You’ve heard the phrase a million times: customers buy from people they know, like and trust, so what are you doing to foster relationships? Specifically, how do you personalize email marketing at your company so that people know, like and trust you?
We’ve talked about the importance of a good subject line before but if you are truly successful at email marketing, the greatest thing about your emails is that they are coming from YOU.
How do you achieve that?
Personalize Email Step 1: Establish Your Identity
If people are going to get to know, like and trust you then step one is getting to know YOU. That means stepping out from behind the protective shell the brand.
- Introduce yourself, tell people who you are and why you are the one sending emails to them.
- Put your name in the “from” field when sending the emails instead of the company name.
- Make it a truly personal experience by telling people how they can reach you, perhaps suggest they reply to the email or reaching out to you on social networks.
Helping you audience understand that there is a person behind the face of the company is the first step in building a relationship and establishing trust.
Personalize Email Step 2: Show Some Personality
No one wants to be friends with a drone nor do we particularly like corporate-speak. So build relationships by letting your personality shine.
Have a little fun and think of your readers as your community instead of simply a list of names. When you’re creating emails, think of yourself among friends and you’ll find that you make it personal. Chances are your community will respond to the tone and your engagement will go up.
Personalize Email Step 3: Build trust
How do you build trust through email? You bring your audience value every time you send an email. If you’re sending emails to your list just because you think you should, stop right now. You aren’t doing your audience or your credibility any good.
Instead you need to start following the rule you learned in childhood: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.
Email translation: if you don’t have something of value to share with your audience, don’t send an email.
Trust is hard to come by, but you can lose it in an instant. Be aware of these trust-busters:
- Flooding the inbox – The number one reason people unsubscribe from an email list is they receive too much email from that list.
- Sending irrelevant emails – Are you off topic? Selling your list and promoting other products? If your email is not delivering what you promised to subscribers upon sign up, they will leave you.
- Sending to anyone and everyone – Not everyone wants your emails. Just because someone gives you a business card, that does not mean they want to be added to your email list. If you are putting every email you can find on your list, you’re being a bit overaggressive and will likely be flagged as a spammer. Grow your list organically and ask permission before you add people to your list.
Personalize Email Step 4: Growing Relationships
While email can serve many purposes, your goal with your list should be to build long-term relationships that create customer loyalty and lead to repeat purchases. That means that your efforts to personalize email should become a mantra, not in afterthought.
In practice this means every email you send should feel personal. Even if you’re sending a promotional email blast, it should have a conversational tone and be relevant to the audience you are targeting.
