The Do’s and Don’ts of Personalized Email Marketing

We all understand the power of personalization. Receiving emails tailored to our interests makes us feel seen and understood. These personal touches create authentic, lasting connections.

With personalization, people will open, read, and act on more emails. It naturally increases engagement and fosters customer loyalty. And all that activity equals more conversions, sales, and growth for your business. Personalization is a vital component to any marketing campaign. However, there are still ways personalization can go wrong.

What should and shouldn’t your business do with email personalization?

Don’t Use Generic Personalization

It must sound contradictory—how can personalization be generic? But it can be. Simply adding a first name, referencing a recent purchase, or keeping the email copy standard are all empty approaches. Customers can see that considerable thought and effort were not put in, making them feel like just another number. These customers will opt for brands that focus on providing them a specialized experience. In order for your customers to feel seen and valued, businesses must understand their target audience and be thoughtful about the content they send to them.

Don’t Overdo the Personalization

Generic emails and overly-personalized emails both can turn off customers. Be careful with how much personalization is used in an email. You want to offer your customers a customized experience, but you don’t want to take liberties with their data and make them feel uncomfortable. Setting an appropriate balance will help your customers feel seen—not stalked!

Do Build Out Creative Content

Although personalized special offers are influential factors in customers engaging with emails, sending out too many promotional offers can make your email marketing campaign look like a coupon program. Personalization isn’t just for promotional emails. Building out creative informative, educational, or entertaining content adds a different dimension of value to your emails besides money-savings.

What are your customers interested in seeing? Would they watch a how-to video or read a client case study? Knowing your audience’s interests is a crucial first step before investing time and money in content creation.

Don’t Send Mass Emails

Generic, bulk emails are not valuable to your customers. Old customers receiving promotional content meant for new customers, customers receiving the same email many times, or customers receiving discounts for a product they already purchased can lead people to unsubscribe from email lists. Customers quickly become aggravated with mass emails that assume their interests align with the majority.

Do Segment Your Audience

Do divide your audience into targeted segments. Don’t assume your target audience is all interested in the same products, services, or content. List segmentation is a highly successful personalization practice that businesses need to take advantage of. By breaking up your email list into small, targeted sections, you ensure your customers are receiving content that is relevant to them. When customer receive relevant emails, they are far more likely to open and engage with them and continue building their relationship with your brand.

Do Personalize the Email Subject Line

Don’t underestimate the power of a good subject line. Your content may be killer, but what’s the point if subscribers won’t open the email? Email inboxes are crowded places and if you don’t grab your customer’s attention with relevance, your business’s emails may be sent to junk mail. To create a personalized subject line that grabs your subscribers’ attention, call on valuable data to find something that will stand out, such as location, milestones, transaction history, and more.

Don’t Personalize Every Email Just Because You Can

Just because you can personalize an email doesn’t mean you should. It’s tempting to personalize all of your email communications when you have the ability to do so—but it doesn’t mean your customers will appreciate it. Just like you don’t want to make customers feel uncomfortable with the personal details you use in emails, you also don’t want to annoy them with how often you personalize your emails. When it comes to personalization, take the quality-over-quantity approach.

Do Use Automation to Your Advantage

Do take advantage of automation software to automatically send out personalized communications. Automation allows your business to easily segment, target, and personalize messages, saving your business major time and preventing manual errors. Your business can even track the performance of the emails and know when it needs to pivot.

Interested in crafting an email marketing campaign that leverages personalization and automation? Contact Sun Sign Designs to get started today.