5 key tools and insights to deliver personalised content

Giving your customers personalised content is just a matter of having the right ingredients and an email marketing platform that can make it happen. Read on how you can increase conversions with personalised content using the following ingredients:

• Contact database
• Forms
• Segmenting lists
• Email templates
• Behaviour based emails

Why does personalised content matter? Well, everyone wants to be understood. It’s how we determine our friends. “They just get me”. And because they get you, you’re there for them reciprocating. Sometimes they ask for things – a call to action of sorts – but mostly they’re just giving you what you need: understanding and relevance to your life.

Your brand needs to take the same approach if it wants to make the same connection with audiences. When you understand your audience, you can give them what they need, and although the relationship is commercial, it can be just as emotional – like most purchases.

But how do you do it? The best email marketing platforms will help guide your team through a process to create personalised content for an effective connection with customers.

Contact Database

A critical feature of any top email marketing system is a contact database for storing your customers’ information. The amount of information you can store varies from just an email address, to more detailed data points including names, DOB, address, mobile, email clicks, site activity, engagement time of day, and more.

TractionNext Contact Details show the range of data points possible for marketers to understand their customers and provide personalised content that reflects their interests

Forms

Perhaps you’ve already got some permission-based email addresses in a spreadsheet. These can be quickly imported to a good email marketing system. If not, you’ll want to start building an email list and using Forms is a great way to encourage people to stay connected to your brand.

Importantly, using Forms helps you stay legally compliant with data protection laws by helping people properly subscribe and unsubscribe.

Many email marketing tools will provide Forms that can be added to your website with code that can be easily copy and pasted. Visitors to your site can fill in the required details to sign up for emails, gain access to gated content assets such as eBooks, Checklists, Cheatsheets, Free Trials, Special Discounts or whatever you choose from your marketing plan. Data from these forms can usually auto-populate in the Contact Database when the platform is integrated.

Forms are often customisable to allow marketers the opportunity to ask whatever they need. Bear in mind it is best to balance what you need as a marketer with what customers are willing to tolerate. Keep it short and easy to fill out when you’re starting to build your email list. You can add more information about your customers over time after you get an email address.

TractionNext Forms help you build a preference profile of your customers

Segmenting Lists

Customer information is put into lists that are relevant to their interests. There will be many commonalities that help group customers based on a range of habits that let you decide how a customer’s preferences match your upcoming marketing campaigns.

For example, if you own a kids clothing store, you can segment customers with girls and boys into different lists for different campaigns. Customers with girls can be sent offers around say, jewellery and dresses, while the Boys list can get separate offers.

Collecting relevant data about your customers can take time, but as you acquire more information then your offers can be more relevant and highly targeted.

TractionNext segmentation features help you create highly targeted lists to deliver relevant content

Email Templates

If you’ve started building your email list using forms, and then populating a database that can be sliced and diced for audience segments, your next focus is the actual emails.

Email templates let you create eye-catching emails that are on-brand. You can reuse a template or change the configuration for different campaigns and different market segments if that’s something you think will help conversions. Of course, you can also usually split test an email template with different looks or components or content to the same segmented list to see which one converts best.

One thing to keep in mind, a lot of people read email on their mobile, so be sure that your email marketing platform accounts for different devices before hitting ‘send’.

Most email platforms will let you schedule times to send your campaigns. This gives you options to test how different send times have different open rates. You might discover that Friday at 3.30pm has a higher open rate than Monday at 9am. Understanding these preferences help you send at the most relevant times for your audiences.

TractionNext email templates allow you to create branded emails and send scheduled emails at the times that maximise open rates

Behaviour-based emails

The links inside your email content will usually go to owned online properties. As you track what people click on, where they go, and what they do when they get there, you can start to build a better data set of preferences that lets you deliver personalised content.

This is particularly handy with your segmented email lists. Remember the kids clothing store example above? This store owner’s emails might have general interest content to anyone with kids – or nieces and nephews they buy for occasionally – and can also include specific fields in the template that are specifically personalised.

In this example, the store owner could use behaviour-based data to see that the customer’s purchase history effectively reveals the age and gender of their child[ren]. As the kids grow and new stock comes in, this customer can be notified about new offers that align with their needs.

Giving an audience segment personalised content means they are more likely to open your emails and potentially click through deeper into a sales funnel.

TractionNext lets marketers search and aggregate customer behaviours for segmented lists

Get to it and personalise

Using these tools and insights will help you run a successful email campaign. When you send personalised emails that are relevant to your customer, you are more likely to increase the chance of making a conversion.

You’ll also build a good data portrait of your customer based on what they open and click on, allowing you to track their path to purchase and create a profile for even more personalised content in future.

Traction Digital provides industry-leading, next-generation marketing technology that enables you to connect effectively with customers. We can automate campaign workflows, trigger conversations, and accelerate conversions through the one unified platform. For more information to help you provide a more relevant and engaging brand experience to customers, subscribe to our email and get the latest marketing automation tips and techniques.