Sending messages to potential customers is a cornerstone in helping you establish a connection with them. In the increasingly digital age, people are under constant bombardment of promotional emails and letters. Rather than reading every single message in its entirety, many consumers instead choose what they look over and throw the rest out.
You need to make your message stand out. It is important to be sure your content is short while still being informative. Message personalization is quickly becoming the key to retaining customer attention and increasing return on investment (ROI) – and there’s plenty of ways to do that.
Why Is Personalizing Messages Effective?
When you’re trying to contact your potential audience, you may focus on reaching as many people as possible. However, if you want to send those messages out in a timely manner, you’re going to need an efficient system to do it. This often results in many businesses and organizations sending out mass-produced emails and letters to everyone on their lists and hoping that generalized message works.
Sure, generalized content may hit on a few eager customers. However, most people recognize mass-produced content when they see it, and they don’t bother to give it their time. The result: Your message ends up in the trash – digital or otherwise.
Most customers prefer content that’s addressed specifically to them and their needs. That can mean adjusting your messages, so they refer to the recipient, such as adding “Dear name,” but that’s only the start. Anyone can change out a name on a letter, so you need to go a bit deeper to really make personalization work.
Aside from referring to the addressee, you need to think about which customers you’re targeting with which content. Some of your customers may be interested in Product A but do not need Product B. Sending them a message about Product B is a waste of your customer’s time and your resources.
When you put these ideas into practice, you get targeted messages that relate to your customer’s specific needs. This effort makes customers feel special, with 29.2 percent of customers saying they’re much more likely to read a customized message than a non-customized one. An additional 55 percent say they’re a bit more likely to read these messages.
It’s a mistake not to do the same for your campaign because almost 85 percent of consumers prefer personalized content. After all, when customers are more likely to read your messages, they’re more likely to encounter your CTAs and consider purchasing your products or services – which brings the increase in conversion rates and ROI you’re trying to create.
Ways to Personalize Messages
Today’s technology makes it easy to customize both your email and direct-mail messages. You’ll want to start collecting customer data you can use to create targeted campaigns for both strategies. While some elements will differ between the two (hyperlinks don’t really get you anywhere in direct mail), you’ll want to focus on these core elements:
Images. Images can make a significant impact on how a customer perceives your messages. By using customer information, you can find images that appeal better to different groups, allowing you to better engage your audience.
Offer. It is as important to offer customers the right products (Product A vs. Product B), so you also want to customize your offers to the recipients. Target your CTAs to better match what works for each customer.
Copy. Don’t just change the “Dear name” on your letters and leave it at that. You still need to keep your messages short and sweet but adding in other relevant information from your customer data makes customers feel as though the message is for them, and not merely a repeat from a copy roll.
Personalization is the key to an effective digital or direct-mail strategy. If you want to succeed, you can’t go without it!
