Um...what are personalized emails?

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on July 09, 2008

Words and definitions are not a trivial matter in email marketing, as this post on opt-in definitions demonstrates. Which is why it pays to use the right ones.

One word bandied around with much abandon is "personalization" and it seems a good time to explain how it's used. That way you can ensure you understand exactly what practice relevant articles and blog posts are talking about.

In my experience, articles about personalized emails refer to one or more of three different things:

Use of first name or some other personal salutation

This is where the first name or similar is featured in the subject line or at the top of an email's introductory or editorial text. Examples:

Subject: Hey Mark, the new Acme catalog is online

Dear Mark,

Our all-new catalog is waiting with 2009 models...

This kind of personalization can raise responses but needs careful application.

First, different audiences respond differently to the use of personal salutations, so it always makes sense to test your list first to see the impact.

Second, personalization of subject lines used to be a common spammer tactic, so also needs careful testing before being used.

Third, you need to ensure your data on names is reliable, otherwise unfortunate things can happen.

Inclusion of personal data in the email

This is the kind of personalization addressed in the research reported yesterday. Information about the recipient is displayed or mentioned in the email.

Examples might be address details, lists of past purchases, personal preferences etc.

The research suggested this data is best included when the information displayed has a clear connection to the email's content.

Amazon does it well with its "You recently bought a book on Tibetan Buddhism, so we thought you might like this new book on the Dalai Lama" approach.

Another role for this kind of personalization is in reassuring recipients of the authenticity of the email.

Financial institutions might include the recipient's postal address to demonstrate that the email really is from the bank (since phishers have no access to this kind of data).

Customization of the outgoing email to reflect some characteristic of the recipient

This refers to all the different ways you might modify an email's content to make it more relevant and targeted to the recipient. (The Amazon example above combines the display of personal data with this third kind of personalization.)

An example might be only sending notice of a new store opening to email subscribers who live within a 50km radius of that store's location.

At its extreme, this kind of personalization involves sending unique messages to each recipient. Each such message is customized according to the recipient's expressed preferences and the demographic, transactional and behavioral data known about that recipient.

You can explore these concepts in the categories on targeting and advanced tactics.

Tags: email personalization, personalized emails, targeting, segmentation, email marketing

[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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