Personalising email campaigns
Email marketing is the most powerful tool for marketers today, with email campaigns delivering 40x higher ROI compared to other channels. However, it’s no good just bombarding your subscribers with emails. To make sure your message doesn’t end up in the trash, you need to know who your subscribers are and keep them interested by sending them content relevant to where they are in the customer journey.
What can you personalise?
Subject Line – The subject line is the second most prominent element within the email (after the ‘from’ name). It needs to stand out against the hundreds of other emails your subscriber receives and give them a reason to open yours. To really grab their attention you can personalise the subject line. Studies have shown that using your subscriber’s name will increase open rates by up to 26%. My name is Helen, and below you can see how Yo! Sushi have used my closest restaurant, and similarly M&S have used my first name. Using the location towards the end of the line means that my email client cuts part of it off, however, because M&S have put my name first, their email really stands out.
Copy – The more data you have on the person the more you can personalise your copy. For example, you could tailor the copy to their location, their gender, and their age.
Images – There are a number of tools you can use, such as Nifty Images, which enable you to personalise the image with the subscribers name. This image from Vitality Health uses my surname along with my first name in the heading to encourage me to enter their competition.
Dynamic panels – Dynamic panels are a great way to segment your audience and really push relevant content to your subscribers. In fact, segmented campaigns increase open rates by 14.31% and clicks by over 100% against non-segmented campaigns. Additionally, email bounce rates and unsubscribes are substantially reduced. Dynamic panels have a variety of uses, for example clothing brands can push menswear to male subscribers and womenswear to female subscribers, while e-commerce brands can send content based on previous purchases or what they’ve been browsing. This email from Currys.co.uk is a good example of basket abandonment. I was recently looking to buy a camera and had added it to my basket, but didn’t go ahead with the purchase. They sent me the following email with the option to view the item again, and possibly purchase it.
Email personalisation has been proven to increase open rates, click through rates and revenue. Plus, nowadays your subscribers are expecting to receive tailored emails that are relevant to them. Thankfully, with the right tools and by collecting the right data it’s surprisingly easy to do.
If you need help personalising your email campaigns, then pick up the phone or drop us a message to find out how we can help.