If done correctly, email conversation could be as good as real conversation. Some say, it could even be better if you add personal touches to your emails. Not only do such emails look good, they may also increase email open rates.
You want your mail to stand out in the recipient’s inbox. You don’t want your mail to be sent in the spam box.
Contrary to what had been predicted earlier, email marketing has not lost its relevance. Far from it. It is a must-have for anybody who is selling their products and services via Internet.
Email marketing may not be as effective as organic and paid search ads. But sale professionals know that social media and affiliate program come nowhere close to email marketing when it comes to sales.
Sending personalized emails is about making the recipients believe that these emails have been sent especially to them.
In order to be efficient in writing personalized emails, you have to identify needs and interests of your target audience. Your email conversation should always talk about specific topics. It will help you build trust with your audience.
Need For Personalization In Email Marketing
It has been proved that email personalization is a better marketing strategy. Email marketers are using it to improve customer relationship. Since, customers trust personalized emails, you are also likely to get higher return on your investment.
According to a study conducted by the Campaign Monitor, every dollar spent on email marketing gets $44 return on investment.
Another reason, why you need to employ such tactic is the fact that by 2020, there will be 4.3 billion email users worldwide by 2020. Many of them will be your potential customers. Don’t you like to acquire and engage with them?
When it comes to B2B audiences, email occupies the third place in the Most Influential Source Of Information. It is outperformed only by colleague recommendations and industry thought leaders.
Segmented email marketing campaign and inserting a video in an email get more opens and increase click-through rate.
How To Be Personalized In Email Marketing
Many people think personalization is all about addressing their customers by their first name. Personalization goes beyond this basic.
Steps To Increase Your Email Open Rates
You need to identify areas that need to be personalized. If you want to improve customer retention and engagement, you should be aware of your customer’s preferences, interests, buying behavior.
1. Start With Segmentation
Create customer segments according to demographics and interests. Once you group your customers according to demographics and interests, your task becomes easier. Now, offer them something that is relevant to their interests.
In a survey conducted by Ecoconsultancy, 72% of marketing, digital and e-commerce professionals revealed that they use customer data to create segments. The same survey also found that even the most underachieving businesses like to use segmentation.
Your customers will respond to your emails if your offers are based on their interests. They will take your recommendations seriously because you come across as someone who care about your customers.
So, if you want your email campaign to achieve better results, find common characteristics first, and tailor your campaign accordingly.
2. Email Copy
Details of your subscribers like gender, names, interests will help you customize your email copy. Your promotional offers should be based on the important details of your subscribers.
For example, you can inform your subscriber that you have just updated the playlist for them. And the list includes all their favorite artists.
3. Send The Right Offers
Sending the right offer at right time at regular intervals makes for a good email campaign. You will attract new customers and older one will never move to your competitors if you know what interests your audiences. Offers based on their core needs will boost your credibility.
4. Send Hand-Picked Recommendations To Them
Which is the last product your customer had purchased? Which products they had browsed through while visiting your ecommerce store?
You can use all these behavioral data, and your next campaign should inform your customers that this list has products that are highly relevant to their interests. Accurate product recommendations are always hard to be ignored.
5. Images And Infographics
Nothing performs better than images and infographics. You can keep them interested in your emails by creating images based on their browsing history and past purchases.
6. Subject Lines
Subject line should be simple and straightforward. Your subscribers will ignore the emails which are too creative. Unlike copy and design, the subject line is not the place for being extra creative. Make it simple. Just talks about specific topics.
7. Use Dynamic Content
Dynamic content keeps changing according to the behavior of the user. It is based on the latest preference and interests of the visitor. People leave lots of data while visiting your site. You can use them to personalize your email.
Do you think you have to spend hours to tweak each email to target your customers? No, you don’t have to be engaged in this time-consuming exercise. Only some portions of email should be customized.
These portions should show dynamic content based on the behaviors of your customers. They will be thrilled to find such information delivered straight to their mail.
You can use many data points to integrate dynamic content with your emails. Data related to geographical locations, customers’ purchasing behavior, browsing history, and even gender can be used to display dynamic content in the email.
Final Thoughts
Many businesses are using personalization in their email campaign to boost the credibility of their brands and improve customer engagement.
In order to do it effectively, collect the information that are more relevant for your business. Group your customers accordingly and send them emails and show that you care about them
