Five Inspiring Email Personalization Techniques

Email personalization can feel like a daunting task. But, don’t fret! There are many easy ways to personalize an email that improve the brand-audience connection and engage subscribers on a one-to-one basis.

Consider the five tactics below to personalize and engage audiences:

1. Incorporate Segmentation

Segmentation places subscribers into groups that are similar to one another. This enables marketing teams to customize their communications to each group accordingly, improving their engagement with them.

Good data coupled with an excellent marketing automation engine allows companies to build campaigns that best speak to each one of their segments.

2. Use image personalization

Add a personal touch by using images the target audience can relate to. For instance, if a brand promotes a singles event for professionals, refer to the relevant segmented groups and send images of age-appropriate people networking to suit each subscriber in that target audience.

Another example is a travel company pushing vacation packages. By knowing the age and recent life events of customers, the travel company can use images to visually connect with subscribers. For instance, create an advertisement with an image of a couple holding hands on the beach to target a segment of “married without children”. Or change up the image to include a family building a sandcastle together at the beach for the audience of “married couples with children”.

The key here is having the necessary data to choose images that most resonate with the target audience.

3. Send email reminders

Email reminders are an excellent way to get an up-tick in open rates. Sending customers follow-up reminders that it’s time to renew or repeat a service lets them know the company is looking out for them.

For example, Go Daddy sends off email reminders when a domain is nearing its expiration date. Because most domains are usually prepaid 1-2 years in advance, customers tend to forget about renewing. A reminder is a great way to reconnect with an element of urgency to get customers to take an action.

Another good example is an auto shop sending an oil change reminder to a customer. Retail stores can also check in on them if they haven’t frequented the shop in a while to gain customer feedback (for example, if the customer had a bad experience which has caused them to stay away). This also opens the door for the company to step in and fix the problem and shore up the relationship.

4. Important dates and milestones

Sending an email to recognize customer birthdays, or even half birthdays is a fun way to engage customers and show appreciation. This tactic can also be used to celebrate milestones such as subscriber anniversaries (two years since they’ve become a subscriber, etc.) or behavioral milestones.

Loyalty programs provide for many opportunities for crafting such emails. Send an email to customers when they are $20 away from their next reward to encourage them to take action and meet their next milestone. Kohl’s often sends email promotions to remind customers of their progress towards earning additional Kohl’s cash.

5. Communications from the source

Having the human touch gains trust from subscribers. Getting an email from the person who just sold the product is far more effective than one from the company name.

Bonobos does a great job of tying the in-store experience with the digital experience by sending emails from the specific associate that worked with the customer at point of sale. This method boosts engagement as the email feels much more like a continuation to their conversation rather than an automated message.

These are just a few of the tips that can help a company engage with its audience at a greater rate through email personalization.

TowerData can help companies gain more insight about their subscribers so that they can best fine-tune and personalize your campaigns. Reach out to us to get a free match report on a data sample and start getting enhanced email engagement.