9 Tips and Tricks for Personalising Your Marketing Emails

In the competitive world of digital marketing, email has been the go to for a number of years now. Although open rates can often seem low in terms of percentage, email marketing campaigns have the highest ROI by far. One way in which you can try to improve your open rate is through personalising your marketing emails.

Imagine you received one email addressed to ‘Dear User’ and another addressed to ‘Dear Matt’. Which one are you more likely to open? The second option every time! Providing your name is Matt of course. Otherwise you might be a bit freaked out… but you get my point. This is because it makes a connection with you on a personal level. Especially compared to a generic marketing email that feels like it was sent by a robot.

Personalising your emails doesn’t just involve adding a name to the email or subject line. There’s much more to it than that. Which is why we have written this post on personalising your marketing emails. First, we will look into some quick tips about where to start.

Quick tips for personalising your marketing emails using names

As we’ve mentioned above, there is more to personalising your marketing emails than just using a name. However it shouldn’t be overlooked as it’s relatively easy to do and can make a big difference to your open rate.

1. Use names throughout your email – Using someone’s first name throughout your email is a nice touch. It makes it more personal to the recipient, meaning it’s easier for them to make a connection with your business. The more of a connection they feel towards your business the higher the chance of making a sale. A study conducted by Experian found that personalised promotion emails had 29% higher unique open rate and a 51% increase in unique clicks!
2. Use a name in your subject line – The subject line is the first thing that a recipient of your email will see. Having their first name in your subject line is an effective way to grab their attention. Especially if they are skimming through an already crowded inbox. Campaign Monitor found that personalised subject lines had a 26% higher open rate.
3. Use a name in your ‘from’ email address – Where possible have your business email featuring a name rather than a ‘business@noreply.com’ for example. It’s much easier for customers to relate to your business if there is a personal element from your side. Meaning you can build a relationship with customers, making it more likely they will purchase your products or services.

Personalising your marketing emails, beyond just using a name

We can now get into the meaty part of this blog. As we said at the beginning there is much more to personalising your emails than just using names. From tailoring content to their interests and needs, to developing customer personas based on previous behaviors.

Below are our tips and tricks on personalisation beyond using a name…

1. Ask your customers what they want – A simple and effective way to know how you should be personalising your emails is to ask; ‘What do your customers want to achieve?’ and ‘What made them sign up to your mailing list?’  From asking these type of questions you will gain an insight into what products and services are suitable for each individual. This means you will be able to send more personal and targeted emails. A survey conducted by Harris Interactive Study found that 70% of customers would share personal information with a retailer. Providing it meant receiving more personal emails!
2. Timing is Key – Your customers are unique, and the time they will best respond to your emails is likely to be unique too. Take into account what time best suit their needs. Perhaps you would receive the highest open rates at 2 pm or 7 pm, it’s difficult to know. You need to A/B test to know what works best for your customers.
3. Location – You must take into consideration the location of your target audience as they may be spread across different time zones. This is closely related to the point above. If they are in different time zones, then you should consider using an email service provider (ESP) to schedule your emails. This way, your emails will land in your target audience’s inbox at a specific time. Regardless of which time zone they are in. Unsure about which ESP to use? Check out our recommendations.
4. Customer Personas – Customer persona are fictional representations of your ideal customer. You can group your customers into categories based on previous behaviours. For example; demographic, website usage, download history and previous purchases. The more detailed your customer persona category, the more personal you can make their email experience. In turn, the more likely potential customers will want to purchase products from you. NetProspex used this technique and found a 111% increase in their open rate. Imagine what that increase could do for your email marketing campaign! You should also consider breaking your contact list into more specific groups. This is known as list segmentation. It helps make sure that you are sending relevant content, to the right people, at the ideal time.
5. Consider behaviour triggered emails – What is more personal to your potential/existing customers than emails based on their own behaviour? This is where triggered emails come into play. They are real-time reactions to how your customers are using your products and services. For example services such as ‘ZOHO Campaigns’ that will send emails to upsell products, welcome new customers and re-engage customers that you haven’t heard from in a while. All based on the pre-set behaviours you choose. Rather than sending a generic marketing email out once a week. You can automatically respond to your customers, based on their behaviour, without lifting a finger!
6. Personalise your business – Personalisation isn’t limited to customer data. You can further personalise your business emails too. Add photos of yourself or whom the email is sent from. This way your customers will have a name AND a face to make a connection with. You can also try taking a less formal approach to your marketing campaigns. Use a professional but conversational tone in your emails. This will make sure your emails feel like they were sent by a person not an automated robot.

In Summary

The power of email marketing cannot be underestimated. These tips for personalising your marketing emails might just make the difference in improving your open rates. There are many other factors that are in play when it comes to email marketing. Gain more of an insight into these through reading our other email marketing blogs…