6 Easy Ways to Add Personalized Features to Your Emails

1.1K

Key takeaways

• Do more than insert a name. Personalize emails with context from customers’ past purchases, behaviour and life events.
• Use past-purchase data to remind, upsell or create continuity (e.g., new editions or related reorders).
• Send targeted abandoned-cart emails sparingly, consider a limited-time offer to re-engage without flooding inboxes.
• Use birthday messages to build rapport and include a birthday discount, but keep contact data current to avoid mistakes.
• For travel customers, send a personalized ‘welcome home’ with future-booking reminders, discounts or tips when you know trip dates.
• Recommend related products and customer reviews, but avoid oversaturation, make recommendations relevant and occasional.
• Use complete consumer profiles and an integrated email platform to power true personalization.

Introduction

The modern online shoppers loves to feel special, unique, and desired by digital merchants and brands alike. Unfortunately, when it comes to tapping into this notion via the inbox, there’s few things that can kill a consumer’s enthusiasm quite like a “personalized” email that slaps in the shopper’s name at various points with a fill-in-the-blank approach. Even worse is the reality that failed personalization, according to Jack Loechner of Media Post, is something that plenty of brands struggle with during email marketing campaigns. To ensure you never fall into this group, let’s look at six quick and easy ways to break the mold and implement effective personalization tactics in your next email initiative.

Keep Past Purchases in Mind

The first tip, coming straight from Beta News’ Ian Barker, focuses on taking a look back into the past with your audience. By developing personalized content that goes beyond simply adding the customer’s name into the greeting of the email and acknowledging past purchases, you can show these shoppers that your brand cares about developments and events that take place in their lives. Whether it’s reminding them to pick up the new edition of an outdated product or noting that other customers came back for something else after purchasing the original item, adding little touches like these help build continuity and keep your brand in play as a constant and positive factor in the inbox.

Take Note of Abandoned Carts

Similarly, watching out for abandoned carts can also help keep the conversation going with your target audience. Of course, treading into this territory shouldn’t be something that your brand takes lightly. It’s one thing to remind shoppers that you still have a sale going on for the specific product they found interesting, but constantly flooding their inbox with requests to finish the purchase can come off as overbearing or creepy. In some cases, adding in a limited time offer that only applies to these abandoned cart emails takes the personalization a step farther while also creating a sense of urgency within the viewer.

Don’t Forget Birthdays

If you’re looking to hone in on major life events, Rachel Serpa of Business 2 Community suggests sending out fun and friendly birthday greetings when that special time of year comes around for the members of your contact list. Not only does this practice show your audience that you care about building an interactive relationship, it also offers the perfect opportunity to give a little birthday discount as part of the festivities. Just be sure to keep your email contact list up-to-date, otherwise you run the risk of a potentially embarrassing misunderstanding.

Welcome Your Customers Home

Serpa also has a clever idea for any brand associated with the travel industry. After a long trip or vacation, there’s few things as nice as a warm welcome home. If you’re brand is privy to the dates associated with the customer’s trip, sending a quick, personalized message on his or her way back can go a long way. If your customer data points to a consistent and regular need for these trips, you can even take this opportunity to offer a friendly reminder regarding future bookings, upcoming discounts, and even travel tips.

Offer Recommendations

The next tip on the list takes things back to a more straightforward approach, but still packs quite the punch in the inbox. Throughout the purchasing process, it’s only natural to come across related products. With this in mind, consider firing off a series of emails aimed at bringing these connected offerings to light for your shoppers. In some cases, you can even work in recommendations and reviews from other satisfied customers to add a little extra impact to the message. Naturally, you’ll have to take the hint and avoid oversaturation with these emails in some situations, but if you commit to offering relevant recommendations, these messages have the potential to become true inbox home runs.

Put Your Data to Good Use

Of course, the only true way to create a perfectly personalized email for your each of your target audience members is to get to know these individuals. The best way to do this? Utilize consumer data as often as possible. By creating complete consumer profiles and working with an email platform that allows the integration of data, you can build an approach that truly takes into account what matters to your audience. Regardless of what you have to offer, there’s no denying that embodying these concepts, along with the power of email marketing, is a quick way to go beyond the mundane and truly personalize your marketed messages.

FAQ