Sure, you have a great product, carefully crafted to perfection after days and months of iterations. But, here’s what really makes the difference – communicating it right to your customers.
Of all the channels you have at your disposal, email is an evergreen one. And why shouldn’t it be? Studies reveal that email marketers boast a high click-through and buyer retention rate.
Do bear in mind that a robotic and lifeless email can turn into sheer disappointment for your customers. Having said that, it is impossible to hand-craft every email you send to every prospect across the customer pool. So, what do you? You use the customer data you have to carefully draft email templates that carry a personalized message for the target audience group.
Sounds difficult?
It really is not.
Keep reading to learn how to get the word out and convert prospects effectively.
Do Not Write Email Templates Without Asking and Answering these 4 Questions
1. Is My Offer Clear?
Brass tacks! Stay far away from vague subject lines and message bodies. Give your unsuspecting customers the gift of clarity. Also, a fair idea of what’s to come if they read your email works better than a click-bait subject line, which often ends up getting marked as spam.
Cutting down on vagueness does not mean that you have to give out your entire message in the subject line. It means you have to build curiosity by revealing just the right amount.
Try These
-
- “Can We Talk About <Insert Topic>?”
- “Hi <Insert Name>, Can I help You With <Specify Goal>?”
- “Hi <Insert Name>, You Missed It!”
- “You Need to Know This [Better/ Faster] Way to Reach <Specific Goal>.”
- “Hi <Insert Name>! Free to Get in Touch on < Date/Time>?”
Do Not Try These
- “Quick Question”
- “URGENT”
- “Are You Busy?”
- “Get 50% Off the Whole Store… Just Kidding!”
- “Open Me”
2. Is My Message Well-timed?
No matter how great a deal you are offering, if the timing is off, it just won’t do it for you. A big part of personalizing emails is timing. Conveying the right message alone is never enough, but conveying the right message at an opportune time is what converts leads. Sometimes you could send a video, instead of lengthier texts.
Say, you are a B2B marketer with a great software pitch and a killer email marketing strategy. However, your potential client has already exhausted its annual budget. Here, your personalized emails will likely fall on deaf ears.
3. Is My Email Creating a Sense of Urgency?
Again, your subject line is responsible for creating a sense of urgency. Consider this. You notice that your subject lines are somewhat intriguing, so readers do not delete your emails. They simply keep them and think of coming back when they have time.
But, “the return” rarely ever takes place! This scenario is almost equivalent to customers marking your email as spam. So, what you have to do is write a subject line that actually makes the reader open the email instantly. The story doesn’t end here though. Your urgent subject line should be backed with an equally compelling message body. The right CTAs and quick loading landing pages are also part of the package.
Read more on email outreach personalization tips to increase response rates here.
4. Does It Contain Personalization Basics?
Before moving on to hyper-personalization, it is critical to master a few primary personalization techniques. Things are as simple as inserting the recipient’s name in the subject line or message body along with a few other necessary details tailored for a specific customer segment.
Pro Tip – Keep your subject line below 60 characters and under ten words in total, and your email copy length strictly between 50 to 125 words. Anything longer and you are far too likely to lose your reader.
6 Personalized Email Templates Bound to Generate Responses
Learn from these ideas illustrated below. A little inspiration never hurt anyone.
1. Airbnb
Subject Line:
Source – www.sendgrid.com
This email brings personalization to the subject line with not only the customer’s name, but also where they live, and where they can go for the weekend. The reader can see, right off the bat, that this email contains tailored information and will want to open it. Depending on the message inside, which in this case, is crisply laid out, the lead will likely convert.
Here, Airbnb has used customer data to create a win-win situation for both parties. Now, the same model can be applied for all leads that live in Denver. Dynamic email templating will involve changing the name and the weekend getaway locations depending on a prospect’s city.
2. Adidas
Source – Instapage
Another great use of dynamic email content is gender-based product personalization, as shown in this Adidas campaign. If a woman opens their email, she sees the left image, and a male prospect sees the right image. This campaign works because of high-quality imagery and minimal content.
3. Mint
Source – Sendgrid
A leading finance app from Inuit, Mint offers easy budgeting and payments from the comfort of your home. This advert works for several reasons. Firstly, credit is a scary topic, and the title in this ad evokes a sense of urgency. Even if you do not download the app, you are highly likely to read this content for free, and possibly engage with the brand. Furthermore, even though this message is serious, it does not overwhelm the reader, instead encourages them to understand the content that follows.
Lastly, the user interface of this page is both clean and on-brand. With the use of dynamic templating, the Mint team can swiftly add more variables, fine-tune pictures, or alter the content depending on your geography, age and gender. For instance, if they wish to market this ad in Europe, they can change the images with US Dollar bills to Euros, through dynamic templating. This campaign works as it unselfishly delivers value to the reader.
4. Medium
Source – Sendgrid
Medium.com is an online publishing platform offering articles ranging from sports, satire, personal finance, and much more. You will hardly find a topic that does not have a mention on this portal. Medium’s dynamic email template works well as it uses your geographic information and tweaks content accordingly.
When you receive an email from Medium, you can read a trending story, mentioned right at the top, and also included in the email subject line.
With Medium, readers get a heads up about the duration of every story they read. You may indeed have ten minutes to spare, but if you don’t know how long an article is, you will likely not open it.
The brand also offers articles that are entirely unrelated to the featured story, so that readers who are not interested in reading about, say insurance, can scroll down to another category mentioned within the same template. Medium.com has been garnering tons of subscribers with the help of a well-designed and dynamic email template.
5. Yelp
Source – Sendgrid
Yelp, a leading customer review portal, offers personalized content based on your location and keeps it to the point. No up-selling, no cross-selling, it does what it says, which is to offer reviews of restaurants you may be craving for with witty alliterations and mouth-watering images.
Their dynamic template offers the right ratio of content and imagery. If Yelp starts using too many images, chances of them getting marked as spam go up, and if they introduce too much content, you stand to lose interest. Therefore, this dynamic, creative, yet concise email communication offers a balanced approach to online marketing.
6. Birchbox
Source – Sendgrid
Birchbox is a service that sends its subscribers handpicked beauty products at their doorstep each month. If you subscribe to this service, this particular advert is telling you about customizations for the month of April by showcasing specific samples.
Now imagine this email dropping in your inbox in the middle of the day, offering you a colorful break from your busy schedule.
Not only the products, but the layout of this promotional piece is very skimmable. The header includes a customized and valuable call to action buttons.
This yellow catches your eye, whereas the limited use of text makes it easy to read. Birchbox here has broken content down into three sections, through which you can interpret the goal of this email almost instantly.
Read more on cold email templates to fetch you 3x response rates here
Parting Thoughts
So, what are you waiting for? Gather your best team to churn a knock-out email marketing campaign. Brief them on providing simple, clean, and gripping messages with the utmost attention on personalization. But, before all that, equip your brainstorming squad with high-quality customer data.
You can also put some email marketing alternative tools to good use here. Doing this will help them segment potentials and accurately craft templates. Do not shy away from looking around and seeing what your competitors are up to.
Author Bio
This is a guest post by Rohan Mendiratta. He helps marketers with building an engaged audience and increasing their sales via SendX: Email Marketing Software.