Email marketing is known for some of the highest overall return on investment (ROI) rates, when compared to every other digital marketing channel available to marketers.
While it currently averages a total of $38 for every $1 spent, there was a time when those numbers were as high as $44 for every $1 spent. Those numbers drive marketers worldwide to give email marketing a shot.
While those numbers are promising, they aren’t guaranteed. That’s why marketing teams need to practice several different best practices, including the incorporation of various email personalization tips.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Email personalization tips go far past adding “Hi ” in your subject lines.
Email personalization used to mean simply including your subscriber’s name in your email subject line and maybe once in the body of your email copy. However, as technology has progressed, that’s not all that’s expected. Email personalization tips now include dozens of different tactics for making each of your readers feel they’re being addressed on an individual basis.
Thanks to advancements in imagery, coding, and so much more, email personalization can be taken to completely new heights, such as creating automated emails that can detail a subscriber’s personal data and be sent out with milestone or anniversary details.
Here’s an outstanding email provided by the fitness brand, Fitbit.
Source: Really Good Emails
In this weekly email, there are several different forms of personalization included, such as:
- The user’s name
- Total values for the week in various categories
- Which day was their most active out of the week
While this weekly email is sent out to every Fitbit user who’s opted in to receiving them, each one is personalized down to the last detail.
Now, that level of personalization isn’t always viable for every brand. It all comes down to your niche and the type of content you’re sending out to your subscribers. That’s why you want to take the time to utilize the email personalization tips that fit your needs, not the needs of Fitbit or any other brand, for that matter.
Why you need to start using email personalization tips in each of your email campaigns
Receiving a personalized email used to be a sweet pleasantry. Now it’s expected by consumers—so much so that it can have a direct impact on your brand’s reputation. A personalized email is seen as a positive when it comes to the overall customer experience. Why? Because it shows your subscribers that you’re paying attention to their individual needs, which equates to a more positive experience when dealing with your brand.
Approximately 90% of U.S. consumers have stated that they find marketing personalization, such as personalized emails, to be “very” or “somewhat” appealing. In another survey, 72% of consumers stated that they would only engage with a brand if they’re utilizing personalized messaging. Finally, when asked, 63% of consumers have stated that they have no problem cutting ties with a brand that uses poor personalization tactics.
Not only does email personalization play a significant role in your overall customer satisfaction, but it can also have a massive impact on your overall email marketing success. Just check out some of these email personalization statistics:
- Birthday emails can generate approximately 342% more revenue per email than your standard promotional emails. – Experian
- Personalized email marketing messages tend to generate an average ROI of 122%. – Instapage
- Personalized email subject lines have the potential to generate approximately 50% higher open rates than standard email subject lines. – Oberlo
2 essential email personalization tips that are guaranteed to work
If you haven’t taken email personalization very seriously in the past, then it’s time you start. Unsure of where you can begin adding more personalization into your email marketing messages? Then check out these two email personalization tips that are guaranteed to help you succeed.
1. Include a preference center in your subscriber/customer’s account information.
Most marketing professionals understand that asking too much of a new subscriber is a bad idea. Yet, to create personalized content, you need to know as much as you possibly can about each subscriber. So how does one collect that data without coming off as intrusive?
The best way to do this is to include a subscriber or customer preference center in their user profile. When someone signs up for your brand, traditionally, they have access to an account page or preference page where they can make changes that suit their needs. For example, when someone signs up for Walgreens’ rewards program, they’re given access to a page for their personal information, account preferences, and more. One of the preference settings subscribers have access to is an email preference center.
Source: Walgreens
This preference center tells the marketing team exactly what each of their subscribers is interested in receiving in their inbox.
Another great example of a user preference center is this example from Spotify:
Source: Spotify
Giving your subscribers the chance to tell you exactly what they expect from you is an excellent way to help you create and share only the most relevant emails to your subscribers.
After all, when it came to reasons why consumers decided to unsubscribe from a brand, the top two reasons were receiving too many emails and receiving emails that weren’t relevant to them and their needs.
By including an email preference center, this eliminates both of these issues through practicing proper email list segmentation.
Email list segmentation is the practice of splitting up your email list into different categories (segments). This allows you to send only the most relevant information to each of your email subscribers. Some of the most frequently used ways to segment your email list include:
- By age
- By gender
- By website activity (information received through website cookies)
- By geographical location
- By preferred email send frequency
- By email type (newsletter, promotional content, product updates)
- By other preferences specified in your preference centers
Source: Campaign Monitor
Takeaways:
- Create a subscriber preference center that allows your subscribers to tell you what they want to receive in their inbox.
- Utilize email list segmentation to ensure you’re sending only the most relevant content to the right subscribers.
2. Personalize your email copy and imagery.
Once you’ve gathered as much relevant information as you can about each of your subscribers, it’s time to start putting that information to good use.
While you already know that personalizing an email subject line can significantly boost your email open rates, adding your subscriber’s name to the copy of your email helps to continue that personalized, one-on-one communication experience.
Source: Campaign Monitor
When personalizing the body copy of your email, you can do even more than simply adding their name to the copy. Depending on the email marketing software your team is using, you may be able to customize your campaigns with custom fields, such as a subscriber’s birthday and/or their gender. This allows you to set up a variety of automated email campaigns that can be sent out throughout the year, such as milestone emails or birthday celebration emails.
Source: Really Good Emails
In this example from Chipotle, instead of inserting the customer’s name, they chose to simply personalize this email with the user’s birth date.
This ensures that the email isn’t sent to everyone on the brand’s email list at the same time.
Instead, it takes into consideration each subscriber’s date of birth (if they’ve included it in their email preference center) and sends out the birthday incentive accordingly.
Another way to personalize your email body content is by utilizing dynamic content that changes based on a user’s data, such as their geographical location.
Source: Campaign Monitor
In the above example, the image selected changes, depending on a subscriber’s geographical location.
When setting up the campaign, individual pieces of the email can be assigned different personalization tags, such as location or gender. That way, when a user opens the email, the content that appears will match their user preference.
Another great example of dynamic content in action is this offer by Adidas, who decided to create dynamic content based on the subscriber’s gender.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Takeaways:
- Utilizing user data allows you to include specific personalization tags to each email campaign, allowing you to insert the subscriber’s name to create content that’s unique to their data, such as their birthday.
- Utilizing dynamic content allows you to share only content that’s most relevant to each of your subscribers.
Wrap up
Email personalization is absolutely vital to the success of your email marketing campaigns. Your subscribers don’t want to be treated like a number on your list. They want to be treated like the individual that they are. So, if you’re looking for some pointers, keep this in mind:
- Utilizing a preference center makes segmentation simple
- Once you’ve got the right data in your hands, you can create truly personalized, dynamic content that suits the needs of your readers.
Want to learn more about email personalization? Be sure to read our guide: The Power of Email Personalization to Reach Humans (Not Just Inboxes).