Email Personalization: Techniques, Tools, & Stats (2021 Guide)

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Do you have those few emails that you ALWAYS open?

Whether it’s from a potential client, it’s from your kids’ school, or your favorite news outlet, we all have emails that we always open.

Then there are others that… Well, let’s just say they fall by the wayside. You ignore them, delete, maybe you unsubscribe.

Your potential clients are doing the same! Keep reading to learn how to stand out in the inbox and become one of those emails they look forward to opening!

First of all, how did we get into this crazy email scenario anyway? The use of email dates all the way back to 1965 when professor Ray Tomlinson developed a way for colleagues to leave electronic “notes” on each other’s computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

While the idea was innovative for the time; the concept was something simply thought of as just another way that MIT was setting the pace in education and the digital world. It would have been difficult for anyone to predict how much a part of our lives the use of Tomlinson’s invention would become.

There isn’t a day that goes by that email isn’t used in some way, shape, or form. In fact, there are more than 300 billion emails sent and received on a daily basis, and that number is only expected to grow by 2 to 3%?annually.

What does that mean for business owners and marketers today?

It means that your audience is already drowning in emails, and with most of those emails going unread.

How can you cut through the noise and the inbox clutter?

Here’s how in real life… you walk right up to them, speak to them by name, and say something they’re actually interested in.

?In the email world that’s called email personalization, combined with best practices for email marketing. You want to make sure your customers see the most relevant message for them, leading to higher engagement, sales, and loyalty.

In an effort to provide an overview of email personalization and the tools, techniques, and data that are most important to its successful implementation into your business strategy in 2021, we’ve developed this comprehensive guide.

The following?guide contains everything you need to know about email personalization. From an explanation as to why personalized emails are important, to the latest techniques and some striking statistics every business owner should know, we’ve got you covered.

Keep reading to understand the in’s and out’s of email personalization, how anybody can take advantage of it, and exactly what tools you have at your fingertips to help you cut through the inbox clutter!

What Exactly Is Email Personalization?

Email personalization has become incredibly important for businesses. But email personalization isn’t just about making sure the right person’s name is inserted into the greeting line or introduction, or just writing about topics and things you know they’ll immediately be interested in. (Although that’s very important!)

Personalizing email campaigns is also focused on segmenting your potential market into pieces and guiding them through a concise and effective sales funnel.

Albeit with a little more complexity. The number of techniques, tools and data sets you can use to ensure your email marketing campaigns reach the right audience are only growing and it’s important to stay-up-to-date.

All of the above being said, automated email and marketing campaigns should have a personal touch. They should include a message that speaks directly to the right audience at the right time and leave little room for confusion. By doing so, businesses can gain a clearer understanding of their ROI and prepare to navigate the “new normal” successfully.

Email Personalization Data And Statistics Every Marketer Should Know

We’ve spent quite a bit of time going over the long-and-the-short of how businesses and marketing teams can benefit from the use of email personalization, but it’s worth looking at some hard numbers and facts. The following list contains the data and statistics every marketer should know about email personalization:

• 91 % of consumers say that they are more willing to do business with a company that provides offers directly relevant to them
• 36% of people want companies to provide more personalized experiences
• 72% say they only respond to messages aimed directly at them
• 50% of consumers are willing to share their information if it will provide them a discount
• 80% of eCommerce users only choose companies that personalize their experience
• 70% of Millennials aren’t favorable towards brands that don’t send personalized emails
• 65% of marketers saying that using email provides them the most options for reaching customers
• 74% of customers become frustrated when their email communication experience isn’t personalized
• 63% of people in one survey said they never respond to non-personalized emails
• Marketers typically see a 20% increase in sales revenue when their email campaigns are personalized
• 68% of people in the United States base their decision on whether to open an email based upon the “from” name
• Using someone’s actual name in the subject line increases email open rates by 26%
• Email achieves a 28.5% ROI on average
• 50% of companies say they increase customer engagement through email personalization
• Including a personalized video in an email can increase click-thru rates by up to 200%

Let’s dive into some different uses...

Email Personalization That Supports Your Outreach Strategy

Email personalization is an outreach strategy that allows businesses to use the information they have about customers to more accurately and effectively target them. The information a business might have about someone could be something as minor as their last name to as major as their shopping habits, such as the number of times they click on a particular link or put items in a shopping cart.

If you want to stand out in the inbox… you do NOT want your emails to look like mass-market blasts. You want them to be 1-on-1 like you’d see an email from a friend, or your mom.

You see when those ones come in because those are names that are important to you. On the other hand, big corporate emails are easy to ignore.

Email Personalization for Re-Engagements

Personalizing emails isn’t limited to making cold-outreach campaigns more effective, they can also re-engage existing customers. If a customer has “gone missing” for some time, a properly-timed and relevant email can help bring them back into the fold.

Personalizing emails can be something as simple as inserting the person’s name into the subject line, or as complex as looking over detailed data about a particular demographic to ensure that the tone and content of your email communication fits. Either way, there are almost countless options.

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The Effect of Timing in Your Emails

Another aspect of email personalization is timing. These days, marketing teams have the unique ability to use email personalization to create timely and relevant campaigns. Targeted emails that capture real-time data sets can ensure that you don’t lose out on business or a potential client.

This is crucial! Harvard Business Review did an extensive study on this: They asked 2,241 companies of all types how quickly they contact a prospect after they’ve shown interest and whether or not that prospect continues the conversation to become a qualified lead.

What they found is striking! Firms that tried to contact potential customers within 24 hours of receiving a query were nearly 60 times as likely to qualify the lead (which we defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision-maker) as those that waited 24 hours or longer.

When you can also personalize the timing of your emails, you have more control over when your prospect receives it.

Recent Trends: What You Should Know About Email Personalization for Today’s Market

It would be fair to say that the world has changed quite a bit over the last 16 months. However, there was a trend occurring in business that began prior to the arrival of COVID-19. The savviness of consumers and the general availability of products, goods, and services that can all be purchased for a relatively similar price has led to a dramatic change in attitudes.

If a business has a bad reputation or simply can’t compete on price, customers will look elsewhere. Consumers aren’t willing to do business with a company who comes across as inauthentic. And they certainly aren’t willing to sacrifice any sort of ethical or moral fiber just to save a few dollars. Modern consumers want to know that the business they are dealing with has their best interest in mind.?

But they have to truly believe that a company not only has their best interest in mind but that they also understand their unique and specific needs.?

Email personalization addresses this directly.?

Personalized emails can show a customer that you not only know who they are, but that you also understand their reason for having a particular need (hopefully one that your business can help with!). They will feel like they aren’t just another face in the crowd, and you didn’t pull their name randomly from a list.

This is just as true for B2B audiences as it is B2C.?

Email personalization in marketing helps you set your business apart from the competition. When you aren’t sending generic subject lines and spamming people’s inboxes, you are slowly breaking down the barrier between your business and the consumer.?

Take a look at this…

Research even shows that emails with a personalized subject line are 26% more likely to be opened.?

Not only that, personalized emails generally result in nearly 6 times the revenue production than other non-personalized forms.?

By using the tools available in many of the platforms available for creating these types of campaigns, you can design outreach strategies that will follow up with customers after a purchase or re-engage them after they’ve been absent for a while.?

So, Here’s What We’ve Covered So Far...

• Email personalization helps marketing teams and businesses build and manage their reputation
• Personalized emails serve as a great way to increase open rates and stand out in the inbox
• Email with a personal touch lead to a much higher chance that a businesses’ marketing efforts will be sent to the right place at the right time
• Marketing teams can use personalized emails to continue building relationships with existing customers by re-engaging them

Before we get into specific examples of how you can set up email personalization for your own business, let’s talk about one of the tools that help you do this.

How Does Connect 365 Stand Out In The Crowd?

When it comes to personalizing emails, we offer you a long list of customizable options and unique templates.?

By leveraging the power of the latest technology, our team at Connect 365 has created a platform that genuinely helps modern business owners like you market yourself and build long-term relationships with clients.?

After all, the point of email personalization is to make a customer feel like they were the only person your communication went out to.?

As if it were exclusive and meant just for them. There aren’t enough ways to stress the importance of creating a personal relationship through email communication.

What Can You Expect When Choosing Connect 365?

• You’ll gain exclusive access to their innovative warm email automating tool (more details below)
• Immediate access to a special members-only training area which provides a level of support and service other platforms simply don’t provide
• The ability to upload your list of best prospects and sort them into actionable campaigns
• Segment your contacts into groups using tags so that all of your campaigns run together seamlessly
• The power to create personal, warm email sequences that lead to higher conversion rates
• Automated messages sent out directly after the first contact or reply from a customer
• Access to a number of plug-ins and action triggers which allow for full customization of our templates
• Detailed analytics to help adjust your strategy accordingly

>>> If you’d like to learn more about how Connect 365 can help you get more clients for your business, click here to see what others are saying about and to start a free trial (no strings attached!)?

If you’d like to learn more about email personalization and see some specific examples for how to set up email personalization using Connect365, keep reading...

Email Personalization Tips And Examples You Should Know

Now that we’ve talked about what email personalization includes, how it benefits your business, and what Connect 365 has to offer, it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty and see how it’s actually done!?

You’ll see that anyone can take advantage of email personalization using intuitive tools like Connect 365. It’s a platform where you can completely customize campaigns, plus you get some of the best examples of what marketing automation efforts should look like, along with in-depth training and templates you can follow as soon as today.

With the ability to streamline lead generation and prospecting efforts into one seamless workflow, create unique tags and label them to top prospects, and generate lists that target each of your key audiences, there’s really no way you can go wrong with Connect 365.??

But before we dive into some examples directly from connect 365, here are some things to keep in mind…

Checklist for Getting Started With Email Personalization

• Divide your prospects and target customers into smaller segments so that you can send more personalized emails?
• When creating sign-up forms, ask questions so you can learn a bit more about your customer
• Make sure to include their name in the subject line
• Every email should have a way the recipient can engage with your brand a.k.a “behavior triggers”
• Welcome your new customers with warm emails that invite them to revisit your website
• Vary your content and follow-up with what works
• Integrate your email personalization efforts with other key platforms
• Your website’s landing page is a great opportunity to get relevant contact information to send carefully crafted emails?
• Create a sense of urgency in your subject line - but, don’t be dramatic and provide a sense of real value

How to Use Connect 365 to Create Personalized Email Campaigns

Connect 365 can help you create new campaigns with ease!

• Generating personalized communication is a breeze when you utilize Connect 365’s exclusive system for business owners
• Regardless of your industry, by taking advantage of the ability to start and manage multiple campaigns with just the click of a few buttons, you’ll see growth you never thought possible!

You can also segment your contacts into easily accessible locations...

• Once you’ve gotten the attention of your target audience, you can use any information you have about them to create a series of customizable marketing campaigns; including personalized emails, follow-up communication, and messaging that highlights the key benefits of your products or services
• The platform is intuitive; not only are your different target audiences easy to locate and segment into specific campaigns, you can change them at any time to better suit your needs?

Gather Personalized Data From A Landing Page

Your website or landing page is a great chance to start filling your sales pipeline and start communicating with prospects directly…

• When a potential customer provides you with their information it will go directly to the Connect 365 database
• Once the customer’s information is readily available, Connect 365’s innovative platform can transform it into a series of great options for personalized emails and marketing material
• Generating email lists that hit your target audience directly has simply never been easier -- and that’s just one of the opportunities given by accessing Connect 365’s exclusive platform for business owners

Engage With Potential Clients By Connecting With Them On A Personal Level From the Get-Go

• Mass emails have gone by the wayside, and there’s no better time than now to start capitalizing on the sense of personalization every customer wants
• Give your customers a “one-on-one” type feeling, even though you send to a whole list.
• In short, Connect 365’s platform is an excellent option for business owners looking to create a personal connection with their customers

What Types Of Personalized Email Campaigns Can Connect 365 Help You Create?

Before going over the two primary types of email campaigns, it’s important to note the difference between the two. When you create a sequential email campaign, your contacts are sent communication in a precise order, regardless of order or timing of a customer interacting with your website or social media platform. It doesn’t matter when you add a contact to a sequential campaign either because the process will begin right away.?

You also have what is known as a scheduled email campaign. When you utilize this option, you get to choose the specific date and time an email is sent out, and have a bit more flexibility with the order of how your marketing communication is structured.?

How Easy Is It To Create Sequential Email Campaigns With Connect 365?

As a business owner or small business marketer, one of the best ways to create a personal connection with your customers is to transition them from their first point-of-contact (your website or social media platform) to email. Connect 365 makes this entire process easy. Below you will find some examples of how simple it is…?

• Connect 365 gives you the option to either customize your own template or use one of theirs to get started. When you choose a custom campaign, you can borrow customer information from any number of resources you’ve created to connect with them

After you’ve decided which information you want to customize to generate seamless personalized email communication, you can create unique tags to help you keep track?

There are so many options! You can change everything about each message -- from the date and time it’s sent to the number of options for follow-up responses and communication in the message?

What Else Can Connect 365 Do For My Personalized Email Campaigns?

• Easily edit your customer’s contact information
• Create unique tags that allow you to find customers for a specific campaign in no-time?
• Search for contacts quickly -- even separate them into groups based upon your marketing focus
• Already have a contact list? You can upload them into the Connect 365 database to be integrated with any new personalized email campaigns you create
• Based upon a customer’s response, you can add unique tags to keep track of their journey through your sales pipeline
• Whenever a contact opens your email, you can choose from a variety of personalized follow-up communication methods
• You can also remove contacts who click a link within a campaign email?
• By sorting through cold-leads efficiently, you can save precious time and resources and target your communication elsewhere
• Completely customize scheduled email campaigns so you know exact when and where they are being sent

Your Turn: Create Powerful And Engaging Personalized Email Communication

The guide above was designed to help entrepreneurs and marketing teams from all areas of business better understand the value of email personalization. By leveraging the latest tools and techniques available, any business can use personalized emails to dramatically increase their marketing ROI, find new customers, and ultimately drive customer engagement.?

While there are many companies to choose from if you decide to go through with an email personalization campaign, we believe our team at Connect 365 has the best available services and options. As a premier client-attraction and sales-automation tool, Connect 365 offers a more personal and intimate experience to the recipient.?

The software helps you cut through the noise of the modern email inbox and stand out in a sea of “marketing” and “advertising” emails that your prospects usually receive.?

The result? More people will read your most important emails without you having to send each one manually. You’ll save time and see more results.

Interested in learning how you can get started with a personalized email marketing campaign that works? Click here to learn more about Connect 365 and to get free access to the premium email automation software.