Time to Get Personal with Your Email Marketing

It is the era of personalization.

Did you know that according to Statista, the number of email users worldwide will reach a whopping 4.3 billion in 2022? Moreover, eMarketer also reported that 80% of marketers think email marketing is the most effective digital strategy for customer acquisition and retention.

As the world shifts to the age of personalization, modern consumer’s behavior also gears towards personalized emails. Unfortunately, nearly 60% of marketers still struggle in personalizing their content. Since email personalization is far too important to be ignored, here are some simple guidelines you can follow.

Email Personalization: Understanding the Concept

Personalized email marketing is a marketing strategy that brands incorporate into their email communication approach to achieve better marketing results, such as sales growth or higher customer loyalty. This strategy usually involves collecting data related to their customers and crafting marketing messages and experiences that target specific types of customers in their email content.

50% of marketing influencers have reported that message personalization is the most effective email marketing strategy. Additionally, according to Aberdeen, email personalization increases click-through rates by 14% and improves conversions by 10%. Clearly, this indicates how big the impact of personalization on the success of email marketing campaigns.

So, what can brands do to optimize their email personalization strategy?

Individual Messages

When it comes to customers, there is never a one-size-fits-all solution. Brands need to focus on segmenting their customers based on certain parameters, such as demographics or locations, to send more relevant and individually tailored offers and recommendations. Modern customers are easily swamped by too much information. By sending only the truly relevant information, brands increase the chance of getting their messages heard. 59% of consumers who have experienced personalization believe that it has a significant impact on their purchases.

Zillow, a real estate service company for example, segment their customers based on their life cycle stage and send relevant individual marketing emails to each group. They send emails containing information about homes to people who are looking to buy a house. For consumers who are about to purchase a house, they send emails with information on financing options. Then for people who opted for a loan, they send emails with information about mortgage loans.

Customized After Sales

Today, marketing has encompassed beyond the actual sales process. With the rising demand of digital customers, naturally, businesses also bump up their marketing efforts, which include after-sales service. But, how do you integrate after-sales service and email personalization marketing? Learn from Nissan.

Nissan keeps track of every customer purchase and sets up different maintenance milestones. The brand sends out personalized email to their customers to remind them when it’s time for their cars to be brought in for maintenance, be it oil change or air-filters. Nissan understands clearly that not all customers are car-experts and by personalizing their emails in the form of a friendly reminder, they not only increase the likelihood of improving their customer’s satisfaction but also increase the chance of boosting their business even further. How? With the reminder, chances are these customers will take their cars to Nissan dealership for service!

Recommendation and Up-sell

Salesforce reported that 76% of customers expect businesses to understand their needs and preferences. One of the ways for brands to show that is to provide customized recommendations. Brands can utilize email marketing to tailor a personalized recommendation such as offers related to their needs or complementary products that might spark their interests. In addition, brands can also include a how-to guide in their email content.

J.Crew, for instance, sends emails that contain personalized product recommendations based on their customers’ past purchases. J.Crew also put together a style guide on how to create different looks using these recommended items, complete with suggestions for shoes and accessories to complete the look. Then, it takes it further by including a discount to encourage people to make more purchases. This is a great strategy to not just show that J.Crew understands what their customers want, but to get some additional sales as well.

Appreciation and Call-to-Action

Ever feel like you’re tired of getting generic appreciation email on your inbox? That is exactly what customers feel when marketers send them this type of email. So, why not personalize it based on customer’s segments instead? After all, customers respond better when they are exposed to messages that really matter to them.

Spotify leverages its user’s interests based on their listening tracks to provide a relevant and value-packed message. Spotify’s personalized “thank-you” email is particularly effective because it frames personalization in a way that makes the recipient feel like they’re being rewarded for their participation. The email also incorporates phrases like “top listener” and “be the first” to give a sense of exclusivity. To take it up a notch, it closes with a call-to-action message that encourages the recipient to listen to songs on Spotify, which simultaneously reminding the user of Spotify’s value.

Key Takeaway

The examples above are only a few approaches that brands can take to maximize their email marketing strategy. The bottom line here is personalization works. It gets customers engaged with your business and can enhance your overall marketing strategies.

Seeing how efficient personalization and authenticity nowadays, most experts agree that personalization will be the future of marketing. The possibility of personalized email content, especially, is endless. You, as marketers, just need to keep in mind that by making your emails as relevant as possible, not only shows that you care about your customers, but also acts as a gateway to win their loyalty.

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