Is personalisation in your emails limited to “Dear Tom” or “Hi Kate”? Then this is the perfect time to wake up from your winter sleep and to delve into the boundless possibilities of dynamic content. Marketers are putting up information from their contacts in their newsletters for some time now, but as from now we are going the extra mile. By setting up preferences, interest groups, web tracking and API you provide your contacts with the best possible personalized content.
Don’t make static campaigns to one single contact list a rule but make it an exception. In this blog article we build up the level of dynamic content gradually, each time accompanied with an inspiring example. With these handy tips we give you a push in the right direction.
Prick up your ears to the preferences of your contacts
It is an art to keep on arousing interest of the readers. The last thing you want is that receivers unsubscribe. Not because your activities are not appealing to them, but because they receive information that is irrelevant for them. Offer them a medium to communicate their preferences to you. Are they interested in promotions? Do they want to learn from your expertise? Do they want to be updated about your events or is their focus rather on one specific product type? Keep in mind that the frequency also has a not to be underestimated share in the engagement of your reader. Rather let your contacts indicate that they like to receive your newsletter weekly, than overwhelm them with newsletters every day and run the risk that they recklessly unsubscribe for all your communication. Flexmail works with a handy feature here, namely the Preference Center. With the Preference Center the contacts get the chance to indicate their preferences. That way you can specify your message to this audience by sending a newsletter to a list with a certain preference or to a list with a combination of preferences via segmentation.
We demonstrate the use of the Preference Center with an example. Imagine that you run a web shop specialised in local Italian products and you like to know in which products and communications your clients are interested. As from the moment they subscribe, you ask your clients where their preferences are. Do they like to receive information about wine, cheese or pasta? Or do they like to know more about your blog posts, recipes and events? Than this is the ideal moment.
Has a contact marked ‘cheese’ and ‘blog’? Then you can set up your email campaigns so that each contact only receives those messages or gets to see only those articles per message that specifically refer to their selected preferences.
Register the behaviour of your contacts behind the screens
You not only receive a sea of information from the preferences that the contacts indicate themselves. Also the clicking behaviour of the receivers is an inexhaustible source of information. Do you want to know where the interests of your contacts are in a newsletter? Then follow the clicking behaviour of your contacts. Moreover, based on the clicking behaviour of the contacts you can automatically assign them to specific interest groups. Other than the preferences, the interest groups are saved behind the screens so that you can put up these data strategically.
That is another opportunity to personalize the content of your newsletter to the interests of your contacts. We go back to the example of our Italian web shop. There your contacts can simply be added to the group ‘Wine’ when contacts click on an article about wine via this Workflow:
The opposite is also imaginable. Didn’t you hear from contacts in a while? Then you can encourage them a last time to launch follow-up campaigns via the Workflows.
Monitor your contacts closely with webtracking
And we even go a bit further. With Flexmail you cannot only follow movement inside a newsletter, but also outside. Our feature Webtracking allows you to register the path that a visitor takes on your website after he has landed on your website via an email message. On the one hand you can follow up the activities of your contacts on your website. With this application you can automatically add contacts to a group or start a workflow so that he automatically receives a series of campaigns. On the other hand the cookie makes sure that you can automatically save data of the contacts, so that this information can automatically be prefilled in the fields of a form.
Did a person visit a web page with a specific pasta product from your online store? Then don’t leave this moment untouched. Automatically send this person for example a mail via a Workflow with a promotion to attract him to your online store again:
No move remains a secret with API
And with our last application we probably exceed all expectations. Via a connection with API you receive more concrete information of your website. If you manage for example a web shop, you can monitor whether a contact has put certain products in his basket. When you notice that they left their basket without ordering, then you can send them a reminder. Nice examples can be found in the article of Dollar Shave Club. After all, API allows you to connect external systems with your Flexmail account, where you can for example easily import contact persons from your database to your address file in Flexmail.
And now it’s up to you
Try to think of original ways to implement data and activities of your contacts by using the Preference center, groups, webtracking and API. After all, personalized content is what brings contacts around to click, read, subscribe or purchase. No reason to miss this opportunity, right?
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