If you don’t know anything at all about your reader, you really have no business emailing them! Far better to show them you know them by sprinkling in some personalisation. A word of warning: getting this wrong is an instant deterrent. Meaning it’s critical to keep your database up-to-date, and the more information you can gather on a contact, the more personalised you can get.

6 ways to personalise your emails

Marketers are looking to enhance their personalisation levels with every interaction, trying new and exciting things. So, we’ve put together our 6 methods for personalising our emails.  

1. Start simple with Merge Tags

A screenshot o Spotler's email builder, showing what a Merge Field looks like

Merge Fields allow you to add information about a contact into your email design

The easiest way to prove to your reader that you understand who they are. You can reference the name of their company, the industry they’re in, or almost any piece of information you know about them. Being clear that you’re contacting them because of the CRM they use, or the postcode area they fall in, marks you out from those horrible, generic emails that some people still send.

2. Don’t leave your Subject Lines out

A screenshot showing dynamic content in a subject line

Add dynamic content to your subject lines to grab attention straight away

Make it personal from the get-go. Acting effectively as the heading to any email, your subject line is the first thing your recipient will see. Make it count with direct interaction. You will seem like you’re talking directly to your recipient and them alone. And it’s possible with the simple addition of a merge tag. Why not try a split test to see the difference this makes for your own audience?  

3. Replace the missing data with Salutation

A Salutation is a merge field which allows you to to use placeholder text for blank fields Salutation is the step up from a merge tag. Since you won’t have the required data for every contact, this option allows you to set the ‘default’ if the data is missing. So instead of a blank space where a name should be, you can amend ‘Hi  ,’ to ‘ Hi there,’. Even when the information just isn’t there, your emails will still read seamlessly. Keep the message, without missing a step.

4: Use Dynamic Content Blocks to amend the content  

A screenshot showing how to set rules for when Dynamic Content will be displayed

Use Dynamic Content Blocks to change how your emails look to different audience members 

Why stop the personalisation at single words or phrases, when you can customise entire sections of your email. Using pre-determined rules and variations of articles, you can change how the email reads for each contact dependent on whether they meet certain criteria or not. It’s the ultimate customisation challenge.  

5: Images are not exempt

A screenshot of Nifty Images, Spotler's image customisation tool

Personalise your images as well as your text to really make an impression

Just because images aren’t text by default doesn’t mean they should miss out on the personalisation movement. Editing your images to include merge tags will undoubtedly make them stand out from the crowd.

6: Change the email full stop with Workflows

screenshot showing a simple workflow that divides a grpup of contacts into 2 based on their behaviour

Simple workflows separate your contacts via a particular criterion…

Screensot of a Spotler Workflow with many rules and multiple exit routes

…while complex ones respond to customer behaviour over multiple touchpoints and a long timeframe

Personal interests should shape every buyer’s journey. Use workflows to divide your audience based on their own interactions. Interested in cars? Onto the motor show you go. Interested in knitting? Down the wool channel for you. Use various conditions based on open, clicks or web activity, whatever is most appropriate, to direct your contacts where suits them best.   And there you have it. 6 ways to tailor your content to your audience. Implement one, or all of them, and identify what result it has. See how our email marketing software can make it all possible.

Email Personalisation Tips

It’s clear that personalisation in marketing has advanced way beyond name-dropping your subscribers in intros and subject lines. With marketing automation and CRM platforms becoming more commonplace in companies of all sizes and budgets, intelligence and behaviour tracking is more accessible than ever before. That said, it’s important to maintain a balance between personalised, dynamic campaigns and coming across creepy and desperate.

Analyse first. Market second.

The beauty of lead generation is that your sales team have access to a wealth of information about the companies and individuals browsing your website. While this information can make their jobs easier, it’s important to analyse the leads before jumping on them from the get-go. We recommend page scoring to help qualify lead behaviour as it also provides a good indication of how interested they are in your product as well as the phase of the lifecycle.

Context is everything.

Marketing automation is about making your data and campaign mechanics work harder while giving you back the time to focus on the human-lead areas of marketing. While your website is tracking behaviour and collecting intelligence, it’s key to remember data is only successful within context. Timing is, therefore, everything. We recommend a combination of lead nurturing and drip marketing. Lead nurturing enables you to easily identify the needs, interests and professional requirements of the individuals on your database. While drip marketing allows you to set up a series of relevant campaigns in advance, triggering them to send relevant information and encouraging engagement, through an automated flow.

Engage with leads who are active.

It seems pretty obvious, but this advice is often ignored: don’t waste your time on cold leads when you could be nurturing warm leads to convert. It’s a bit like continuing to knock on a door that no one has answered – come back later. We recommend using lead scoring to help assess whereabouts in the journey your leads are, helping you to determine the best time to target them and with the best content. Those who aren’t responding? Keep tabs on them if they’re still visiting your site, even if they aren’t engaging with your campaigns. Track what they’re visiting and consider if you are sending relevant information that meets their needs. 

Over to you, #[Person_FirstName]#

Hopefully, we’ve shown you that adding personalisation to your marketing content is easy, straightforward, and can be done in simple steps, rather than a mammoth leap that you need to take. If your current setup doesn’t make personalisation this easy, get in touch! Everything we’ve talked about in this post is available to you in the Spotler platform.