Advanced Email for Bloggers – How To Get Personal

Seeing how well my post on Email segmentation and email geo-targeting did, I’m following it up with part three of the advanced email marketing for bloggers series. This time I’m going to show you how to really personalize your emails.

Most bloggers with an Aweber account may know about the {!name_fix} trick that auto inserts the subscriber’s name in the email to make it more personalized but that’s just the beginning. Here’s how to really step it up a notch.

Creating The 1-On-1 Conversation

While mass media can reach large numbers of people, it is greatly limited by its inability to engage their audience on a 1-on-1 basis. One of the main reasons that email marketing outperforms mass media is that with email, you have the power to speak to people on a 1-on-1 basis. You can engage and build a relationship with them. More importantly, you can make them feel like they’re the only one you’re talking to. Personalization Helps Make It Possible.

How To Get Super Personal with Your Email Marketing

Most bloggers know it’s possible to auto insert a subscriber’s name into an email to make it more personal. Inserting someone’s name into an email message is such a simple step and it really works to increased response rates. However, personalization doesn’t stop at a name. You can merge many pieces of information into your messages. For example, Aweber personalization allows you to insert and personalize with the following tags:

  • Name: {!name_fix}
  • Email address: {!email}
  • The date they signed up: {!signdate dayname}, {!signdate long}
  • Today’s date: {!date abb+0}
  • Future date, say a week from today: {!date abb+7}
  • Approximate Geographic Location: {!geog_city} {!geog_region}
  • Any other information you collect from subscribers

If this post was sent out as an email, all the above information would be filled in with your name, email, etc. You can check out the Aweber Knowledge base for more personalization choices.

Are you starting to see how powerful this is? While most readers may know that an email can be personalize with their name, very few are aware of the amount of personal data that can be inserted into the email body. This can create an email that is like having a 1-on-1 conversation.

How To Creatively Personalize

Your subscribers are not dumb. Personalization is powerful, but for many readers, it will be nothing new to them. Mix up how/where/what you personalize in your emails to get the best response. Don’t personalize just because you can do so – excessive personalization is transparent and blunt. Here are a few things you can try:

  • Limited Time Offers: use the future date variable in a follow up email to specify when a sale or offer expires. That way, regardless of when your subscriber gets your email, a sense of urgency accompanies it.
  • Build anticipation: tell people when they’ll next hear from you using day/date variables.
  • Use geographic targeting to isolate and email people in a certain part of the country/world — insert the {!geog_city} variable to make the subscriber’s city show up in the body of the email. This works amazingly well for local marketing.

These are just some of the ways you can personalize your messages to increase your subscribers’ response. As you explore more, you’ll discover all sorts of new ways to use email personalization to your advantage.

Don’t Delay Any Longer

If you’ve been getting just 100 people per day to your site, that’s over 3000 potential sales/readers per month that you may have lost to inaction. And 100 more each day. There’s nothing funny about that. Every website visitor is an opportunity. Don’t let yours go to waste. Remember, it’s only take $1 to set up an Aweber account.$1 Aweber Offer