Employing Artificial Intelligence in Email Marketing (Without Getting Creepy)

Imagine a situation…

You buy a pink evening gown from a retail website. Within a few hours, you receive an email that showcases matching stud earrings and heels to go with it.

Wouldn’t you be tempted to buy those too?

That’s exactly how artificial intelligence (AI) works. It helps to send more relevant emails that the subscriber loves to receive and ultimately drives more conversions. The only thing to keep in mind is that it should not freak out the recipient. It should come as a pleasant surprise rather than as an annoying stalker alert.

So, how should you execute artificial intelligence without alarming the recipient?

Here are some tactics to help you out.

1. Maintain a transparent approach

As privacy concerns are constantly on the rise, always inform your subscriber about how you will use their information once they sign up for your emails.

(I assume you already know the impact of anti-spam laws like GDPR and CAN-SPAM on email marketing.)

Do not forget to seek permission for the use of cookies. We recommend that you send out a welcome email when the subscribers opt in to your email list and notify that they will receive marketing or promotional emails from you. You can go a step ahead by mentioning the frequency of these emails.

These simple tricks will update the subscriber when they can expect your emails so that your email does not pop up as dismay in their inbox. 

2. Understand your target audience

Whenever you are planning your email marketing strategy, consider the buyer personas in your subscriber list. According to Retail Touchpoints, Gen Z looks forward to a personalized experience and do not care much about their privacy. On the other hand, senior citizens who are not very savvy with tech do not appreciate personalization and prefer to receive subtly personalized emails.

3. Make use of authentic data

Whenever a subscriber opts in to receive your email, confirm their email address by sending a verification email. Ask for the necessary personal information only and let the subscriber know that you will use this information to send them future emails. Mentioning this small detail will encourage the prospect to provide the correct information and engage with your emails without giving the feeling that you are stalking them.

4. Segment in the right way

Age, gender, geographical location, past purchases, products or services searched for, and resources downloaded are appropriate variables to segment your subscriber list and build personalized emails to enhance the subscriber engagement with relevant offers. Your subscribers might ghost your brand if you keep sending irrelevant emails. Take the help of artificial intelligence to extract the right data and make better emails. Like Uplers always says, let’s make emails better. 

5. Determine the best time to send the email

The best time to send an email will vary across the diverse industries and business types. You can figure out the ideal send time for your emails by checking the email marketing metrics, which will give you an idea about the hour of the day when maximum subscribers have opened your email. Alternatively, you can also keep an eye on the website traffic. Send an email when your website has the highest number of visitors. That could be the time your subscribers are most likely to open your emails. Never send an email too early in the morning or too late at night as it may seem like an intrusion in the personal space of the individual.

6. Set the right frequency

Most of the subscribers unsubscribe from a brand because of too many emails. Let the subscribers decide when they wish to receive your emails. Right at the time they sign up, direct them to a preference center and allow them to choose the kind of emails they want to receive and its frequency. This will make things easy for the marketer as AI will take care of the rest.

7. Write intriguing subject lines and copy

There are AI-powered platforms and tools that let you draft interesting subject lines and copy based on the subscriber’s activity. Utilize them to yield the most out of your email marketing strategy. However, make sure you do not go overboard in the quest for creating personalized emails, lest you end up being creepy.

8. Ask for the subscriber’s feedback

Effectiveness of email marketing depends on how well your emails resonate with the subscribers and whether they find your emails appealing enough. Of course, your metrics say a lot about it, but an even better option is to ask the subscribers what kind of emails they want to read. As simple as that!

Just create a survey and based on the results, you can plan your next email marketing campaigns.

9. Start with simple personalization

Hyper-personalization and micro-segmentation are the next buzz words for email marketers. Start small with simple personalization campaigns and then go for hyper-personalized emails. Before you plan to employ artificial intelligence as a full-fledged tactic, you must set the right tone for the different subscribers on your list.

10. Test and learn

Carry out A/B testing to infer whether your strategy is working or not. If you are not getting optimum open rates and click-through rates, there could be something wrong with the way you are using artificial intelligence. Test some more and maybe you will be able to get your emails to work.

Wrapping Up

There is a thin line between personalizing your emails for relevance and getting creepy. Striking the right balance between the two will add value to the subscriber’s experience because not doing it right would do no justice to the ‘enormous personal data’ that you have.