale for millions of customers — and add those dynamic videos to your emails for better engagement, conversions and other business results. It’s possible, even easy, with our Next Generation Video Platform.
Ready to take your email personalization to the next level? Schedule a 15-minute call with one of our video experts.
