Personalized Email Marketing: How to Plan Better Campaigns
Email Marketing is a tried and tested method of raising your conversion rate. The good thing about this method is that you already know that the recipients are interested in what you are offering. It may sound outdated, but the world still prefers to connect through email. All official communications in schools and offices are also done via email. So, why move away from a strategy proven to have worked well?
It is also important to acknowledge that not all emails are created equal. You may receive many promotional emails daily, but I doubt you open every single one. You will only click on the ones that interest you. This is where personalization sets a marketing email apart from a generic one. You are more likely to open one addressed to you and cater to you somehow. For example, you might get an offer of a free birthday gift or a discount via email, as they do at Sephora and many other restaurants. Red Lobster gives you a free dessert or an appetizer. And if you are in Chicago, you get a free cake slice from the world-famous Portillo Cakes!
Personalization makes an email unique. It is designed according to your purchases, wish list, and user behavior. Instead of receiving the same mass-sent email, you get an email from your favorite brand created specially for you. Everyone likes being paid special attention to, and a personalized email does that job.
Why Personalization of an Email Marketing Campaign Works
Better Engagement
Of course, you will pay more attention to an email if it is written just for you, right? The same logic applies here. When your potential consumers feel like you as a brand care about them, they are more likely to engage with your brand. Also, if your content and offers in the email are customized to their interests, there are more chances of them reading your email.
Boosts Your Sales
Purchasing history, wishlists, and even unfinished purchases in your user’s cart are great places to start. You can then simply make an offer to them via your emails that they cannot resist. However, this can only happen if your offer aligns with their user behavior. For example, if someone buys a camera from your tech shop, you can offer discounts on lenses, camera bags, and other gear. This strategy makes sure that your one-time buyers keep coming back to you.
Builds Brand Loyalty
A good product or service is very important, but consumers nowadays look for more. So many companies and brands offer products or services similar to yours. So, what other things can you do to ensure that your consumers stay loyal to your brand? A personalized email solves that problem for you. You build a personal connection with your customers; they feel you understand exactly what they need and want. This personal touch helps you retain your customers for a long time.
Lower Unsubscriber Rate
If your recipients unsubscribe from your promotional email marketing, it is a clear sign that something is wrong. It could be your generic format, long paragraphs, repetitiveness that feels like spam, or even ambiguous offers. No one likes to read an essay that does not make sense and is irrelevant. Personalizing your emails takes care of this problem. It makes your content purposeful and useful, which can greatly decrease your unsubscribe rate.
Expert Tips on Creating Better Personalized Email Marketing Campaigns
Segmentation of Your Email List
Segmentation divides your email list based on different characteristics, such as age, location, gender, purchase history, etc. This allows you to easily customize your emails depending on what group you want to target. For example, if you own a clothing store, you should send offers and updates about winter clothes to people living in cold areas and vice versa. Similarly, you should send updates about feminine clothes to female users or those who buy women’s clothing and masculine for male audiences. Each group will feel like your informational email was relevant and created just for them, and there are more chances of a sale.
Incorporating Dynamic Content
Using content that is dynamic shows different products to different people. You can change images, text, and even buttons according to who your recipient is. This way, you can show fashion-related products to fashion enthusiasts, baby clothing to new parents, and newly launched gadgets to users interested in tech. And you can do that by using dynamic content in the same email. It really works because it is endorsed by more than 2/3rd of marketers who are expert at personalized marketing campaigns. Also, as per the latest research, your email campaign has the highest success rate if you add dynamic content such as multimedia (videos or images).
Study Customer’s Purchase History
If there is any guaranteed method of retaining customers and making more sales, it is studying and using your customers’ buying behavior. It is simple but very effective. User purchase history gives you insight into their interests. It is like peeking into their brains and using that information to increase your conversion rates. For example, if your customer has just bought a cell phone from your store, you can send them offers or updates about the latest Bluetooth earphones, headphones, protective cases, and screens. It also makes your customers feel like you care about their preferences, improving customer experience.
Behavior Triggered Emails
Behavior-triggered emails are simply what they claim to be: based on your customer’s behavior. You have to observe not only what your consumers do but also what they don’t do. Using only their purchase history and wishlist is not enough. You have to take into account what they are interested in but still do not buy. For example, you can remind them to finish their purchase if they leave something in their cart. Your email should be timely, and you can add offers like free shipping today, a voucher, or even store credits. Paying attention in this way can literally pay off in the form of more sales.
Addressing Your Consumer By Name
Using a person’s name in your email is a very impactful way to grab your customer’s attention. Instead of writing ‘Hey, look at our weekend offers,’ if you use ‘Hey Sarah, these weekend offers are just for you!’, your user is more likely to open your email. It adds a personal connection, and it feels a lot more friendly. Adding a personal touch also helps your user trust your brand more because they will feel like you pay more attention to their likes and dislikes.
Personalization of Subject Lines
According to the latest stats published by HubSpot, personalizing your subject lines and message leads to as many as 72% of subscribers opening your email. The subject line is the first thing your consumer sees when you send an email. It should be designed so that they feel compelled to open it and spark their curiosity. You can also use your consumer name and add details about their purchase behavior. For example, instead of writing ‘25% off the running shoes’, you can use ‘Hey David, we think you’ll love 25% off your favorite running shoes’. You can easily use this strategy to engage your customers a lot more.
Optimize Email Sending Times
As you should post when your audience is most likely to see and engage with your content, your email-sending timings are also equally important. According to research, the best time to send your marketing emails is between 9 am to 3 pm during the daytime. This gives you a six-hour window. Similarly, studies show that Sunday is the worst day to send such an email, and Tuesday is the best. This should, however, be customized as per your target audience groups’ location and not your location. You should also monitor data about when your users are mostly online and align that into your personalized email marketing strategy.
A/B Test Your Email Campaigns
As per Litmus, A/B testing your personalized email marketing campaigns guarantees their quality, performance, and almost 30% more ROI. It also helps you decrease spam-like content and redundancy. Most importantly, it shows what resonates with your audience and what content performs the worst. You can test it separately on subject lines, hook, content, and offers. You can also test two emails against each other for comparison. It is only wise to ensure that your campaign works instead of just sending emails blindly and hoping for the best.
Loyalty Rewards
Offer your loyal customers exclusive and personalized rewards via email marketing to make them feel special. Building loyalty is a hard job, but maintaining it is even harder. The psychology behind loyalty rewards also shows that it really works. You can also create a multi-tier system for loyal customers and offer rewards accordingly. For example, Sephora has a reward system based on how much money you spend in their store. They give early access to their VIB members in sales through their emails. You can also build points as you keep purchasing. There are many products against which you can redeem your collected points. All these rewarding strategies also motivate your consumers to spend even more money on your store.
Special Offers for Special Days
You can make your customers’ day by offering them personalized offers and freebies on their birthdays and anniversaries. This is a very common marketing strategy, and it works wonders. You can center the personalization of the emails on the dates that your customers deem significant. Everyone loves being remembered and celebrated on their special days. It makes your subscribers feel valued and strengthens your relationship with them.
Setting up Email Automation
Email automation is as successful a strategy as email personalization. Combining them both is smart. With email automation, you can set up sending emails automatically without having to do it manually. For example, if someone signs up for your online store, you can send a welcome email instantly. Similarly, you can automate holiday offers, anniversary or birthday discounts, exclusive deals for loyalty points, and even updates on new launches and sales. You can set it up in parallel with optimum timings and favorable days of the email-sending schedule. It takes a bulk of manual work from you and your team, and you can focus more on the quality instead of grub work.
Conclusion
Personalization of email marketing campaigns is proven to be up to 72% more successful than regular strategies. It might take some extra effort, but statistics show it is worth it. Using our recommendations, you can start planning your personalized email marketing. If you are still confused or have questions, feel free to reach out to one of our email marketing experts. At bmymarketer, we use these exact data-driven and research-based methods to create email marketing campaigns designed to generate more sales for you. Get a feel of how that works by requesting a free demonstration from us here. (Add link @ here).
