Different Ways to Personalize Your Emails

Email personalization is the act of using your recipients’ personal information, such as names, to customize an email sent out to a bulk mailing list.

Tailored emails have higher click-through rates and improved conversion rates compared to standard emails.

Personalizing your emails is essential in increasing the effectiveness of your email campaigns. You can achieve this by analyzing the data about your target readers and compiling information relevant to them in an organized manner.

When you personalize certain aspects of your email marketing campaign, you make a good impression on customers and it helps you boost engagement. Personalized emails add a personal touch when communicating with your recipient and make them feel valued as a person rather than a data point in your database.

Other than addressing your recipient by name, you can use other email marketing best practices to get the readers’ attention. Let’s explore them below.

Reasons Why You Need to Personalize Emails

• To increase open rates

Email personalization is a great way of increasing open rate. Your email creates a first impression that encourages your recipient to read the email.

• To drive engagement

How can you make your emails stand out? Combine the best content with personalization to provoke interest, spark curiosity, and encourage engagement.

• To increase revenue

Email personalization increases earnings when done right. The reason being, people are more likely to spend money at a place they feel appreciated.

Personalization Tactics and Ideas

• Personalize the salutation.

This is simply inserting the first name in the salutation. Make sure you capitalize every first name before sending the email but avoid personalizing the subject line.

• Personalize an image in your email.

There’s proof that images capture our attention. Add your recipient’s name to an image to grab their attention. Get creative and use something other than a regular image to break the monotony of regular emails.

• Personalize the pre-header text.

The pre-header text is the second subject line. Personalizing the pre-header text grabs your readers’ attention fast, especially if they often read emails on mobile phones where it’s more pronounced.

At the bottom of the email, personalize the postscript text (the “PS:” in an email) to increase open rate. People often read postscripts more than the actual email body.

• Segment recipients

Segmentation when sending B2C emails will boost your email marketing efforts to ensure that your content is well-received by the right audience.

Here are some ideas you can group clients by;

• Geographical location
• Interest in specific products or services
• Type of content they download
• Time intervals they prefer receiving your letters
• Position on the customer path or role in the organization
• Time of last purchase
• Pages they frequent
• The estimated amount of money spent on your products

Segmentation is possible when you store the contact information in custom fields. The method you use to group will depend on your industry and the aim of your campaign. Select a few target companies or businesses, customize a special offer or discount, and then send your email.

• Use dynamic content

Dynamic content enables you to personalize some parts of your email content to target specific recipients. The outcome? Your emails display different content to the intended people with different preferences.

This ensures that the recipient looks forward to getting your emails. Make the email friendlier and less formal while avoiding slang or idioms altogether. Demonstrate a sense of humor where it fits.

• Send alerts for important anniversaries

Generally, people love celebrating anniversaries. Get extra personal by remembering important dates as a way to show that you care.

Send anniversary emails to celebrate the day the recipient joined, registered, or subscribed. Use animated GIFs or images and add a discount or offer tailored to the recipient. This encourages reciprocation and engagement directed towards things such as participating in the promotion.

With the right data, you can increase revenue generated from your email campaigns without putting in heavy resource investment.

• Use email retargeting

Email retargeting is a powerful way to reconnect with your subscribers. Retargeting is a great way to bring back visitors who’ve left your store or abandoned shopping carts.

Here is how it works;

• Send an email to your normal mailing list
• Once the recipient opens the email, it drops or leaves a cookie in the recipient’s browser.
• With the cookie in place, the recipient will see your ads as they browse the internet.

Retargeting enables you to serve ads to people who have visited your website before.

Other Subtle Approaches to Personalizing Your Email

• Send perfectly timed emails to each recipient

Set the time travel option to have your email arrive in your recipient’s inbox at a specific time and day. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., or even 1 a.m. In other words, when is the perfect time for you to send an email based on your readers’ location?

• Use behavior-triggered emails

Email triggers relying on email marketing software that automatically sends emails based on your set criteria. For instance, you can send behavioral emails;

• To welcome a new customer and offer tips and guidelines
• When a person downloads your content or registers for an event
• To update the customer on their account activity
• When a customer hasn’t used your products or services for long

• Send emails as an individual rather than a company

Personalize emails by sending them from a contact person, as opposed to an organization. It is easier for the recipient to relate to a person than a business title on the email header.

In the “From” field on the email, use an actual real person’s name and a real person’s face in place of a logo or avatar. Sending emails from a real person gives the business a human touch, increasing the effectiveness of the email.

• Customize the email design

Customizing your emails or use industry-related custom templates to add some appeal. Examples of customizing designs are;

• Changing the skyline photo to show the city where the recipient stays
• Adjusting the images in the email depending on the recipient’s industry
• Changing the colors and font based on shopping preferences or persona type.