Email Personalization for IaaS, SaaS, and Fintech Marketing

With so much competition for attention in the email inbox, email personalization remains one of the most effective ways to cut through the noise.

After all, according to Experian Marketing, personalized emails lead to 26% higher open rates and 14% higher click-through rates (CTRs).

So what can you do if you lead digital marketing for an IaaS, SaaS, or Fintech company that wants to improve its email marketing results and customer experience?

1. Conclude emails with a personal signature. For bonus points, include the sender’s photo, social media links, and calendar links.
2. Include region-specific information when appropriate. If any of the email message content changes depending on location -- such as start time for an event across time zones or currency across countries, consider using smart content
3. Insert a call to action (CTA) to an offer that the reader will find valuable. When it comes to accelerating leads into sales opportunities, include a CTA that guides recipients to your next suggested recommendation. 
4. Only send emails that pertain to recent engagement. If you really want a world-class customer experience for your IaaS, SaaS, or Fintech customers, take advantage of explicit and implicit, also known as behavioral, data to target your email personalization to those most likely to be receptive to it.
5. Personalize the subject line with the first name contact property. If your email service provider (ESP) or marketing automation (MA) allows, set a default value of “There” in case you have contact records with blank first name values.
6. Send content that is relevant to the recipient’s buyer persona and lifecycle stage. Yes, it’s great to personalize based on who a person is. But it’s even more powerful to personalize based on the combination of buyer persona and the context of where they are when engaging with your company. At the most basic level, personalizing by lifecycle stage ensures that you don’t inadvertently treat prospects as customers and vice versa.
7. Write about relevant and personal events. With compelling customer insight, you should know your customers better than you know themselves. Then use that insight to include the nuggets of information that show your leads and customers that (a) you are industry experts and (b) you have their best interests at heart.

What kinds of email personalization have you found most effective for your IaaS, SaaS, or Fintech marketing? Let me know in the comments.