I don't know your name, but I love you.
Not convinced?
What if I could personalize this blog post to include your name, Frances? Would it make you feel just a little bit cooler? Would it grab your attention?
Eh, Enrique?
And what if I could write the perfect content for you on exactly the right date? That would be pretty neat.
Right, Vivian?
With email marketing personalization, you can deliver personalized greetings and content. It's a little bit like knowing exactly which flowers to send. But you need to collect the right information first.
Decide what to collect in your email marketing web form
A web form (aka signup form) allows you to collect contact information such as name and email address online.
How much information should you collect? That depends on your goals and the type of relationship you have with your new subscribers. For instance, if you're a membership organization, you can probably get away with collecting more information than if you're a car dealership.
Email marketing personalization can be powerful, but you need to be careful.
The more data you try to collect in your web form, the more you might scare off some would-be subscribers. You want the sign-up process to be quick and painless.
For each piece of information you want to collect, ask yourself:
- What will I do with it?
- How will that help me reach my audience?
- Will anyone object to providing that information?
For instance, you could collect:
- First name
- Last name
- Location (country, state, etc.)
- Birthday
- Industry
- Favorites (color, animal, etc.)
- Interests (fashion, health, etc.)
You're not limited to text boxes — you can collect information using fancier fields like drop-downs, radio buttons and checkboxes. The sky's the limit! Learn how to create fancy web form fields.
Personalize your email newsletter or other marketing email
There are many ways to personalize your marketing emails. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Send specific emails to subscribers who live in a specific area. Include specials, events, and information that are relevant to them.
- Include personalized greetings and other information in the body of the email by placing personalization tags in your content. If you've ever done a mail merge, it's a lot like that.
- Send content related to subscribers' interests. Maybe some of your subscribers are all about dogs, while others are all about cats. Personalize!
- Time your content to a specific event. For instance, send your subscribers a special greeting (and coupon) on their birthday.
GoDaddy Email Marketing is a great way to create simple yet beautiful newsletters in no time at all. Try it today.
Be creative without being overwhelming
Personalization rocks, but it should be subtle. You don't want your emails to read like a [insert adjective here] Mad Lib!
Also, avoid using someone's first name 12 times in one email. It will start to get weird!
You want to show your readers that you know and appreciate them. And most of all, you want to provide content that informs and delights them. That's the point of collecting additional information in your web forms.
