[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”30″][vc_column_text]Do you ever get the feeling that you could be using the information you have about your customer in a better way? That you could be more personal with them, more relevant to them and more focused on them? No? Oh okay, then well done! You can stop reading now. But if you recognise the feeling, please go on.
So that feeling, how come we all do it? Being personal when sending out emails to your subscriber lists, both small and large, can both be hard and a little scary. What if something goes wrong or if I do not have all the data I need on all of the subscribers?
In this post I will give you some tips on how to be more personal and why it is important. Let’s start with turning the perspective around!
Why personalized content?
I receive tons of email every week, and a large percentage of these are offers, newsletters, notices, etc. from companies that I have little or even no relation to. So I ask myself; if these companies ask for my recognition (and money) as an individual, how come they can’t give me as an individual some recognition back? Why aren’t they talking to me and to my interests?
This issues is of course not unique to me, as most people in 2015 receives a whole lot of this type of email. With the inbound marketing focus of modern marketing, more content is being created now than ever before. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it should give you the ability to segment your content to fit your audience’s interests and a curse because you may be overwhelming them with too much and too unfocused content.
As a marketeer you have to be smart when the noise gets louder. In order to reach and resonate with your audience you need to be relevant for each and single one of them, and being personal with your audience is one important part of being relevant.
Working with email marketing, we have an extremely powerful tool in our hands. It is not silver bullet though, and we need to do it right to become successful with email marketing.
Part of this is to be personal with our audience. Personal, not only by starting an email with “Dear first name” but also by showing that we care for how they view things, and what interest them. For example, if you have address information on your subscribers and you work for a travel agency: “Forget about rainy days in Oslo (<- personalized field), great offers to sunny Spain” Or if selling sports equipment, offer football related equipment for the part of your audience that have been looking at football equipment on your site.
There are many different ways how you can personalize the message, making your audience feel recognized and you seem relevant.
The technique is available, the only thing stopping you is your own imagination.
How to personalize my content?
How do I do this then, it seem’s like a huge effort to put in, before I even can start with personalization? Well yes if you want to be 100 % spot on with what kind of interest your audience have in your company or products, it will take an effort from you and I guess that’s the downside of email marketing. The upside on the other hand; Email marketing is a quite affordable way of communicating with your audience. And a great chance for you to be personal, relevant and timely with a subscriber whom may be a customer or a prospect.
The data is of course very important in order to be personal, however if you lack information you can use the Fallback feature in eMarketeer. Fallback, in short, will help you cover the holes in your subscriber data. We use the travel agency again. You might not have all recipients’ addresses. Fallback will then add word or paragraph that you have decided. E.g. “Forget about rainy days in Norway, great offers to sunny Spain” Norway will then be added to the recipients where you lack the city information.
Fallback itself will make it even harder for you to argue why you’re not being personal with and relevant to your audience.
Digital marketing demands a great amount of time and effort in order to be as successful as it can be. Email marketing is no exception. With the right data and the right tools to help you out when you do not have all data the sky is the limit.
I came across these posts about personalization and email marketing that you might find inspirational:
How personal communication works with marketing automation
Custom email marketing reports a huge step toward better results
Using personalization to boost email performance – 4 tips for success
Food for thought:
Take a time out, and consider where and how your email marketing could benefit from personalization. Once you know that you can start getting the data and information you need into your subscriber lists. Your CRM system, purchase history, website visit history might be good places to look for both geographical, demographical and behavioural information you can use to improve your communication for a more relevant and personal experience. I guarantee you that you’ll see some impressive results.
To get started with personalized email campaigns, give eMarketeer a try today (free trial).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]