Why You Should Send Out Personalized Emails, And How

Email marketing can often be approached in the wrong way, often due to a misunderstanding of its capabilities. Too often, it is considered more of a blanket, mass marketing tactic than a targeted, one-on-one strategy. However, using analytics and Big Data to have an informed approach, you can use some of email marketing’s features to personalize your marketing to each recipient.

Like any other marketing effort, a personalized email campaign needs to have certain features in order to be effective. In the case of emails, these features are intended to keep the recipient engaged with the campaign through a variety of means.

Contextual Subject Lines

It is important to remember that the subject line of your email is still a part of the email. As such, if your email discusses a particular topic, introduce that topic in your subject line. Generalization is not your friend here, and subject lines aren’t meant to be teasers. They’re meant to be thesis statements, delivering the main takeaway that the rest of your content supports and validates.

The reasoning behind this is simple. Consider who your audience is, and how their day is generally spent. Your marketing efforts should be going out to the decision makers of each business. As decision makers, they are apt to be busy as they make these decisions--which means they will have little time to commit to marketing materials that don’t get straight to the point.

This includes your subject lines. Your subject lines, as we said before, are meant to be thesis statements that clearly outline what the email’s message (and, by extension, purpose) is. As such, you need to be brief and to the point in order to not only be read by a busy decision maker, but also taken seriously by them. A vague promise of fantastic, business-changing benefits will be taken a lot less seriously than a clear statement that the message is about what VoIP can do when applied in a business setting.

Timeliness

The concept that “timing is everything” is a core philosophy in many activities, and marketing is no exception. In fact, it’s one of the reasons that marketers rely on automation to deliver many of their messages, especially via email. By utilizing the automation abilities that technology affords, you can ensure that your message is delivered at precisely the right moment to each contact.

This includes sending an email discussing the benefits of a particular service to a contact who lingered on your website’s service page, or following up if a transaction is abandoned or a contact stops visiting your website. By sending the right message to the right contact at the right time, you can use your email to draw your contacts closer--simply through giving them what they want, when they want it.

Personalization

It is also very beneficial to personalize your emails however you can, as they deliver transaction rates six times higher than generic emails. Statistically, emails with some personalization in the subject line are 26% more likely to be opened, but you should also personalize more than just the subject line. Personalization will help your target to feel more valued, and express that you are concerned about their needs, specifically.

From -- Sending the email from an individual person’s name makes the message more appealing (and more likely to be read) than if it is sent from the company as a whole--after all, it proves that you are invested enough in doing business with them to do the research and find out who you’re talking to. This should extend into the ‘From’ line as well. 68% of Americans claim that the name in the ‘From’ line is a significant factor in their decision whether or not to open the email--people prefer to do business with real people, not entire departments.

Conquer and Divide Your List -- Of course, you should be sending different emails to different groups. Taking the time to analyze your contact lists and establishing how they can be subdivided will allow you to more effectively send marketing materials to the proper recipients. A new contact will need a different call-to-action than a returning client, and will need more evidence that your solutions are the right choice for them--whereas an existing client will need materials that inspire them to stick around and introduce more solutions to their service package.

A word of caution about personalization--there is definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing. Overusing personalization will only make your message seem less personal. Think about how often you refer to someone by name while you’re speaking to them. Your emails should reference the recipient’s name just about as often. Speak in the first or second person, with simple, straight-to-the-point language, and you should be fine.

Tending To Your List

Of course, even the most influential email marketing content won’t have much effect if it is sent to the wrong people. To avoid this, your list will need to be thoroughly vetted. List vetting can also assist you in keeping misspellings, typos, and other potential embarrassments from being displayed in a tag or a placeholder. Pay close attention to capitalizations and other things that might go overlooked.

Furthermore, you need to ensure that you are not being spammy in your emails. Legislation like the CAN-SPAM Act can result in some pretty considerable fines if not followed to the letter.

When all's said and done, personalizing your email marketing can help you make a connection that a generically-written email simply can’t. We can help you build these connections in the rest of your marketing. Reach out to us to get started.