5 Creative Ways to Personalize Emails

Today’s consumers want authentic connections with brands.

It’s no longer good enough to offer up some products or services, send a mass email that says hey buy this stuff, and call it a day.

That doesn’t really work.

So why are so many brands still doing it?

Good question.

If you want to move out of that mass mailing group and focus on ways you can get creative with personalization, you’re in the right place.

Personalizing emails is one of many email marketing tips that is a way of moving the needle on connecting with your customers and building connections. But this has to go beyond the simple stuff like including your customers’ names.

Sometimes, you have to get creative. Of course, using the right tools help. That’s where Smart Banners™ and Smart Blocks™ make all the difference. Including these in your email marketing strategy makes personalization at scale easier than ever.

Interested in seeing it in action? Here, we’re highlighting some creative ways to personalize emails. Try applying some of these tactics and see where your customers are really responding.

1. Geographic location

One of the primary connection points a person can have is around where they live. After all, we spend most of our time exploring, shopping, exercising, and dining in and around just a handful of neighborhoods.

So while hyper localization is all the rage right now (and into the future), embrace it.

Here’s an example of how you can use location data to personalize your customer’s emails.

For customers who are in the local area, this sort of email speaks directly to them. They are getting access to a special deal for living in this area, and the Smart Banner™ makes it easy to add personalization, not to mention it encourages your customer to click.

Don’t be afraid to find ways to tap into the local area of the people you are marketing to and highlight ways to buy. You can do it through special events, flash sales, and even weather-based marketing.

2. Related products

Another way to personalize your emails without spending hours segmenting your list is to send personalized emails based on the products people are buying.

Amazon is one brand that does an excellent job with this. They track all of the products their customers buy. But it doesn’t end there because they also track complementary or similar products related to the original product and send an email about those.

So, if a customer has bought some new hiking boots, it’s not unreasonable to think they could also be interested in related products. That’s why they’ll send more emails featuring products like mixing bowls or cupcake trays. With Smart Banners™ and Smart Blocks™, your brand can do the same.

Highlighting new or related products is just one way to personalize and trigger more purchases.

3. Customer rewards

Looking at customer behavior is another way to segment and personalize your list. A good way to do that is through customer rewards.

Brands like Starbucks and Sephora do an amazing job sending emails that highlight how customers can spend their rewards.

An email like the one above can be triggered to be sent when a customer has hit a specific miles threshold. For example, when they have enough points to cash in for a reward, they get a notification.

And with Smart Banners™, it’s easy to ensure customer reward messages get sent to the right customers. For your members, they’ll get a message specifically about their rewards, and for non-members, they can get a notice to sign up.

That’s an easy way to build up positive feelings for your brand that rewards specific types of customer loyalty.

4. Birthdays and anniversaries

Let’s face it, who doesn’t like getting something special on their birthday or some other special occasion?

Sending out a birthday email that gives a customer a coupon or free dessert is a great way to embrace personalization. Another way to do it is to highlight the anniversary of when they first subscribed to your mailing list. Or, if you have loyalty members, celebrate when they first joined the program or when they hit specific membership levels.

Birthday emails might be more expected; after all, everyone has that date fixed in their minds. But an anniversary email is a fun approach to surprise and delight your readers in a totally unexpected way.

5. Dynamic content

Another way to add creativity to your emails and boost your engagement is to add dynamic content. A great example? Live polling.

There are a few benefits to using live polling. First, the dynamic content makes it engaging to readers. They’ll want to answer. And second, it’s a perfect way to get more data on your readers, which in turn means you can send them more personalized messaging down the road.

Try adding dynamic live polling to your welcome campaigns to start learning about their interests.

What can you do to get creative with personalized emails and Smart Banners™?

These are just a few ideas to show you how personalization and Smart Banners™ work together.

As you get more comfortable segmenting your list, it becomes easy to see where you can start adding more personalized experiences to your emails.

Now, couple that with fresh interactive content, and suddenly you’re going to see some real results when it comes to improving metrics like open, click, and conversion rates.

If you want to learn more about Smart Banners™. Check out our guide for email marketers. Click here to get your copy today.