15 Email Personalization Techniques That Work

As a marketer or business owner, you know email marketing is a powerful tool. Its popularity among consumers is climbing.

You might have already implemented email personalization to some extent, like addressing customers personally, but you can take it further.

This article looks at 15 email personalization techniques you can apply to your marketing.

Before we move onto that, though, let’s discuss whether email personalization works.

Does Email Personalization Work?

The short answer is a resounding “Yes.” According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing report, 78 percent of marketers have seen a recent increase in email engagement.

HubSpot’s report shows that 20 percent of e-commerce, retail, consumer goods, and service companies personalize emails based on specific demographics.

Email personalization, or the act of tailoring email content to address the recipient by name, interests, location, and other details can increase sales.

Email personalization offers multiple other benefits, too, such as:

  • decreased unsubscribe rates
  • higher customer satisfaction.
  • opportunities to re-engage customers

Additionally, 72 percent of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging, and most customers expect brands to understand their unique needs.

Email personalization is also easy to implement. For instance, you could:

  • Send an offer only if a recipient has recently brought an item.
  • Change wording based on location or time zone.
  • Personalize language and images.

However, like any other area of marketing, email personalization has its limitations. For example, some techniques like customer recommendations may not work for everyone.

You can also over-personalize and sound too familiar, which can, frankly, freak people out. Stick to critical areas, which we detail later.

Now you’ve got a picture of email personalization and its benefits, let’s move on to 15 techniques that work.

1. Collect the Right Data

If you’re not collecting the right kinds of information, you won’t have a good starting point for personalization.

That sounds simple enough, but where do you start? By collecting information from readers on sign-up forms.

When subscribers sign up to your email list, you can ask them some additional questions beyond the typical email address or name.

For instance, you could ask for their:

  • location
  • birthday
  • interests
  • occupation

Whatever information you ask for, keep it short and sweet, like this example:

Email Personalization Techniques - Collect the Right Data

Next, use integrations to gather even more data.

Email Personalization Techniques - Use Integrations to Gather More Data

Integrations are perfect if you don’t have all the right resources to collect information.

Finally, you should create a subscriber preference center to find out what your readers want, like the one from Campaign Monitor.

Once you’ve started collecting the right kinds of data, you can personalize your subject lines.

2. Use Personalized Subject Lines

Subject lines have always been important in the world of email marketing, but they must be specific for the best results.

For example, they should differ from industry to industry, audience to audience, and so on.

You can run tests to find the most effective ones. With testing, you can modify the content of your subject lines based on all the data you’ve already collected about a subscriber’s wants, interests, age, location, and more.

Open rates and conversion rates are only up from there.

Once you’ve got subject lines down, you should focus on triggered emails.

3. Use Behavior-Triggered Emails

Behavior-triggered emails are automated reactions to how customers are interacting with your products or services.

This is where the future of email marketing is heading, and triggered emails have a good open rate to boot.

Email Personalization Techniques - Use Behaviour-triggered Emails

These types of emails also allow you to make a personalized connection with customers.

Behavior-triggered emails can make connections less complicated. They let you communicate with customers without having to think about it, help you convert readers, and could extend the lifetime value of existing customers.

You might not always realize it, but you get these types of emails all the time.

You know when a website emails you because you haven’t logged in or made a purchase for a while? That’s a behavior-triggered email.

In addition, you can send out triggered emails for tons of reasons, such as to welcome readers, re-engage them, or upsell products or services.

Also, depending on your business, several tools for sending great trigger emails are available. For instance, there’s Intercom.io for B2B, GetVero.com for marketers, and Klaviyo for e-commerce.

4. Use Subscriber Tags

Subscriber tags let you send personal CTAs in your email content and for triggering emails.

With this technique, you can tag subscribers based on their choices, like visiting a specific page on your site or clicking on a link.

Then, write out emails to recipients with matching tags.

This approach saves a ton of time because you can segment all your workflows through just one email.

Most mailing list providers such as ConvertKit offer this feature.

5. Ask the Right Questions

An easy way to start segmenting your audience is by asking them questions. It’s a pretty straightforward approach, but you must ask the correct ones.

For example, ask customers:

  • What brought them to your website?
  • Why did they start using your service?
  • What do they need help with most?

These questions can help you find out what you’re doing right (or wrong) pretty quickly, and it makes targeted emails a breeze.

Don’t be too generic, though. To stand out, you can entice customers using emotional appeals, emojis, humor, and freebies.

Alternatively, ask opinion questions. People like to feel like you value their thoughts.

6. Add “Recommendations for You”

We’ve already talked about some email personalization techniques, and now it’s time to dig deeper.

Start personalizing your emails by recommending more purchases or actions according to a reader’s past ones.

Amazon is notorious for this with its “Frequently Brought Together” upsell feature, and Netflix uses a similar approach to encourage customers to view another movie.

It works because readers often appreciate the “recommendations” if they’ve liked similar previous purchases.

Rather than trying to reach all your readers with a single promotion, just send it to those who have shown interest in a related topic.

You can do this in any industry by suggesting related products and services. Perhaps offer a discount to encourage sales.

7. Use and Optimize Landing Pages

Yes, email personalization can boost your open rates. However, the ultimate goal is to convert readers into customers.

To achieve this, you must ensure the landing pages you link to match the ideas in messages you send.

Imagine if Amazon sent recommendation emails with no links to the actual products. It seems pointless, doesn’t it?

That’s why you must include relevant landing pages in as many emails as you can. You should also ensure the landing page relates to the customers you’re targeting and their current buying stage.

8. Add a Sense of Urgency

There are tons of tools to help you incorporate dates and times into your emails.

Doing this is the perfect approach for driving engagement because these limited-time offers focus on urgency to push people into action.

By creating a sense of urgency, you can build toward a paid offer. Just don’t let your customers forget or hesitate to order. That’s why creating a custom deadline is so effective.

Are you thinking of applying this approach? There are templates available, or your mailing list provider should have a tool.

You can also sync your emails with countdowns for sales, product launches, and giveaways.

9. Build Customer Personas

A customer persona is a representation of your ideal customer. Companies use them to identify the features of their perfect customer and their usual behavior.

The more specific you get with these personas, the better you will understand who your customers are and what they need from you. Ultimately, this enables you to improve your business and enhance email personalization by fulfilling their needs.

You create customer personas by using a multitude of data. Instead of asking a single question, you can group customers using a mix of attributes and actions they take.

Once complete, your personas might look something like this:

Email Personalization Techniques - Build Customer Personas

There are plenty of step-by-step guides on building personas to help you develop them per best practices, including:

  • identifying your target audience
  • seeing the world through your customers’ eyes
  • understanding your customers’ needs and frustrations by doing research
  • using data about your target audience’s online behavior, likes/dislikes, etc.
  • implementing email personalization techniques to match your customers’ wants and needs

10. Use Location and Time Zones

It’s no secret that certain times of day prove to be better than others when sending emails.

For example, your customers might love getting an email at 8:00 a.m., or they may respond better to getting one at 5:00 p.m.

However, chances are not all your customers are in one location. They may be all around the world, scattered across different time zones, and possibly receiving your emails at non-optimal times.

How do you overcome this? By using your customers’ data to send emails at the best times.

Send time personalization is easy to set up with a few clicks, and companies like MailChimp allow you to do this.

11. Personalize Your Business

Don’t limit email personalization to your customers’ data: You also can customize your brand.

Customization could make all the difference to your company’s success rate, and it’s not hard to implement. You only need to make some changes, and you can automate many of them.

If you’re searching for ideas, look no further than Nike. The brand sends out welcome messages and emails for:

  • birthdays
  • seasonal campaigns
  • promotions
  • order confirmations
  • hot-this-week offers

Test aspects such as a conversational tone, words like “we” and “I,” and generally making your emails seem like they are from an actual human. Customers respond to it.

12. Mark Milestones

Marking customer milestones is another effective email personalization tool.

It shows your customers you’ve noticed their achievements and that your company appreciates them. In turn, this enhances customer engagement, making them feel valued. 

Milestones worth marking include:

  • your customer’s first anniversary
  • a customer’s birthday
  • the accumulation of a set number of points
  • the completion of a course or similar

13. Imagery

They say a picture paints a thousand words. Or, to put it another way, a single image can express a thought much better than a heap of text.

Keeping your messages short is vital now as people tend to skim read emails on the go, but it’s not just about that. Imagery can impact your customers in other ways.

Email personalization with imagery allows marketers to build an emotional connection with their customers, driving them to take action and potentially influencing their buying decisions.

One of the other advantages of pictures is their flexibility.

You can use images in many ways, from showcasing products to illustrating the benefits of a particular product or just brightening a customer’s day.

There are just a few things to consider.

Images must be:

  • eye-catching
  • engaging
  • relevant

Additionally, you can personalize images to specific customers by their data, preferences, and their location.

14. Reach Out to Customers

Cart abandonment, poor engagement, and lack of follow-up all affect your bottom line. However, you can overcome them with email personalization.

Reaching out to customers can get them back on track and keep them from abandoning their cart. For instance, you could send

  • a coupon code in your abandoned cart emails
  • an offer for something a customer looked at but didn’t buy
  • an email asking why they left without buying and offering assistance
  • a follow-up email three days after their visit

Next, engage.

Send out email tutorials or similar. You can personalize these messages by looking at your data to see how your customers use their purchases and where they most need your help.

Finally, follow up.

  • Does your customer understand everything their purchase offers?
  • Are there features they could be making more of?
  • Anything specific about the product/service that can make a particular buyer’s life easier?

Yes? Then follow up and solve their problems!

15. Pay Attention to the Small Details

Aside from the areas already discussed, you can use email personalization further by:

  • A/B testing different versions of an email
  • changing the copy of an email with each click based on customer data
  • addressing any previous interactions
  • including a call to action
  • segmenting your audience into groups that share similar interests or use cases for your product

Email Personalization Frequently Asked Questions

Is email personalization effective?

Tailored emails are more effective than generic ones as they’re more likely to get read and resonate with your customers.

How much time does it take to personalize emails?

Customized emails can increase engagement and deliver a better user experience, so it’s worth taking some extra time.

How much does it cost to set up personalized emails?

The cost of setting up email personalization usually depends on two main factors: the number of emails you need to send and your plan.

What kinds of emails should you personalize?

You can personalize emails that are promotional or transactional.

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Email Personalization Conclusion

Email personalization is a strategy that can generate an improved ROI for businesses. It’s one of the most efficient marketing channels, and many small and medium-sized companies are using it to grow their businesses.

Additionally, this technique can increase customer loyalty and raise conversion rates.

However, if you’re not taking the right approach, you won’t get results.

If you want conversions, you need to take email personalization deeper than using a customer’s first name. This includes adapting to different time zones, addressing customers’ wants and needs, and using imagery.

In short, email personalization can make your customers feel valued—and people who feel valued are more likely to make purchases from you.

Do you use email personalization in your campaigns? Which techniques work well for you?

22 Marketing Techniques That Cost You Time, Not Money

23 Marketing Techniques That Cost You Time, Not Money

Here is a common situation many startups face. They have no money, but they have to do marketing.

What can they do?

Instead of focusing on costly marketing methods, such startups must focus on low-budget marketing hacks.

The beauty of growth hacking is that it engages alternate methods of growth, methods which are sometimes lower cost.

Where marketing and engineering meet, growth hacking happens.

Obviously, growth hacking isn’t free. Strictly speaking, none of the techniques in this article are “free.” Anytime you involve people, employees of the company, there will be payroll and associated costs.

But here’s why these (mostly) free marketing techniques are so powerful. They don’t require a huge marketing budget. All you need is some time, some savvy, and the kind of focused and driven perspective that smart marketing requires.

1. Get Links from Your Service Providers

To rank well, a website needs high-quality backlinks. Where do you get these backlinks? Obviously, buying links is not advised. What should you do?

If you’ve built partnerships with service providers or business partners, you have an instant source of untapped link potential. Reach out to these service providers and ask them to link to your website.

You gain a few nice links, and all it cost you was a few minutes of emailing.

2. Search for Unlinked Mentions

Another great way to get links and boost your site authority is to look for unlinked mentions of your brand or company name.

If you find such mentions in online publications or websites, email the site editor and ask them to provide a link. You might discover plenty of brand mentions all over the web.

A quick search and a few emails later — presto. Free backlinks. The good kind.

3. Host a Webinar

Free webinars introduce your brand and product to a wider audience. The more appealing the topic, the better you’ll attract interest.

Webinars take time. You’ve got to brainstorm topics, plan the webinar, and spread the word. The benefits, however, are top-notch.

4. Cross-Promote

One explosive method of marketing that some companies use is cross-promotion. Cross-promotion allows you to partner with related businesses who can market your services, in exchange for marketing their services.

For example, if you are providing consulting services for online business owners, you may recommend that they use a certain web designer to create their website. The web designer is your cross-promoting partner. This web designer works with business clients, and she points these clients your way for consulting services.

It’s a win-win, and apart from a signed document and an easy conversation, it doesn’t require much work at all.

5. Be a Blog Commenter

The idea of marketing is to make your brand presence as well known as possible. One way of doing so is by commenting on blogs. Here’s how this works:

  • Identify the top 5 blogs in your niche.
  • Read and comment on the blogs on a regular basis.
  • As people see your name and associated brand, they become familiar with it and perhaps even curious about it.

With every comment, you’re establishing a persistent brand presence. Just make sure you’re not making dumb comments. Customers’ perception of your brand is shaped by the quality of your comments.

6. Help a Reporter Out

Occasionally, you’re going to come across some newsworthy information in your niche or business. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out (HARO). It’s a free service that reporters often use to find stories. If you have a story you can help a reporter out, and gain publicity.

7. Network in Person

Don’t neglect the opportunity to market in person. You’ll meet great people in person whom you may never come across online.

Every person you meet is another marketing possibility. Obviously, you don’t want to go around shoving your business into people’s faces, but as the issue of work comes up in conversation, tell them about it.

The whole idea of networking is basically marketing. You get to introduce other people to your business live and in person.

8. Run a Contest

As much as they’ve been sullied and scammed, online contests are still a great way to get low-cost marketing publicity. Giving away the cliche iPad, cash prizes, or other merchandise is an easy way to gain some viral potential and improve your brand’s image.

9. Build a Referral Program

The best forms of marketing are those that you can set up, turn on, and grow — organically, automatically, and without too much effort. A referral program or affiliate program may not work for every business, but it’s worth a try.

Creating an affiliate program essentially turns your customers into a de facto marketing department. You don’t spend marketing money unless they first make a sale on your behalf.

10. Tweet Up a Storm In Your Niche

Twitter is a killer marketing platform. With its instant reach and massive output, Twitter can produce high levels of referral traffic, plenty of brand exposure, and nonstop social buzz.

What I suggest is following at least ten influencers in your niche, following their followers, retweeting their tweets, and mentioning them in comments. As you associate with their platform, you’ll begin to build your own platform.

11. Upsell Your Existing Customers

Too often, we view “marketing” solely as a method of gaining new customers. In reality, some of the best marketing happens with existing customers.

Marketing back at your own customers is relatively easy and low-cost. The benefits are extraordinary.

12. Get Cozy With Niche Influencers

Within every industry are a group of power players. They control the conversation, shape the contours of the market, and reach a huge audience.

Make these people your friends. You don’t need to be schmoozy about it. You can be direct. Providing them with a product or partnering with them on a project are simple and mutually helpful ways to grow your brand and ride their wave of influence.

13. Claim a Hashtag

Hashtags are the billboards of the Internet. Since hashtags are now available on every major social platform, you can create a hashtag for your business and use it everywhere you post.

A hashtag is a searchable and interactive extension of your brand and has the potential to spread virally.

14. Get More Email Addresses

Growing your email list is one of the most enduring and effective methods of marketing. I suggest using Hello Bar as a simple and cost-effective way of harvesting more addresses.

15. Get More User-Generated Content

Everyone knows that content marketing is effective for inbound marketing. If you’re not careful, however, content marketing can be expensive. How can you gain more content without blowing your entire marketing budget?

The answer is user-generated content. Motivate your existing fans and customers to tell their own story and write content, and you’ll instantly open the floodgates to tons of fresh and engaging content that your audience will love. Your fans will be creating and sharing content for you.

16. Talk to Your Fans

Customers and fans love to be loved. The way you show that love is by retweeting, favoriting tweets, liking the comments, and sharing their status. Don’t simply expect that your social media presence is going to work for you. You have to work for it, by talking to your fans.

They will return the favor and engage at a deeper level.

17. Produce High-Quality Press Releases

Press releases have passed their heyday as an SEO tool, but they still hold sway in marketing. If you use a source like PRWeb, you’ll be out a few hundred bucks anytime you pop out a press release.

A source like PRLog.org, however, is free of charge. The amount of syndication you get may not be as high quality, but it’s something. And, hey, it’s something for nothing.

Just be sure to write very high-quality releases, and nofollow any links back to your website.

18. Hack Craigslist

Craigslist is one of the most popular websites in the world. Airbnb and its high money valuation used Craigslist to skyrocket its growth. You can use Craigslist, too. Try using Craigslist’s geographic focus to target specific areas and markets.

Make sure that you’re complying with the site’s terms of service. Use Craigslist in the way that it was intended. Violators will be banned from the site.

19. Blog

I can’t create a list of marketing techniques without mentioning blogging. A business blog is an indispensable strategy for online marketing. Use it, work at it, and make it work for you.

If you’re frustrated with the current condition of your business blog, read these 35 tips that will make it better. If you’re struggling with traffic, read this post.

20. Guest Blog

If blogging is awesome, then guest blogging is doubly awesome. When you post an article on another blog, you are instantly gaining that blog’s audience. The cost of guest blogging is free, less the time you spend. Create a killer article, appeal to the blog’s audience, and you may be invited back to contribute more.

I’ve used guest blogging with incredible success. My 300-and-counting guest blogs are still paying me back in terms of referral traffic, leads, and customers.

21. Create a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn is free, and yet it gives you incredible marketing opportunities. Many professionals use LinkedIn as a static social media tool — a place to put up their resume, and not much else.

LinkedIn is so much more than an online resume. I’ve used LinkedIn to publish content, connect with powerful people, and build a marketing group with thousands of members.

All of this cost me zero dollars and zero cents, but the marketing upside has been incredible.

22. Give Free Help to Others

If you make marketing all about you and your business, you’re going to be frustrated and unfulfilled. Try giving to others, free of charge.

Obviously, you’re not a charity; you’re a business. But why not give away a product, an hour of your time, or a membership for a customer who can’t afford your services?

Some of the best business opportunities I’ve had were consulting gigs with customers who couldn’t pay. These opportunities have been beneficial in ways that I couldn’t have predicted.

Even today, I give away virtually all of my content without charge. Doing so is fulfilling for me personally, and it provides an opportunity for improved marketing.

Free Marketing Techniques Frequently Asked Questions

What are some free marketing ideas?

Some ideas for free marketing include guest blogging, link building, creating social media groups built around your industry or brand, commenting on other blogs, and creating your own blog.

Is it possible to do marketing for free?

Yes, there are plenty of marketing techniques that are completely free.

Does guerilla marketing work?

When done correctly, guerilla marketing can help increase brand awareness.

Is it free to market on social media?

There are plenty of ways to market for free on social media. You can create groups, engage with influencers, use popular hashtags, create content with CTAs to your website, and more.

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Free Marketing Techniques Conclusion

Marketing doesn’t have to break your bank, blow your budget, or cost you thousands of dollars. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, marketing can require nothing more than the investment of time.

Chances are, you can increase your marketing presence today by implementing one of these methods. Pick one and run with it.

What is your favorite no-cost marketing technique?