Come to think of it. Customers are on a journey. From the moment they first learned about you to their first purchase, every step leads to a path. As a marketer, it’s your responsibility to drive them to your desired path – the conversion path.
Personalizing customer journey leads to better customer experiences since everything you send them is relevant to their specific needs. As a result, you get better email marketing performance. In fact, 96% of organizations believe that email personalization can improve email marketing performance. And the open rate for emails with a personalized message was 18.8%, as compared to 13.1% without any personalization.
So, be sure your email marketing software makes it easy for you to personalize customer journey, and then follow these tips!
1. Use customer’s past experiences
One effective way to know what your customers want is by checking their history. Look at their previous interactions and transactions with you to find patterns.
For example, you can set up triggers in your email marketing software for customers who frequent a certain product page. Their returns indicate intent to buy, and they may only need a little push to make a purchase. Through a trigger, a personalized email containing offers on the product they frequent will be automatically sent to them after their, for instance, the fifth visit.
If you want to upsell or cross-sell, review their past purchases so that you would have an idea of which related offers are most likely to appeal to them.
2. Extract as much information as you can
Collecting valuable customer data should start as early as when customers sign up for your emails.
Apart from the name and email address, ask information that will help you know more about them such as location, birthday, interests, industry and more. Be sure that the amount of information you ask in your sign-up form must be reasonable. Long sign up forms can turn off customers.
For existing customers, you can send a survey email that aims to extract more information about them. You can motivate them to send a response with incentives such as discounts. Your customer’s IP address can also help you determine location so that you can send location-based offers.
3. Greet them on their special days
People feel valued when they are remembered on days or occasions that are special to them like birthdays. Take this as an opportunity to make your bond stronger.
In your email marketing software, you can automate a birthday message to customers on their day of birth. Make it more special with a birthday gift such as exclusive discounts they can avail on their birth month only.
You can also use holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Your options are limitless. Just to give them a reason to celebrate.
4. Set up triggers based on customer behavior
The online behavior of customers tells us whether they are ready to buy or are still weighing their options. With advanced email marketing software today, it’s now possible for businesses to set up triggers to send personalized emails that match their journey. It also allows you to automatically add customers to a workflow based on how they interact with you so that you can nurture them further.
A common triggered email for eCommerce sites is shopping cart abandonment email. Here, customers get a promotional email containing discounts on the items they abandoned.
For customers who click on your CTA, you can automatically add them to a workflow designed for those who are ready for conversion. On the other hand, lapsed customers who have been disengaged for months can be automatically sent with a series of re-engagement emails.
5. Ask for feedback
Reaching out to customers to ask how they are doing is part of their journey. Customers feel that their voice matters when you take time to listen.
Using survey emails, ask how their experience was with you. Use this opportunity to know which aspect of your business needs improvement. You can also ask them if they find your business recommendable to their friends and colleagues. Keeping an open relationship with your customers is healthy for your business and for their journey.
Maximize your email marketing software to personalize customer journey. With the right amount and usage of customer data combined with targeted strategies, you can pull it off like an email marketing pro.
