How to build a world-class Email Marketing Personalisation Strategy 2021

It’s 2021. One size fits all marketing is a thing of the past.

Today, consumers demand a purchasing experience that is perfectly tailored to their own wants, needs, and desires.

And email marketing is key to this process. It is the glue that holds other marketing channels together. Always ensuring that you can get in front of your consumers and monitor how well they are engaging.

But personalisation isn’t new. Which means many of your competitors are likely implementing some impressive personalisation tactics already. To stay ahead, you need to focus on building a world-class email marketing personalisation strategy.

Fortunately, our guide is here to help.

For email marketers, better starts here.

Benefits of email personalisation

Before we get stuck into personalisation strategy, let’s whet your appetite with the benefits that email personalisation can bring to you and your business.

Keeps customers happy

74% of consumers actually find a lack of personalisation in marketing frustrating.

That’s because a lack of personalisation equals irrelevant advertising. The wrong products, the wrong locations, the wrong currencies. The list can go on.

Personalisation keeps customers happy by showcasing them the products and services that are actually of interest to them. This helps them to tackle choice overload. And makes the buying process much simpler for them.

Influences the buying decision

59% of consumers state that personalisation influences their buying decisions.

That’s likely because personalisation promotes products of interest, which are more likely to directly address their wants, needs, and challenges.

This is key to influencing the purchasing decision and moving the customer along the buying cycle without them turning to a competitor.

Improves brand preference

Personalisation can impact the brands that consumers prefer to shop with.

12% of online consumers choose to shop with a specific brand over competitors due to their personalised offers.

This is because a brand that practices personalisation will always be promoting items of interest. If a consumer can easily find exactly what they want from a specific brand, then why would they look elsewhere?

Builds loyalty

The more a customer shops with a brand, the more in-depth the data they can collect, and the more relevant the personalisation that they implement.

That means that brands can get really smart and really specific with their personalisation. The better the personalisation continues to get, the more loyal a customer will become.

In fact, 50% of consumers report that they are more likely to shop with brands again after they are offered personalised promotions and information. 

How to build a personalisation strategy

We hope by now that you’re as big a fan of email personalisation as we are.

If so, let’s get stuck into building a word-class email marketing personalisation strategy by following these steps.

Always start with data

There is a secret ingredient to successful email personalisation.

Data.

Without data on your recipients, email personalisation simply cannot work. So the first step in this entire process is to get on top of your data strategy.

Collect data

If you haven’t already, start by actually collecting data on your audience.

You could do this via forms, such as newsletter sign-ups and enquiry forms. And gather basic information such as name, age, gender, location, etc. This can form the foundation of an email personalisation strategy.

But to get really smart with your personalisation, you will also want to gather behavioural data, such as the products your recipients browse and go on to purchase. Or not purchase.

This data can be collected using cookies that track the pages visitors view on your website. As well as your eCommerce system which will store your purchase data.

Combine data sources

You may have noticed that there are lots of different types of data to collect, all sitting in different places. Your CRM, eCommerce system, ERP, finance system, to name just a few.

This can quickly become complicated and messy. And messy data is no good for email personalisation.

To avoid an embarrassing personalisation disaster, combine all of your data sources into one accessible place. This will ensure that data can be managed and cleaned properly, removing inaccurate information and duplicates. But it also means that all members of the business have access to the most up to date, accurate data possible. Which is especially important for your email marketing team.

Data analytics

Once you have combined all of your data, you can start to gain a fuller understanding of who your audience actually are. You can use this information to identify your perfect customers. Such as those who buy regularly, spend lots, and those who could act as brand ambassadors.

Getting to know your recipients helps with determining the most effective email campaigns to run. And is really useful for certain types of email personalisation, which we’ll go on to discuss.

Implement marketing automation software

As well as data, you are going to need some smart technology to produce the best personalised email campaigns.

With this in mind, we recommend implementing marketing automation software, such as Pure360.

This software will enable you to manage and segment your email data effectively. Connect your website to your email campaigns to enable ongoing data collection and triggered email campaigns. And practice advanced personalisation tactics, which we will cover later on in this guide.

There are lots of software options available out there. Of course, we would always recommend our own AI email and web marketing platform, alongside our dedicated Customer Success Team. But if you need a little help whilst choosing, check out our Guide to Choosing the Right Email Service Provider.

Alternatively, if you are already signed up to an ESP or automation software, but need a change, our Guide to Switching Email Service Provider will come in handy.

Run segmented campaigns

If you’re not too familiar with personalised emails, a great place to start is with segmented campaigns.

Using the data which you have now organised, you can segment recipients into groups based on similarities.

Demographic

Demographic data could involve the age, gender, and location of specific recipients. It can be used to run basic segmented campaigns, such as promoting specific events to recipients who live nearby. Or different fashions based on the recipients’ ages.

However, always be mindful that someone’s age or gender doesn’t necessarily dictate the items that they will choose to buy.

RFM

Or you could conduct RFM modelling, which groups people on how recently and frequently they have purchased, as well as how much money they spend.

Once you have created these groups, you can create different email campaigns to send out to each segment.

For instance, an exclusive offer for your most regular spenders. Or promoting your higher-ticket items to those that spend the most.

Add basic personalisation

The next step in your strategy should be to start adding basic personalisation into your emails.

First name

Something as simple as adding a first name into an email can be very effective.

As well as the email address, a first name is the one piece of data that most brands will have access to. So, they might as well put it to good use.

First name can be utilised in the subject line, to grab your recipient’s attention in the inbox. And then can be used in the introduction of your email, to add that personal touch.

Anniversaries

A nice touch when you are capturing data is to ask for a recipient’s date of birth.

This provides you with the details needed to send automated, Happy Birthday emails to help your recipients celebrate their special day.

These anniversary emails can be used for a wider variety of celebrations too. If you are a pet brand, ask for the recipient’s pet’s date of birth. Or if you sell baby items, the recipient’s due date.

If you don’t have this information, don’t let that deter you. You could even send an anniversary email based on when the recipient first signed up with you as a brand.

Automate triggered emails

Triggered emails are handy communications that are automatically sent when a recipient makes a specific action.

These emails are personalised based on what that recipient’s action was, such as the below:

Basket abandonment

Around 70% of website visitors abandon their baskets before checking out. That’s a lot of potential revenue being lost.

And there are lots of reasons why consumers abandon baskets. They may have been distracted. Were unsure. Or found a better deal elsewhere.

Abandoned basket emails are triggered after this stage to encourage the recipient to come back and finish their purchase. And they should address all of the above hurdles by reminding the recipient of the product they were looking to buy, providing more in-depth information or support contact details if they have any queries. And maybe even a discount code as a final incentive.

Post-purchase follow-ups

Post-purchase follow-ups are automated when – you guessed it – a consumer makes a purchase.

They are highly specific to the individual consumer and whatever they have bought. And offer essential information and reassurance throughout the final stages of the buying cycle.

These follow ups should include order confirmation, dispatch notifications, delivery updates, and even rating and review follow ups once the item has been delivered.

All of the above helps keep the customer engaged, and show that you care about them even after the sale.

Replenishment and renewal reminders

Some consumers may make a purchase or sign up to a subscription on a regular basis.

These regular purchases often include food and groceries, medicine, and cosmetics. And the list of subscription businesses today is endless.

However, when it’s time to replenish an order or renew a subscription, some customers may need a little nudge.

Because at this point customers may forget to re-order or be tempted by competitors. So it’s important for brands to automate these reminders before their purchase or subscription is due.

In-stock notifications

Unfortunately, sometimes an excited consumer will find the exact product they are looking for on your website. Just to realise it’s out of stock

Reduce the chances of losing this potential customer by offering them email notifications for when the item is back in stock.

These emails are triggered when the exact product is back in stock, giving the customer the opportunity to snap it up before it sells out again.

Dive into advanced personalisation

Dynamic content is the secret weapon when it comes to email personalisation.

It allows brands to send out highly tailored content which is individual to each email recipient. Without having to create multiple emails.

This could include personalised banners, copy, products, and even weather updates.

Product recommendations

80% of email recipients like to receive communications based on past purchases.

However, product recommendation emails are also great for encouraging recipients to make their very first purchase.

With the use of dynamic content, brands can populate specific products that will be of most interest to individual recipients, based on a number of criteria.

For instance, similar or alternative products to those regularly browsed or add-on products to accompany a recent purchase.

Pricing and availability

Sales, surges in demand, and seasonality can all lead to differing pricing and availability.

The latest prices are something that all brands will want to keep their consumers updated about. However, doing so manually is a laborious process that is easy to get wrong.

With dynamic content, brands can automatically populate their email with real-time pricing and availability for the products consumers are most interested in.

For instance, if a potential customer has browsed a specific item lots of times, but has yet to make a purchase, drop them an email if this item goes on sale.

This is incredibly useful information for the recipient, but can also encourage them to buy sooner rather than later, else miss out on their favourite product or the lower price tag.

Geotargeting

With the use of geotargeting, brands can identify where in the world a recipient is, and dynamically serve them the most appropriate content to their location.

This could be dynamic copy, currency, imagery, relevant products, or even weather updates.

For instance, a brand can promote a store opening that is closest to the recipient. Or, promote umbrellas and wet weather attire for locations that are due a rainy period.

Are you ready to get your personalisation strategy set up?

Then we’re ready to help.

Our all-in-one AI email and web marketing platform alongside our Customer Success Team are on a mission is to get brands like yours better results.

Get in touch to find out more.

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