Personalisation is the method marketers use to take messaging to the next level. It focuses on understanding your audience by using analytics and insights to pinpoint their interests and serve content and products that are based on those interests.
The Campaign Monitor glossary specifically defines personalisation as email content customized to subscribers based on their individual desires, interests, and data. Not to mention, adding a little personalisation to your messaging can actually improve your open rates by up to 26%.
Why is personalisation important?
For many marketing departments, simply adding a subscriber’s name to the subject line of an email is the extent of their personalisation. And while, yes, this does work to catch the attention of your subscriber, it doesn’t necessarily contribute much when it comes to keeping the attention of your subscriber.
It’s estimated that consumers are faced with roughly 126 marketing emails each day. With so much information to sort through, it’s absolutely imperative that the content of those emails is directly personalised to what each subscriber actually wants to see in their inbox. Otherwise, your message might be sent to the trash folder before it’s ever even opened.
Understanding your audience and taking the time to dig into the content or products they are genuinely interested in will help your messages stand out, instead of just being another number in the list of 126.
4 ways to personalise your messages
1. Personalise based on location
For certain companies, like Uber, who offer location-based services, geographic personalisation can be a game-changer. Uber uses customer data to know where specific subscribers live, or can make inferences about the places where subscribers typically travel to most.
With this information, Uber can then make offers that are based on those specific locations. Offering flash deals based on location is a great way to ensure that subscribers are opening and engaging with your messages and offers.
Source: Campaign Monitor
2. Personalise based on past purchases
With the help of an email service provider, you can actually integrate recent purchases or browsing history into your email marketing.
Using this information, you can then create email campaigns that are more relevant to subscriber behaviour. Plus, when you’re suggesting products that you’re absolutely certain subscribers will love, you’ll begin to build legitimate trust between your brand and your customers.
Source: Campaign Monitor
3. Personalise abandoned cart emails
On average, 77% of shoppers will add items to their cart, only to exit the website before actually purchasing anything. Think of it as digital window shopping—consumers like what they see, but bail out before making any financial decisions.
But with personalised abandoned cart emails, you can recover that lost revenue and have consumers re-thinking what they clicked out of.
In the Society6 example below, they remind their subscriber of what they’re missing out on, and provide a little urgency by letting the subscriber know that their cart will expire in 48 hours.
Source: CM Commerce
4. Personalise according to customer pain points
Content and products don’t always need to relate to past behaviours. They can also serve as personalised solutions to specific problems that a subscriber may be facing at the time.
In this example from emeals, the brand hones in on the weight loss pain point and offers recipes that are low carb and keto-friendly. However, in a separate campaign, they may share recipes that require limited effort in the kitchen, which would appeal to those subscribers who don’t enjoy spending time in the kitchen.
Source: Campaign Monitor
However you decide to frame your offering, just be sure that it solves the pain points for the specific segment of subscribers you’re sending to.
Wrap Up
When it comes to breaking through a cluttered inbox and building trust with your subscribers, personalised messages are your key to success. Offering content, products, and offers that are specifically tailored to subscriber behaviour, interests, or even location can keep your brand top of mind when busy subscribers are filtering through inbox offers.
Plus, personalised messages create a cleaner, easier shopping process for your subscribers—one that takes away the guesswork and eliminates the need to search through a long list of products or content to find what they are looking for. And no matter what industry you’re in, making your customers’ lives easier will always lead to genuine brand loyalty and a strong desire to do business with your company.
Sydney Eddy is a copywriter for CM Group, a family of global marketing technology brands founded in 2017. Sydney holds a B.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and a B.A. in Media Psychology from Touro University. Outside of words, she enjoys staying active, hanging with her pup, and travelling the world.
