You will know the importance of sending the right message to the right person at the right time. But do you know how to achieve this?
Start by defining your different customer groups – whether you group them by their product of interest, or their stage in their purchase journey (but preferably both of these things and more). Then document the ideal message for each of them at each stage of the next twelve months, and you have the beginnings of an automated email plan.
WHY
Why is email personalisation important?
- 76% of buyers expect more personalised attention from marketers to develop an intimate relationship with your brand. (Demand Gen Report 2020 Buyer Behaviour Study)
- 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalised experiences. (Epsilon)
- 6 in 10 marketers report that boosting personalisation in email is a priority. (Litmus 2020 State of Email)
WHAT
So what do I know, or need to know about my database?
The first step to personalised email communications is to tag your audiences and create sub-segments of your list, so the messages you send will be more relevant to those smaller groups. There are two main approaches:
1. Based on data you already collect
This can be based on things like how they joined your list, what they bought, where they live, what they have shown an interest in, what stage they are at in their relationship with you.
2. Ask them for more information about themselves
The other thing you can do is identify key characteristics about your customers that may influence how or what you try to sell to them, and then ask them for that data by sending a link to a survey. This can be sprung upon them at any time, but you are more likely to get best results if you send it when they are most happy and engaged e.g. when they have just bought from you. According to Accenture, 83% of consumers are willing to share their data to create a more personalised experience.
The sorts of things you might be looking for here are the size of their company, their job title, what they intend on using your product for etc.
HOW
Okay, so how would I use this to achieve email personalisation? The goal here is to try to deliver the sort of experience you customer might receive if you were hand writing every communication yourself, but by using automation tools within your CRM system.
1. Talk to them with their name.
At the very least, it is advisable to collect contact names when you collect their email address, and then use that in either your subject line or salutation.
2. Set behaviour triggers.
Use the ‘if this then that’ logic in your CRM system. Build automated flows based on certain things people might do on your website. For example:
- if someone adds something to their basket but doesn’t check out, trigger the basket abandonment automated flow
- if someone downloads your lead magnet, trigger an automated flow which builds on or links to that content
3. Predict the next step in their journey and make contact at the right time.
In an ideal world you would build predictive models based on your customer touch points and apply them to your email marketing, pre-empting their next likely move at a time that’s pertinent to them
4.Suggest other products or services they may be interested in.
Again, this could be based on their purchase history or the things they’ve shown an interest in, but the ‘we thought you might like’ type of message can be great for conversion, and it helps build the relationship by offering a personalised message too.
What do you think? Are you ready to start sorting your customers by type and delivering world-class personalisation?
