At this time of year, almost everyone is giving and receiving gifts. Some approach this as an obligation or a chore, while others take great joy from carefully selecting gifts that seem “just right” for each person on their list. Research shows that the giver actually gets more satisfaction from a gift exchange than the recipient – which probably explains the common practise of “re-gifting”. But many of us may still have a (somewhat useless) gift that was made by a child years ago – it means something special because someone made it just for us. In my case, I have a necklace that was made for me long ago by a 3-year-old in a class I taught: I’m sure he no longer remembers me, but I remember him.
And then there are the holiday cards. Some show almost no sign of human intervention: names and addresses are all printed ahead of time. Those are my least favorite. Some include a long letter about the families adventures during the year. (Some people hate those, but I personally love to get them, especially from folks that I don’t see often.) Others have a short, but hand written note. I tend to remember the ones that include some sort of message that makes me feel that the writer was thinking specifically of me.
It was in this frame of mind that I started to notice the emails that I have been receiving from brands during the holiday season. I always do a lot of my shopping online, so there have been the usual transactional emails. And I’ve also been getting all sorts of “Happy Holidays” greetings from brands to which I subscribe. Some of them are like the pre-printed christmas cards, or the generic gift – I appreciate the thought, but it doesn’t really make a strong impact in my mind. The best of the messages I have received demonstrate that they know me, and are paying attention to the sorts of things I respond to, and when. The tone of voice sounds like a real person wrote the message. And these are the ones that I remember – because they make me feel special.
So, what are some of the best practices for making your brand emails feel special to their recipients – so that they will keep your brand at the top of their mind when making purchases?
1. Personalize the email. Sure, it seems obvious, but I am amazed by how fe emails I receive actually put my first name in a salutation line. Of course I know that my name is there because it is stored in a database somewhere, and another 200,000 folks may be getting the same email. But studies have shown that including the recipient’s name in the email subject line increases open rates, and including it in a salutation increases recall. As Dale Carnegie said way back in 1936: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
2. Keep it simple. Remove the clutter and make the message really clear. Don’t try to communicate a lot of different ideas; keep it to two or three. And use pictures!
3. Create different messages for different people. The people who open your email messages regularly deserve a reward for their loyalty. Over time, you should be making it more and more easy for them to do business with you, as you observe their behavior over time. You don’t want to be creepy about it and say something like “thanks for reading all 14 of our last emails”. Pay attention to the sorts of things that people are clicking on, and begin to develop more of the content that people are spending time with. Develop different streams of content that can be mixed and matched. Develop automated messages that are triggered by a given behavior. Put yourself in their place and think about what you would expect to receive next – and then deliver that and more.
4. Create groups of different people and send them appropriate messages. Just as you need different content for different people, divide your email audience into groups of like-behaving people. Even a simple segmentation between people who always open and people who do so rarely will allow you to tailor your content appropriately. You may not be able to change everything, but something as simple as a different subject line can make a huge difference in the results.
The Connected Brand 