Say you’ve just started up your business, and have people have subscribed to your emails. You start sending them out, but see that not many people are actually interacting with them. What’s the issue? Your customers are getting the information they signed up for, so why are they now turning away?
The answer is likely more simple than you think. One of the reasons your emails aren’t reaching high levels of engagement is a lack of email personalization. Nowadays, people are tired of impersonal emails and not getting the information individualized to their interests. There are hundreds of programs that can add each delivery’s name – it’s not cutting it anymore in 2022, people want more.
So what can be done, so customers do feel targeted and cared about by your company? Large-scale email personalization is the way to go. This article will explain exactly what we mean by email personalization and why it’s important for your business.
Contents
What is email personalization?
Email personalization is where certain information is taken from subscribers and used to edit the emails they receive, when they receive them, and how often.
The most basic form of this is when you subscribe to a mailing list and you provide your first name, you may then find that emails have your name at the start. This is the simplest way of making your emails more personalized. However, this is easy enough to do and most mass email software offers this, so people don’t see this as particularly personal anymore.
This doesn’t mean you have to personally write an email to each of your subscribers, but instead having various different types of emails available, ready to be sent to different demographics.
The aim of email personalization is to make the customers feel as though their habits matter and so they don’t receive a lot of irrelevant information which may make them unsubscribe.
Why is it useful for your business?
According to information gathered from Segment 71% of customers are frustrated when their email experience isn’t personalized.
There are many reasons why email personalization is good for your business, a few of which will be outlined here.
- Authenticity. If your customers see that their emails are personalized to their likes and engagement patterns they are more likely to see your business as ‘genuine’ instead of an emotionless conglomerate. People are likely to stick by companies they see as authentic, which will help you to create a strong and loyal user base.
- Open and Click through rates. Open rates and click-through rates are how often your emails are opened and how often people then click on links in that email. If people are receiving personalized emails based on their interests and activity then your open and click-through rates will increase. If your rates increase that also increases your reputation with Internet service providers and your emails will reach more people.
- Increased sales. If you have a set of loyal customers and high click-through rates this will inevitably lead to more people going to your websites and purchasing things. The whole point of email personalization is to build a relationship with your customers to get them to buy more from you
Personalizing your emails seems like a no-brainer, so why aren’t all businesses doing it? The main reason is that it can be time and labor intensive. Coming up with the different ways of personalizing your emails takes time on its own, let alone going on to implement these strategies. The benefits of email personalization are huge, but the more personalized you get, the more time it takes. It’s important to weigh up how much time you have to dedicate to this based on your team and the size of your business.
There are different levels of personalization you can offer, from simply a name at the beginning to different emails based on what the customer engages with. Find what programs are available and see how much time you’re able to dedicate to the personalization.
A Word of caution
You’ve been able to collect all this information to create targeted emails for your users, but there is such a thing as having too much information.
When you’ve crossed the privacy line with your customers there is no going back, the levels of trust in your company will plummet dramatically and your customers will move elsewhere. So while it is important to target your emails to different demographics it is crucial that you do not overstep their boundaries by collecting unnecessary information.
A way to make sure that you don’t step over the line is to only keep information that is given to you from your sites – meaning, that you don’t collect information from third-party suppliers. Collecting this information from third-party suppliers isn’t necessarily illegal, but it can make your customers feel out of control, and therefore drive them away from your business.
Conclusion
Email personalization is a great way of building a trusting relationship with your clientele, and therefore increasing how many people are going to and engaging with your website.
There are different levels of personalization that you can implement, and various different software that can help you through this. Spending time to figure out what system is best for you and your company can really help you use the right amount of resources on this, and balance effort to reward.
