The days of mass email communication being accepted by customers are over. In 2019, customers not only expect you to improve their in-person experience but their digital experience as well. A part of that improvement is demonstrating that you know who they are as an individual, and building your campaigns around those insights. Personalisation is a huge trend in marketing across almost every industry sector. Achieving greater customer retention and acquisition is all about prioritising personalisation across all communications. A great place to start is your email marketing. If you are keen to take the step towards greater personalisation in your email marketing, then try some of these helpful tips.

Consider some help

Email marketing is not like sending an email to a colleague, it is a complicated channel to manage and one that if done incorrectly, can cost your business in a number of ways. Done correctly, direct email marketing can greatly increase brand advocacy and customer acquisition. You can build your brand advocacy by outsourcing your direct email marketing to an expert.

As experts in the field, the right email marketing agency can help ensure you see greater conversion, stay compliant with the regulations and rules as well as help improve personalisation to your customers. Day to day you will likely have an entire matrix of marketing communications to manage, so outsourcing email is a great tip to ensure a continued focus on a key channel that drives brand advocacy.

Analyse everything

Depending on the sophistication of your email marketing system or customer retention management system, you may be missing out of deep insights into your customers that can create real advocacy. Taking the time to analyse and dig deep under the hood is a great tip to achieving personalisation and advocacy. Knowing which emails your customer open, click on or ignore is grounded in insights that inform personalisation. You can understand what is driving a click-through by using heat mapping.

When a customer opens your emails, what messages, subject lines or images that resonate are all key data points to help improve your communications to achieve brand advocacy. Instead of simply looking at whether the communication was opened, look at all of the metrics to better understand the individual. When you understand the types of copy, images and content that resonate, you can achieve real personalisation and give the customer a sense of individuality.

Help them

Email communication as a channel should not only be about asking the customer to do something. Email marketing is as much about helping your customer through the decision-making funnel as it is converted to a sale. Personalisation is about showing your customer you can be helpful and informative.

A great tip to achieve greater brand advocacy is to cultivate meaningful content in your emails that educates customers, helps them understand something or offers relevant content to give them a sense of control. Try showing them how they can use your product or service, as opposed to selling them on why not having it is a disadvantage. Email marketing is a great chance to help guide your customer in a non-obtrusive way. Achieving that will increase brand advocacy as well as conversions further down the line.

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Email marketing is one of the busiest channels in any marketing mix and one of the channels a lot of businesses get wrong. It’s a direct communication channel between business and customer, which means it’s a great way to cultivate brand advocacy. Using these tips will help you prioritise personalisation in your email marketing, in turn creating genuine advocates for your brand.