There’s no doubt that email is the one of the best known and most used channel for delivering content, but when it comes to promoting stuff, there’s one big question every marketer asks himself or herself: Should I use personalized content or sticking to traditional, standard content will work just fine?
Before answering these questions, let’s see how companies are positioning themselves when it comes to this aspect. According to Marketing Land, citing a study made in 2013, more than 70 percent of the brands failed to personalize their email messages.
Since we used “failed”, it’s pretty obvious that nowadays, personalized email content is a must and every email campaign should focus on this if it’s looking forward to bring some good results.
The same study mentions that email personalization can lift transaction rates and revenue. And because this statement is basically nothing without numbers, you should know that custom promotional messages had a unique open rate higher with 29 percent than standard messages, alongside a 41 percent higher unique click rate.
Why should you choose personalized content email retargeting?
Let’s take another example. As stated by Brafton.com, a company called MarketingSherpa sent two audience segments different emails. One received a regular one, with a piece of content from the company’s blog, while the second segment received a retargeting email from Jon Hosier, Senior Marketing Specialist at the above mentioned company. The results? The retargeting email generated a 137.4 percent higher open rate and a clickthrough rate bigger with 128.9 percent, compared with the regular email, containing a template version from the blog.
If you ask us, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, because let’s be honest, we’re all more tempted to open an email with a custom title for example than one with a general tagline. Also, if the content is custom made for you, the user, you’re very likely to click on that link, right? Keeping it short, the more customized and personalized the content of the retargeting email, the bigger the chances for your campaign to deliver impressive results. Having the name and the email address is essential, but knowing how to make the user read what you’re trying to communicate is crucial!
Email retargeting allows marketers to create personalized content for their customers based on certain parameters or behavioral patterns. For example, let’s say you want to send an email with the latest product promotion to all your newsletter subscribers. This email is probably too generic, so the next step is retargeting your customers based on the actions they have or haven’t completed. For example, you can create personalized email content for all the people who opened your email, but didn’t visit your website or for all those who missed your special offer. In addition, you can schedule these retargeting emails in order for them to be sent after different periods of time, which is extremely efficient for any business!
How to create a personalized email retargeting plan?
You should know that there are certain steps you need to follow when it comes to creating personalized email content for your subscribers. These steps are quite the same for businesses of any size or industry. Let’s take a situation for which email retargeting can have a great impact:
- A visitor arrives on your website and fills in a form to subscribe to your mailing list
- His name and contact information are automatically added to your CRM or email marketing solution
- You will develop personalized email retargeting content in order to convert the visitor into a customer
- You send the first intro (generic) mail and measure the interactions: Was it opened? Did the subscriber click on the links? Did he visit the website?
- Depending on the answers of the 4th step, you have the information to create the personalized email retargeting content depending on the case and you have the possibility to interact with your subscriber
- The content created on step 5 is activated and your leads will separate into different categories and start receiving retargeting emails, based on their behavior
- Some of the subscribers will complete all the steps in the content personalization process and are ready to become your customers.
This example is generic, however, it helps you understand how email retargeting actually delivers significantly higher conversions from any email list.
Last but not least, let’s not forget that we’re leaving in the era of smartphones, so your retargeting emails should definitely be crafted considering the devices from which they’re going to be read. If this is done from a phone, you might want to include content which can be easily read from a tiny display.
The benefits of personalized content email retargeting for the customers
So, if from a marketer’s point of view, personalized email content is definitely the thing to opt for, what advantages does the customer have?
First of all, he gets exactly what he might want or need. The retargeting email content is made especially for him, it’s promoting products and offers available in his area, things he is definitely interested in.
Secondly, this might be just us, but don’t you feel special when someone addresses you by your first name? Even though it’s just a retargeting email, this can strengthen the connection between a company and its customers. After all, it’s the customers who make companies successful!
Keeping it short, our recommendation is to start using personalized email retargeting content as soon as possible. And if you’re doing it, congratulations for taking such a great decision! Happy conversions!