Here's how you can empower your email marketing with personalization

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Emails do not write on their own.

You have to be ever so creative to pick the right words that evoke the right emotion, and trim the content at the right places to avoid exaggeration or overload of information. However, in spite of your best efforts, your email can get ignored or remain unread in the recipient's inbox.

Writing emails is a tough job, and if you're an experienced writer, still there is no sure-fire way to get a conversion from your email campaign. Having said that, there are some smart tricks that you can use to demand more attention from the reader. One of the tricks that is the simplest and highly effective is personalization.

By personalizing the content in your email, you send a message to the reader that you're having a private conversation with them. This automatically ups the attention level of your recipient, which ultimately increases the likelihood of hearing back from them.

Now, in order to make your email personalized, adding the name of the recipient is necessary, but that's not all of it. Why? Let's explore that in the next section of this blog -

Why is going beyond the customer's name important?

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Credit: Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

Adding the customer name in the email builds the ground for addressing the message. However, if the rest of the email lacks content that is relevant to the user, or has nothing to offer that is worthy of their attention, they will walk away never to look back.

It's very similar to calling someone by their name, and when they turn around, you bore them with some random universe facts that they're remotely interested about. Besides, it's not a new trick to address users and customers by their name in the email. Almost every one of us are used to it now. So, just by adding the name of the user, you're not doing anything out-of-the-world.

To stand out and make an impression, it's very important for you to know your users, and design the content in your email in a way that it appeals to them personally, something that they are genuinely interested in.

To achieve that, you can deliver your message in a different style, bypassing the traditional methods, try to understand the user's behaviour and share an incentive to encourage them to take action. There are some subtle ways of doing this, and that's exactly what we will be covering in this blog.

So stay tuned, and sit tight.

Add videos

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Videos grab attention because people love watching videos.

55% people watch videos every single day. This means that as human beings, we are more inclined towards reacting to a video than paragraphs of text. Besides, in a video you can me more casual and more descriptive, as the recipient doesn't have to do the hard task of reading the content. Watching is far more pleasurable, as it requires very less effort.

Here's where you can take an advantage by including more personal messages, starting with something like waving at the camera and introducing yourself after you call out the recipient's name - 'Hi Stephanie, I'm Steve from the sales team of Globex Corporation.'

Moreover, you can add more context about how you find out their contact, the story behind the success of your company, and how you see the future together. While recording all of this in a video, you can customize it to make it sound more personal, so that it immediately connects with them. Imagine writing all of this in an email! Phew.

The other advantage of creating videos is that it doesn't necessarily have to be an expensive process. You can use a free Youtube screen recorder, to record the message, your face and screen too. There is no production cost involved, and you don't need expensive equipment to record the video. Bonus is that along with adding the videos in your email campaign you can add it on Youtube too.

Create personalized images

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Another visual trick to add more heat to your email campaigns is adding personalized images to your email. As compared to videos, images are static in nature, but in one frame it can communicate enough information that can delight the customer. But, to make the customer feel happy or excited about it, you need to do some homework at your end.

Sending 'Happy Birthday' image cards is a great place to start, however, there are more advanced ways of using images for engaging with customers. To give an example, if you run an apparel store, you can segment your audience on the basis of gender. You can use this information to create an image list of 'Best clothing collection for this summer' for men and women separately. This way, your user will get more relevant information, and lean on checking out your store collection.

Telling about a limited edition collection or a new clothing line is far easier when you use an image. Moreover, it's highly effective to give a glimpse of what you have to offer, because after looking at the image, the user will have a fair idea of what they can expect after clicking on the link in the email.

Share a personalized offer

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It's normal for your users to behave in different ways when they start visiting your website. Whether it's their first time, or they're regulars, they will portray different patterns in behaviour. Some tend to spend a lot of time on your website, and exit without buying, while others show traces of impulsive buying behaviour.

These buying patterns are a great cue for personalizing offers in emails. When we speak about offers, these are not run-of-the-mill discounts for all customers; these are specific and based on the interaction a user had with the website. Let's understand this scenario with a new example.

If you have a bunch of users who don't reply to your emails even after signing up for a demo, you can create a separate group for these users. You design a special discount code for them, and add them in your emails. This will generate more interest, and there is a higher probability of the user giving a second thought towards your product.

This idea also works very well if you own an e-commerce store. As you must be aware, Browse abandonment is a very common online buying behaviour. A lot of buyers tend to check a wide range of products on e-commerce stores, but end up not adding any of them in their shopping cart - almost 44% of the online buyers do this.

This opens a new opportunity for marketers and e-commerce store owners like you to earn business from these lost opportunities. You can create a special email campaign for these users, along with a unique discount code for the items that they had checked on their last visit. This personalized approach will be a head-turner, if done right, it will help you win back more customers.

Use previous conversation details

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Using previous conversation details with a customer is like laying bricks on concrete; it creates a solid foundation for building a strong relationship with the customer. Adding details from the past interactions give the customer an impression that you have gone an extra mile in remembering their questions, suggestions or feedback, and it also tells them that you think of them as a valued customer.

There are many ways you can use this idea for building more engagement with your customers, but one technique that comes to the top of my head is replying to customers' feature requests. It's a common practice to start a community for users to share their comments on the product, and ask for new or advanced product features.

However, it's also common to reply to their requests with a bland message like, 'We're working on it. We will keep you updated.' As a first reply, this is acceptable, but not sending updates on the requests can compel your customers to look elsewhere. Sending them a personalized email acknowledging their request again, and then giving them an update will help to push your customer lifetime value.

Final note

Emails are great for having regular conversation with your customers, and for converting prospects too. However, it's time to make it more personal, so that you can build a stronger relationship with them, get better returns on your email campaigns, and give superior service to your customers.

If you're one of the marketers or business owners who follow the old fashion of addressing customers by their name, and passing it as a personalization card, then you need to do better to sustain in this game. Customers are smart, they have many options, and if you're not paying attention to them, you risk losing out on business.

There are a few ideas that you can employ to add more personalization to emails. You can start by recording your messages on videos instead of typing them. Videos are easy to consume, they're more engaging, and with free screen recording tools, you can create them without spending a huge amount of money.

Sometimes, you might have very little to share, like an announcement for an upcoming event. In such a case, you can bank on other visual elements, like images, instead of writing them in emails. As you start learning more about your customers, keep an eye on their behaviour patterns, and once you find a common trend, target these groups of users with a personalized offer.

Lastly, if you have had conversations with your users in the past, then use them in your future emails too. This will act as a good reminder, and give your users a clear message that you care for them, and are mindful about their requirements.

These were some very simple tips that can empower your marketing campaigns. As you grow your business, and add more users to your customer base, you can think of more ideas to keep your emails interesting, personal, relevant, and not just another email that stays unread forever.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 20 March 2021