Email Personalization Advancements

Welcome to The Era of Hyper-Personalization!

In a world of massive email clutter, marketers need to send fewer, better targeted and more relevant emails that break through the cacophony. The advent of technology in the email marketing industry has made way for new techniques of engaging customers, keeping up with their expectations and making them feel connected with the brand.

"According to Econsultancy and Adobe, only 5% of companies say they personalize their emails “extensively”,
even though nearly all say it is critical to their business.

Personalization allows you to strengthen customer experiences by sending the right content to the right people at the right time and helps your brand STAND OUT in the inbox as someone with highly relevant emails, that are more likely to be opened and clicked.

Personalization as a Tool to Boost Email Marketing Metrics

When content isn’t relevant, customers get frustrated. Personalized email marketing campaigns earn stronger engagement metrics across the board, including higher open rates, click-through rates and customer satisfaction. Plus, according to the DMA, segmented email campaigns as opposed to one-size-fits-all campaigns, drove an average 760% increase in revenue.

Steps involved in Email Personalization

Collect Data

Gather data from each individual subscriber on your email list
Analyze Data

Analyze the data and segment them into relevant groups
Apply Data

Use the data to send targeted, tailor-made emails to each individual subscriber

Technologies that AidEmail Personalization

Artificial
Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence enables marketers to engage with every individual customer in a personalized and meaningful manner.
Business
Intelligence (BI)

Business Intelligence allows marketers to have accurate predictions to the return on investment (ROI) of their marketing campaigns and lets them manage the campaign effectively.
Big Data

Big Data refers to the collection, analysis, and management of large datasets, both structured and unstructured.
Machine Learning (ML)
& Predictive Analytics

Machine Learning technology uses algorithms and predictive analytics to analyze data, learn the insights and decide what resonates best with a specific individual customer.

Want to dig deeper into the role of Machine Learning in Email Personalization? Grab the ebook now!

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Collecting Data forPersonalization

For personalizing your emails, you need to collect data from your subscribers. Any data that gives a marketer insight into information about an individual can be used. According to Salesforce, more than half of customers say they will share personalized information for product recommendations that meet their needs or personalized shopping experiences.

Use Sign-up Forms

Apart from the name and email address, consider adding one or two extra fields (that will be useful for your business) in the sign-up form such as birthday, gender, location, job title or interests to capture extra details about your subscribers.
Use Integrations

Integrate your email marketing tool with your CRM, e-commerce platform or accounting package to import extra details such as their status, location, past orders, total spent, etc.
Use Data from
Preference Center

Extract your customers’ personal interests from email preference center that lets the customers tell you exactly what kind of emails they want from you.
Use Behavioral
Website Tracking

Track browser activity on your e-commerce platform or website and collect data about their preferences and interests.
Use Third Party Apps

Leverage data by integrating your email platform with third-party apps that might have a lot of customer data stored in them.

SegmentingThe Collected Data

Sounds Simple, But Highly Significant

To send emails that are relevant to each individual subscriber, you need to list the subscribers into groups with similar traits, purchase histories, interests, etc.

Create segments based on

Age
Gender
Personal
Demographics
Geographic Location
Interests
Industry
Purchase History
Purchase Interests
Purchase Cycle
Browsing History
Buying Frequency
Last Order Data
Average Order Size
Interest Level
Stage in Sales Cycle
Similar Subscribers
Star Rating

7 Heavenly Ways of Personalization& How Brands are doing it

The general rule of thumb for Email Personalization says,

The more personalization, the better!

1. First Name Personalization- Build Trust

At this point, almost every marketer personalizes the salutation of email messages. This is the most basic form of personalization and when done right can be a great tactic to capture the subscribers’ attention.

Adding a first name token is often the simplest way to build trust with your subscribers and begin implementing personalization strategies.

2. Subject Line Personalization – Improve Open Rates

Emails with personalized subject lines are more intriguing and relevant. Comb through your existing gathered data such as the customer’s recent actions, the name of the product the customer purchased or a recent event they attended to find unique ways to personalize subject lines of your emails.

Personalized subject lines earn a big lift in performance numbers across the board. Emails with personalized subject lines were nearly 30% more likely to be opened, and generated 43.2% more revenue per email, according to Cheetah Digital.
3. Email Content – Create Relevancy

Sending email content that is relevant to your subscribers is a powerful way to increase email click-through rates. Consider all the information you have about the person, particularly in terms of interest and individual behavior to create content, and test to see what works to better appeal to specific subscribers.
4. Personalized Offers – Improve Engagement, Boost Loyalty

No matter what the ultimate goal of your email communication is, the initial offer plays a big role in its success. The best offers tap into the core desires of your target audience.
- Dynamic Content Offers
  
  Use geographic and demographic data to create sections of content that dynamically change to deliver personalized content to each customer. By dynamically switching images and offers being promoted, each subscriber receives the most relevant and appealing offers and products that would entice them to make a purchase. Dynamic content gives customers the relevant brand experience they have come to expect.
  
  Campaign Monitor, in one of their campaigns, got a boost of 29% on their click-through rates by personalizing the image shown to a user based on location.
- VIP Loyalty
  
  Categorize your customers based on their spending threshold and their engagement level with your brand and send tailored, special offers and deals to your VIP customers. Such automation that sends different messages and offers to different customer categories will drive stronger engagement and revenue.
5. Recommendations – Build a Long-term Relationship
- Integrate your customer’s browser history and recent purchases to leverage customer behavior and send relevant recommendations that aid in boosting purchases. Create real-time, one-to-one targeted emails that cross-sell or upsell relevant products in order to create long-term relationships with your customers.
6. Reminders – Try Email Automation
- Replenishment
  
  Replenishment emails are an opportunity to remind your customers to reorder consumable products and encourage them to buy again from you, not a competitor. These emails have an average open rate of 50-60% and hence help your brand to generate recurring revenue. By studying each customer’s individual buying cycle and using predictive data sciences, put the data points together to create an automated campaign.
- Cart Abandonment
  
  It is essential to retain the customers who abandon products in your cart and keep them engaged in your brand to keep your business growing. Personalize your cart abandonment emails so that each of your cart abandoners receives the most relevant content.
  
  Cart abandonment emails that are optimized for each individual customer reduce abandonment rates by 10-30% and induce higher engagement rates.
7. Re-engagement Emails - Create a Personalized Series
- Email lists decay every year by about 30%, with subscribers eventually becoming inactive. Identify the inactive subscribers and send relevant content along with an incentive to encourage them to re-engage with your brand’s emails. Send a series of emails with personalized subject lines and enticing email copy and CTA.
  
  Behavior-triggered emails, such as those used when a subscriber is inactive, have a 152% higher open rate than traditional marketing emails, according to Kissmetrics.

How to Personalize Without Being Creepy

Too much of personalization can ruin the customer’s experience of your brand. To personalize without bring creepy, put yourself in the customers’ shoes. It is vital to use customer information to be helpful.

More than one-fifth of customers say they never find promotional emails to be useful to them, and a third say they will unsubscribe if they receive a promotional email they do not want, according to Fluent’s 2018 Inbox Report.

What to do and What Not to

Start out small and find the right tone for your different segments of audience before scaling up.
Ask yourself and research enough about what your customers would want in the buying stage that they are in.
Collect as much data as possible and create Buyers Personas to create better-targeted emails.
Do not demonstrate the personalization as if you are tracking your customer’s every move.
Include only relevant information in the content.
Give the subscribers control of the conversation by setting up behavioral automation.
Show that you have taken time to research and respond to each individual customer’s actions and needs.
Before sending the email, test and monitor your personalization.
Give the subscribers an option to give feedback or opt-out of your brand’s emails.

Personal, on-demand emails are what customers expect today. If you haven’t started incorporating hyper-personalization in your emails yet, it is high time you do!

EmailPersonalization Advancements

The What, Why and How of Hyper-Personalization

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