Have you ever walked into your local coffee shop and the barista knows your name, or even better, remembers your usual order? Imagine they say something like “Hey Dan! Medium latte with one raw sugar and 2%, right?” Yes, exactly! What a great feeling it is to be recognized. The same concept goes for email marketing. Let’s be honest; no one enjoys feeling like they’re being marketed to. So as a marketer, we try to create relationships that feel more personal. One of the best ways to do this is via personalization in emails. Email personalization is vital in email marketing, especially for e-commerce companies. However, regardless of what kind of business you are running, email personalization can make a huge difference. 

When you collect data on customer behaviors, you can find out what they are interested in, which also helps you personalize an email tailored to their behavior and interest. Additionally, email personalization is proven to increase email open rates, click-thru rates, sales, and more. According to research by Experian, personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates than non-personalized emails. People are more likely to open an email with their name in it or an email that is relevant to their interests than emails which don’t partake in either. Email personalization is an important technique to participate in, and here’s how you can utilize it.

Collect Customer Data

The first thing you want to do is make sure you are noting customer’s/subscriber’s attributes and/or their actions. This data could be as simple as asking for their name, location, interests, and birthday in the subscription sign-up form. You can also collect behavior information such as customer’s past actions, on-site behavior, and purchasing patterns. The more you know, the better you can communicate.

Segment Your Data

Now that you’ve meticulously collected your customers’ data, what do you do with it? You segment it. Segmentation is splitting up your email list/data into groups or segments based on what you know about each person. These groups can be based on anything. A few examples are gender, location, age, and shopping habits. You then send each segment of people a personalized email based off of their segment. If you get your segmentation right, your audience should receive relevant emails filled with info they actually want or are interested in. Please read our previous blog post on email segmentation for more information.

Use Email Personalization

You can send emails based on the data you have collected about your customers. One of the basic ways to use email personalization is in the subject line. A personalized subject line will have a positive impact on your open rates. The subject line is one of the first things your recipients see when they look at their inbox. Another way to use email personalization is in the body. Whenever it makes sense, try using personalized info inside the email. You spent time collecting data about your customers; use it!

Most email service providers like Mailchimp give users the ability to easily segment their email list using their software making email personalization much easier to perform. Email personalization takes a bit of time and effort, however, once you put in the work you will be reaping the benefits. If you have any questions about email personalization, leave a comment below.