Beyond subscriber.name: The Art of Effective Email Personalization

Discover how a simple tweak to an email led to a massive increase in donations - [AWeber logo]( Hi {NAME}, Daniel Pink tells a story in his book “[Drive]( about a university struggling to collect donations for a food drive. Researchers had the notion that adding context to make the ask feel more for an individual, and not just blanket marketing, they’d see a better response. So they decided to run a test with their outreach emails. They [split tested]( two versions of their message: - Half of the students got a generic email about the food drive. - The other half got a personally addressed message with details about their closest donation drop offs. They also got a followup call. What happened (you can probably guess {NAME})? Donations went up. Way up. Before the test, researchers evaluated whether students had a high, or low likelihood of donating. The personalized emails saw an increase from folks who were likely to donate and even greater growth in the group of people who they were assuming wouldn’t donate. ?awt_a=1w&awt_l=PBSlS&awt_m=3kHDiAhKZndA Yes, you’re reading that right. The personalized, contextually relevant email got more donations from people researchers weren’t expecting to donate than the generic email got from the most likely donors. Personalization works. Let’s talk about how to do it right. Personalization is more than just a name When people talk about personalization in email, the example they give is often “Hi [FIRST NAME],” That’s a good start and if you do nothing else do that because it’s so easy. But don’t stop there. There’s so much more you can do with simple personalization. - Include information that is relevant to someone’s location, like nearby stores or news that is relevant to different regions. - Send people similar content to what they've clicked through to in the past(you can tag people based on the links they click in [broadcasts]( and [automated campaigns](. - Recommend products based on what they’ve purchased in the past. - Ask people their goals or interests when they sign up. Then reference those goals or interests in welcome series and newsletters. - Reference the site or community they signed up from in your welcome message if you're working with partners to build your audience. But a name can be very powerful I don’t want to discourage you from using name personalization. It really can make content feel like it was written for you when you’re reading and all of the sudden happen across your own name. You can use names more creatively than just saying hi. Try using your subscribers names in subject lines, and within the body of an email itself (like I did above)). We add personalization to our subject line when someone signs up for a new AWeber account to catch their attention when they’re scanning their inboxes. [A screenshot showing an email in my inbox with the subject line "Chris, your AWeber account is ready!"] Even the best personalization requires followup There’s so much noise coming at us that we sometimes even miss messages we’re excitedly waiting for. That’s why using email automation is so powerful. If you have a lesson you need your audience to hear, don’t just tell them once. We’ve built our automation tool, [Campaigns]( to be simple enough for anyone to use. No need to be a techno-wizard to see the benefits of automated follow ups. [Let's Get Personal]( Talk to your audience like the people they are We know how important it is to get the right message to the right person at the right time. Heck, that’s why we built AWeber. [How to use personalization in AWeber]( And we’ve built powerful personalization tools right into AWeber. You can reference all sorts of information about your subscribers in your emails: - Name. - Location they signed up from. - Products they've purchased. - Interests. - Sign up date. - Any other information using [tags]( or [custom fields](. You can include that information about a person directly in an email or you can use it to [dynamically show different text or images]( to different people based on their tags, custom fields, email domain, and more. And if you’re on AWeber’s Plus or Unlimited plan, you can automatically tag people who click certain links or buy specific products using [behavioral automation](. [How to Send Personalized Messages]( Behind the newsletter See what questions Sean asks me regarding my thought process creating this newsletter. Maybe this will give you some ideas for your next email. [Beyond subscriber.name: The Art of Effective Email Personalization]( Get our latest expert advice and helpful tips [The pros and cons of artificial intelligence: Using AI to your advantage]( Reviewing portfolios from design students or other artists getting started in their career… [Cool 4th of July email ideas and creative design inspiration]( As the U.S. prepares to celebrate Independence Day, there’s another holiday trend Americans… [AI marketing tools creators can use—without losing your personality]( What if you could do twice the work in half the time? It’s not always the best-case… As always, thanks for reading! - Chris and the team P.S. P.S. It's time to unlock the power of AWeber Plus. Get all the email and automation solutions to help you quickly and easily grow your audience, build connections, and make sales. 👉[Upgrade to AWeber Plus today!]( 4275 County Line Rd #20 PMB 186 Chalfont PA 18914 USA [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](