Dear Valued Blog Reader.
...how boring was that. If this landed in your inbox alongside dozens of other emails today, you'd have moved on already.
Email campaigns with personalised subject lines are 27% more likely to be opened and interacted with. Our own research points to a 740% return on investment when properly segmented campaigns are used.
The catch is that "Dear Michael" is not enough on its own. A name helps, but it's still just a name. Real personalisation means targeting far deeper than the opening line. So where do you start?
The biggest obstacle is rarely the setup. It's the data. We analysed our customers' databases to see what types of Custom Fields they were using, and there was a clear link between the detail they had on each recipient and the success of their campaigns.
Contacts with just an email address had lower open and interaction rates than those with Name, Gender, and Location on file.
It starts with how you collect data. The most reliable approach is to use TouchBasePro Subscribe Forms with Custom Fields on your website or signup page, so the data flows straight into your account.
Once you have that basic data, the question is how to use it. First Name is obvious. Gender and Location are less so. You would not write "Dear Michael. As a male living in Johannesburg...", that reads like a database error. The point is to let the data shape the campaign behind the scenes, without the recipient ever noticing.
Start by segmenting your lists. The Segment feature in TouchBasePro lets you split your list using data from signup forms and external sources like your invoicing system. In this example, we created two segments: "Top Spenders, Male" and "Top Spenders, Female".
From there, use the Template Builder to build gender-targeted versions of the same campaign, each featuring products relevant to that audience.
Why go to this effort? You could send one email to your entire base. But if you are selling a premium product, you want it in front of people who already spend freely with you. And if the product is clothing, splitting by gender makes the email more relevant for every recipient.
Here are a few more examples of how the same principle applies:
- A Father's Day mailer sent only to subscribers under 30.
- A 20% off promotion for the Sandton store, sent only to subscribers in Johannesburg.
- A sports bar campaign using rugby imagery for Afrikaans-speaking subscribers and cricket imagery for English-speaking ones.
- A vet practice emailing dog owners a different image from the one cat owners see, based on their records.
The ideas are easy to generate once you start thinking this way.
Personalise, segment, and target your bulk email sends. We have reviewed every campaign sent through our platform and the evidence is consistent: customers who use these features get better results from their mailings.
Frequently asked questions
- How much difference does email personalisation actually make?
- Campaigns with personalised subject lines are 27% more likely to be opened and interacted with. TouchBasePro's internal data shows segmented campaigns can deliver up to 740% ROI compared to unsegmented sends.
- What data do I need to personalise my email campaigns?
- At a minimum, First Name, Gender, and Location make a meaningful difference. Contacts with only an email address on file consistently show lower open and interaction rates than those with richer profile data.
- How do I collect this data in TouchBasePro?
- Use TouchBasePro's Subscribe Forms with Custom Fields on your website or signup page. Data captured there flows directly into your account and is immediately available for segmentation.
- Do I need to mention the personalisation in the email copy itself?
- No. The goal is to let the data shape the campaign behind the scenes. A subscriber should receive a relevant email without it reading like a mail-merge template. Segment the list, tailor the content, and let the relevance do the work.