Sending emails is a powerful way to reach and engage with clients, but email personalization can level up your efforts and drive better results.
In general, email marketing is about 40 times more effective as a customer acquisition strategy than relying on Facebook or Twitter. However, many marketers use basic templates and send emails in bulk, missing out on the opportunities that email personalization offers.
About 72 percent of consumers are willing to engage in interactions only when messages feel personal.
But using a recipient’s name in the email subject line or body copy is just the beginning of email personalization. It also includes:
- List segmentation, which involves grouping contacts together based on key demographics and where they are in their purchasing journey with your business so that they only receive content that’s relevant to them.
- Timeliness, which means you’re reaching out to contacts with content and promotions that make sense for them at that time.
- A human touch, which involves making it clear that an email is coming from a real person, not just a general brand. It’s all about human-to-human connection. (Consider what your “From” name is shown as, for example.)
- Automation, which includes such automated tactics as drip campaigns that rely on a recipient’s actions to determine what content they see next and nurture the recipient along the way to ultimately purchase from you. Learn more about email automation.
Dive deeper into how personalization embodies one-to-one marketing.
The following are the seven top benefits of using email personalization in your marketing.
Credibility boost
Because customers prefer to do business with brands that they trust, you need to not only connect with them but stand out from the crowd as well.
About 74 percent of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. By sending valuable content to the right recipients at the right time, you’re building your brand’s credibility and staying top of mind with consumers.
By contrast, mass-templated emails can hurt your brand’s credibility with every recipient who sees through the irrelevant, generic information.
Increased engagement
When your email personalization reflects your recipients’ interactions with your brand, it is more likely that those recipients will engage with your brand that much more.
This comes down to delivering relevant content to recipients at the moment when it is still relevant.
When this happens, the recipient is more likely to open an email. They’re also more likely to click on a link in the email than they would at any other time. And ultimately, engagement leads to sales over time.
Relationship building
To succeed in today’s world, your business must prioritize establishing and maintaining relationships with customers. Email personalization can help by catering to their needs and sharing content that resonates with your target audience.
You want to be that brand that recommends the right products and/or services to the right people at the right time. The conversion rate for a sale is that much higher if you’ve already been building trusting relationships with your contacts.
Cost-effectiveness
Email personalization is a less costly digital marketing tactic than other types of marketing.
All you need is content that’s based on consumers’ onsite behaviors with your website and relevant demographic information to get started. Even just some basic data can get you started.
Then, all that’s needed is the right application to make the personalization (and automation) process easy, such as DailyStory.
Increased profit
In general, email marketing influences about 59 percent of purchase decisions. Personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates.
In addition, about 53 percent of marketers say ongoing, personalized communication with existing customers results in moderate to significant revenue impact, and marketers see an average increase of about 20 percent in sales when using personalized experiences.
Because email personalization can make your email marketing more effective, it can then contribute to increased profits for your business.
Improved brand recognition
Reaching and engaging with the right consumers at the right time with the right message not only reflects a successful email marketing campaign, it also keeps you top of mind for those same consumers.
By being top of mind, your brand recognition gradually grows. Brand recognition can be difficult to measure, but whether a consumer purchases from you today or tomorrow, that purchase is far more likely with strong brand recognition.
Increased customer satisfaction
By reaching customers at each step of their purchasing journey with you (including post-sale thank yous and later follow-up messages), you’re showing that you care about the customer experience before, during and after every purchase.
Email personalization supports this.
When consumers see you as a brand that cares, they’ll be more likely to purchase from you and stay loyal to you. Overall customer satisfaction will increase.
In conclusion
Keep in mind that about 42 percent of consumers are annoyed when they receive impersonal content. So, email personalization is not as optional as some businesses might think if they want to stay successful.
When asked to prioritize one capability that will be most important to marketing in the future, about 33 percent of marketers answered: “personalization.”
Email personalization can significantly improve your email marketing results. It helps you deliver relevant content with a personal touch that builds important relationships with your target audience.
