Legend has it that car maker Henry Ford permitted his customers ‘any colour, so long as it’s black’. It might seem ludicrous to us now that customers would be presented with such a limited choice, but will we one day look at non-dynamic email marketing campaigns the same way?
We know that different people like different things, and we know that we should talk to different people in different ways. However, many email marketers continue to send the exact same message to all customers, or else split the mailing list into a few clumsy segments. You can have any colour, so long as it’s A, B or C.
How does dynamic content work?
Dynamic content marketing is about radically increasing the level of personalisation in email messaging. Dynamic content means that emails follow sets of rules to tailor form and content for different users. This can be anything from demographic characteristics like age, sex, location, marital status and education level to preferences based on what your audience tells or shows you they are interested in.
For example, you can use data on how your recipient responded to previous emails to inform the content of future ones. If they tended to click on particular topics or formats such as videos, you can adjust your offering accordingly.
Dynamic content also means email is no longer a snapshot. You can amend data in real time as the situation changes – for example, as stock runs down or an event approaches.
Why personalisation is important
The more you can personalise your content, the more successful your marketing is likely to be. In today’s digital environment, people can easily feel overloaded. Being sent poorly-tailored emails makes customers feel less respected and less in control. Put simply, irrelevant information wastes their time and makes them frustrated.
On the other hand, marketing that demonstrates how you know your customer will help to strengthen your relationships, boost customer loyalty and increase conversion rates.
Cool stuff you can do with dynamic content…
- Target products depending on customer characteristics.
Product previews can be adjusted based on characteristics like age and sex, or even go one step further and adjust for geographic location and associated weather. - Let customers tell you what they’re interested in.
Offer the opportunity for customers to change their preferences so they can tell you exactly what they are interested in – a very valuable bit of information. - Change content according to time of day.
The timing of sending email is important, but you can now adjust content depending on when the email is opened, too. If you know users want something different in the morning, evening or on weekends, you can ensure content is optimised. - Include shopping cart reminders
Abandoned shopping carts are bad news. Dynamic content allows you to include a reminder in emails to help complete those purchases. - Display ranking information
Customer reviews and ranking scores really matter these days. Dynamic content allows you to display this information within your email. - Base recommendations on previous activity
Not all preferences are set in stone. Data about previous activity can be used to personalise marketing for each user. - Update a story as it develops
You might want to tell a prospect that there’s only 12 hours left of a promotion – but they open the email 24 hours later. With dynamic content, you can adjust content so it is dynamically updated, meaning it can show material that is always relevant to the present.
Is it time you embraced dynamic content?
Instiller’s email marketing platform makes personalisation easy.
If you want to take a closer look at Instiller, all you need to do is get in touch and we’ll set you up with a free and unlimited 14 day trial for you to discover what Instiller can do for your agency.