The most common way to use personalization in an email campaign is to greet recipients by their first names. However, there are lots of other effective personalization tricks that you can put to good use. To help, we’ve put together four ways to use personalization that go beyond the name greeting.
The big idea behind personalization is connecting with your audience based on who they are — not just repeating what their names are.
1. Personalize another field
What do you know about your audience members besides their names? The same trick behind first name personalization works for any other information you’re storing about your audience. If you know your contacts’ city, company name, or purchase history, consider making generic sentences a bit more personal, like this:
- We hope to see you soon at our store in [member city].
- We’re looking forward to doing business with all the fine folks at [member company name].
- Thanks for joining our customer loyalty program in [month joined].
All of this customer information is determined by what you’ve set up in your contact fields. But whatever field you decide on, just be sure and assign backup placeholder text for anybody whose information you may have missed along the way. The placeholder is what will appear for recipients who don’t have anything listed in their contact record for the field you’ve chosen.
2. Use contact fields to segment your audience
The most effective personalization doesn’t stop at a word or a phrase. Try crafting tailored segments to appeal to different aspects of your audience.
Let’s say you have a big list of customers who’ve made a prior purchase. It’ll include both loyal shoppers and people who’ve only bought once. It may even include domestic customers as well as some who live in another country.
Those aspects of your customer data are vastly different, so shouldn’t the mailing content reflect those differences, too? Whether you vary the offer, the product, or just the wording, you can create segments to personalize the content that gets delivered to your subscribers. They’ll appreciate a message that’s meant for them, and you’ll appreciate the results.
3. Use automation to personalize the delivery
Personalizing what people read in your emails is important, but you can also create a personal connection based on when your emails arrive using our automation feature. Automation workflows let you reach your recipients on their individual schedules, and they do it all automatically, which saves you time.
For example, try setting up a welcome email that’s triggered whenever someone new joins your list. Your subscriber gets the joy of immediate gratification, and you get the benefit of sending an email the moment someone expressed interest in receiving it.
You can also base that personalized delivery on dates you’re storing about your contacts, simplifying how you communicate with your contacts about birthdays and membership renewals.
4. Personalize, but keep it personal
Above all, remember that personalization isn’t only a matter of using automations and segmentation tricks. Creating a personal connection with your contacts can be as simple as keeping a natural, conversational tone in your email and finding warm, complementary images. It’s all about recognizing that your contacts are more than just names you’re emailing, they’re people you’re having a conversation with.