10tipsemailPersonalization of emails is not difficult, as there are a few simple tricks not to make them look like soulless mass mailings.

Who isn’t familiar with the many emails that end up in the inbox and get usually immediately deleted unseen? However, a few useful simple solutions help creating emails that are well received:

Select the audience wisely: Of course, it is easiest if you send the same email to the entire distribution list. In fact, it even works well, as long as the audience is particularly interested in you or your field of business. If you are a niche provider, you can often even go without selection. However, if your offer or your target audience is heterogeneous, selecting is necessary.

Address women and men separately: Take the trouble to select two different designs for women and men. Even if the text only slightly differs, you will most probably see rising click and conversion rates.

Form two segments only: An email is considered personal when the user clearly recognizes that the email was not sent to everybody. You can achieve that by not only writing separately to women and men, even the age, the origin, or the specific interest can be used for segmentation.

Form manageable segments: Each segment causes extra work when creating. Payback, for instance, took a chance with a mailing for the travel portal Expedia. Payback is a loyalty program for customers of retail businesses, with which shoppers can collect points for purchases and redeem them for vouchers, goods or money. The holiday seekers were divided into three segments: women and men, young and old, tranquility and adventure seekers. This resulted in six segments that received different imagery and lyrics. On top, the whole action was scientifically supported and 40% more clicks were the reward for the hard work.

Put yourself in the shoes of the audience: What is the burning problem of your target group and what interests these people in particular? Stick a few photos of your customers onto your monitor and write one of them a letter, which is meant only for that specific person. Then, however, send that one to all – it will work.

Show the recipient’s name as a picture: The trick works always, so please do not apply it too often, as the own name always stands out. You can include it as a text in the subject line, as large colorful letters in the mail, or even as automated created image.

Birthday, name day or anniversary: We all know that the birthday mail is always well received if it is written in a nice way and contains no sales message, but as a real gift. Of course, you can congratulate to the name day as well - many email providers have such databases - or congratulate, when the first purchase was exactly one year ago.
Photo of something personal: Nothing is better than their own photo - if you have it. In business, you can take the logo or a photo of the recently purchased product: Asked whether everything is fine with it, such an emails stand out.

Score or next appointment: Let your customers earn points, like e.g. Payback and Miles & More (Lufthansa), so that you can send emails with the collected points level.
Personal text: Whatever you do, make an effort when texting. Write as if you would write a good friend or write in a way that the recipients must smile when reading it.

By Daniela La Marca