We have a little mantra here that if you create targeted emails with personalized content, you’re going to see an increase in your email engagement. So how do you personalize an email? My answer is not to start with your email! Start with segmenting your audience first, and then move into your content. Take it from a writer, guardrails are your friend! They force you to focus and help you narrow down your content so that you’re not trying to cram too much into your email. Not the answer you were expecting? Don’t worry! We’ll get to the content part…
Segmenting your contacts just means that you’re grouping contacts together based on shared characteristics, like their location, or shared interests, like their shopping habits. How you segment is going to be different for every organization, but the goal is the same: divide your audience into parts so you can share content that is more relevant to them. The same reasons for why you grouped your contacts the way you did are going to tell you what kind of content you’re going to write.
Now that we have segmentation out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of personalizing email content, starting with your subject line. It’s super easy to add a first name into a subject line, and it helps to increase open rates because it highlights the relationship you have with your contacts. A first name isn’t the only thing you can add to a subject line either. You can add any contact details or custom fields you have on file, which can also be just as attention grabbing!
Next up is probably the easiest way to add personalization to your email. A personal greeting lets you address your contacts by name within the body of the email. It only takes a couple of clicks to add the greeting tag into your email and you can even specify what you want to display if your contact doesn’t have a first name in their contact record. A first name is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to contact details too. You can pepper the body of your email with all the other contact information you have on file, like job titles or city, and even custom fields.
Finally, it’s time for something a little more sophisticated. Dynamic content blocks let you literally change the content your contacts see based on the contact information you have on file for them! This makes your email content possibilities a whole lot more interesting! Imagine for a moment that you run an ice cream shop, and thanks to a well designed survey, you know your contacts’ favorite flavors, and you took some time to add them as custom fields. Now you can display a chocolate-focused block to the chocolate lovers, and a vanilla-focused block to the vanilla lovers, and a snozberry-focused block to the fruit lovers. (You get the idea!)
OK, that is a good amount of information, but hopefully not an overwhelming amount. Don’t feel like you have to use all these tools at once, either! Do a little experimenting and see what feels right, and then try incorporating a few more later. You may find different combinations work better for you than others, and that’s ok! There are no hard rules here. We’re definitely interested in hearing how it goes, though! Let us know what you tried, what worked, and what you’re setting aside for a rainy day. (We get lots of questions on this topic, and your insight can help someone else out!)