Where a one-size-fits-all approach to email marketing might have worked in the past, today effective email marketing requires personalization. With the volume of email that your audience receives, traditional batch-and-blast tactics will likely get your emails, ignored, deleted and/or reported as spam.
Many firms have been slow to take up personalization, with research from eConsultancy finding that only 5% of companies across all industries personalize email extensively. However, a study from Aberdeen Group found that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%.
So what are some ways marketers can personalize their emails? Here are 5 tips:
#1 Segment your lists
If you want to personalize the content of an email, you first need to segment your contacts. Research from Campaign Monitor found that marketers have noted a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns. Don’t treat all contacts the same! As opposed to sending the same email to your entire list of contacts, create unique segments that will allow you to personalize the content you send to each segment. List segmentation separates your master list into key segments that are relevant to your business (e.g. market, client type, service area, buyer persona, etc.). How granular you need to go with list segmentation depends on your business, goals, audiences and content.
#2 Create segment specific content and write to an audience of one
Once you have segmented your contacts, emails and the content for those emails should be created specifically for each segment. The more relevant and specific the emails are to the particular segment, the more personalized and therefore effective the results will be. When it comes to the copy, you should write to the individual. Make your copy sound like it has an audience of one, using a professional, but conversational tone. Try to be human and the email come across as personal, even if it’s going to a thousand people.
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