How many unread emails do you have right now? The average person receives 121 emails a day. If your email isn't relevant to the person receiving it, it will disappear into that pile without a second glance. Below are six ways to personalise your campaigns and improve your chances of being read.
"Personalization, in the context of email marketing, is the act of targeting an email campaign to a specific subscriber by leveraging the data and information you have about them. It could be information like their first name, the last product they bought, where they live, how many times they log into your app, or a number of other data points.", Campaign Monitor
Personalised emails are not just about dropping a first name into the subject line. A truly personalised email contains content that is relevant to that reader and arrives at the right time. Your subscribers expect this kind of treatment, and campaigns that ignore it are increasingly easy to tune out.
How you can get personal with email
The from name - your from name is one of the first things a reader notices. Try using the name of a real person at your company instead of your brand name alone. It signals a human on the other end, not a broadcast system.
The subject line - include your subscriber's first name in the subject line. Before you do, make sure that data is clean and stored correctly. A subject line that reads "Hi ," does more damage than no personalisation at all.
The email copy - any data point you have stored can appear in the body of your email. You could reference the last date a subscriber made a purchase, or include any custom field you have collected. Grammarly does this well, sending weekly writing activity summaries that feel genuinely tailored to each user.
The images - you can serve different images to different segments. Subscribers in Cape Town and Johannesburg could see location-relevant visuals in the same send, without you needing to build two separate campaigns.
Dynamic content - take personalisation further with dynamic images pulled from an external URL. Live weather feeds or images built with merge tags are two examples of how a single template can look different for every recipient.
Segments - instead of blasting your entire database, split it into groups and send each group content that matches their behaviour, location, or preferences. Targeted sends consistently outperform mass emails on open rate, click rate, and conversions.
74% of marketers say targeted personalisation increases their overall customer engagement rates, eConsultancy
Personalisation is not a nice-to-have. It is the difference between a campaign that earns attention and one that gets archived unread. If you need help setting up any of these techniques in TouchBasePro, get in touch with our team.
Frequently asked questions
- What is email personalisation?
- Email personalisation is the practice of tailoring a campaign to a specific subscriber using data you have collected about them. This includes details like their name, purchase history, location, or app activity. The goal is to send content that feels relevant to that individual rather than a generic broadcast.
- Is adding a first name to the subject line enough to personalise an email?
- No. A first name in the subject line is a starting point, but genuine personalisation covers the sender name, body copy, images, dynamic content, and which segment of your database receives the message in the first place.
- What is dynamic content in email marketing?
- Dynamic content lets a single email template display different content to different recipients based on stored data. A common example is pulling a live image from an external URL, such as a weather feed or a product image built with merge tags, so each subscriber sees something specific to them.
- Does personalisation actually improve email engagement?
- According to eConsultancy, 74% of marketers report that targeted personalisation increases their overall customer engagement rates. Segmented, personalised sends consistently outperform mass emails on open rates, click rates, and conversions.