In the past, you could send the same newsletter to all subscribers, which included the same promoted products, the same discount for everyone and the same level of satisfaction and get a good conversion rate. Unfortunately, when all marketers do the same thing, these rates drop. There must be a differentiating factor.
The answer is: knowing the person you target.
The best reward for your marketing efforts comes when you create content which is based on subscribers’ preferences and the characteristics of their profile, for the same shoe size cannot fit all.
This is done by constructing the subscriber’s profile and by segmenting the database according to these profiles, in order to be able to send your subscribers the content which is relevant to them, at the right time.
How do you go about building the complete profile of a subscriber?

1.    The subscription form

Creating an effective sign-up page must be a priority for any e-mail marketer.
Every one of your website visitors may be a potential subscriber, and even more than that. With the aid of the form, you can turn him or her into a client


Tips for an effective subscription form

Increase visibility
Firstly, it’s very to post it on the website, as subscribers won’t waste much time looking for it. It should be as visible as possible, preferably in the first part of the webpage.
Marketing Sherpa offers a good example of where the subscription form should be placed. On accessing the site, an overlayer appears promoting the subscription to the newsletter. In order to be as effective as possible, it takes very little time to complete it by marking the items as they’re being dealt with. the users’ reception options HTML or Text are already completed, as well as the type of alerts they may get: Best of Weekly and Chart of the Week, it only remains for them to add in their email addresses.

 
 

Ask only the information you need

Require only the information which is important and useful to you in the future, such as email address, first name, last name, gender and place of residence. It takes a rather long time to construct the subscriber’s profile. Don’t make your potential subscriber suspicious by asking sensitive information, such as office phone number or address.
 

Nevertheless, if you wish to build up the visitors’ profile on their subscription, it is advisable to turn this process into an attractive activity aimed at keeping up the interest of the subscribers and avoiding the risk of their giving up before they finish completing the form.

Reebok offers an original example for constructing a profile. As they have gear for different kinds of sports, when you construct the profile you must give marks from 1 to 10 for each sport, according to the interest you take in them. The thing I liked about this form was using images illustrating the data that needed to be added to the form.
As in the case of the preferences for gear color, images are used, and this makes easier the completion of the form.
Moreover, all this data, the interest in a sport, the favorite gear colors, and the place where you use the gear (on the field or in a gym) creates a fairly exact profile of the subscriber and it’s easier to send offers tailored to the interests of the subscribers. It’s a situation in which everybody wins, the subscribers don’t receive unwanted information and Reebok increases its sales by communicating according to the subscribers’ wishes.

 


Be transparent

Tell them how you intend to use their information. Reassure them that you won’t sell or give their email addresses or other information to other people. You may also post a link leading to a page where you offer details about all this.

Listen to your subscribers

1)    Let them choose the frequency of their e-mails. If you don’t do this and they have different expectations, they may cancel their subscriptions or report the e-mail as spam, when they receive it more often than they want to.
You don’t have to let them know the exact time when they will receive a newsletter, but you must leave them the options of receiving it daily, weekly, monthly or three times a year.

2)    Let your subscribers choose the content they want to receive. Make a brief description of what they’re about to get in order to give them a benefit and stimulate their curiosity.

A recent survey has shown that 41% of the subscription forms of the companies offer benefits upon registration, 28% give no other information than the one in the form and 11% inform their subscribers about how long it takes to complete the form.

 

2.  Updating the profile

A form aimed at updating subscribers’ preferences may be a very good way of adding vital information to your database and gives you the opportunity to create relevant content for your subscribers and divide them according to that content.

How can you raise information on your subscribers?

First, you must work out what kind of information would help you to sell more and more easily in the future. It may be information on the budget they allotted for their dream holiday, if you are a travel agency, in order to send them offers compatible with their choice, or, if you are a clothing manufacturer, you may have a field where subscribers can choose their size, in order for you to focus on sending targeted offers in the future and so on, according to the profile of your company.
You may include in your newsletter a permanent link to a page where they can update their profiles. (Sephora uses a form containing the beauty profile of its subscribers in its newsletters, with two fields which are left blank until they are filled in by its subscribers, thus urging them to update their profiles).

Encourage them to update their profiles by offering a benefit:

“Update here your profile in order to receive relevant future information about you”
You may even send a mini campaign requiring your subscribers to update their profiles and preferences and showing them their benefits (relevant content for them, discounts or products they are interested in). You may also offer them a strong incentive such as a discount for the next order, free transport, invitations to lectures, and free case study for the industry they belong to, whitepaper etc. when they have to show their preferences.
A remainder may be sent to those who haven’t updated their profile or opened the e-mail.

3. Progressive Profiling ( newsletter polls)

Progressive profiling is based on the presence or absence of database information which is relevant to the relationship with the subscriber. It can be carried out by means of a series of questionnaires which are included in the newsletter.

The most important part of this method is creating an accessible questionnaire, which is as transparent as possible to your subscribers.
Thus, they may generate leads, test the client’s level of satisfaction or may identify problems.
For instance, if you are a company conducting a B2B e-mail marketing campaign and you want to divide subscribers according to the size of their company in order to propose offers to them according to their budgets and needs, you may include a questionnaire containing the following questions:

How many employees does your company have?

•    Between 10 and 50
•    Between 50 and 250
•    Over 250

Once you’ve received the information and have divided the database according to the size of the companies, you may also find out the financial situation of the company, in order to take a further step towards identifying sale leads.

To which extent has the economic crisis affected the company you work for?
•    We keep afloat
•    Nothing has changed
•    We finished the year by making a profit

One of our clients uses Newsletter polls in order to raise information on subscriber’s behavior. This information is used subsequently by targeting the sent offers and the subscribers who offer this information receive mainly offers which are compatible with their expressed intentions.


 
Quiz: Where do you want to spend your summer holidays?     A) In the country B) In Europe C) In an exotic country D) On a cruise E) Home
Newsletter quizzes bring twofold benefits. First, because they increase interactivity by stimulating them to perform actions which get immediate response (upon the completion of the form, the subscribers may see the previous answers of other subscribers), which means increasing engagement and raises information about the database.

4. Creating the profile according to the behavior

Personalization according to behavior is by far the most complex form of personalization, takes up the most time and is the more expensive. Nevertheless, the results are compatible with the efforts.

As far as behavioral personalization is concerned, the ideal thing is to start by the easiest methods and then, work one’s way up to an increased level of relevance by the gradual introduction of new personalization methods.
In the first stage, one may begin with information which is easy to obtain, like openings and clicks. An easily implemented method for using click rates is dividing newsletter links into categories. When three of them have been sent, statistics may be carried out, and those subscribers who accessed the same category in each newsletter will receive a sales message promoting the products that belong to the category in which they are interested.

Thus, if you sell books, CDs and films, you divide all the products which you promote in the Newsletter into those categories. If a subscriber clicks on film DVDs which have been promoted in three consecutive newsletters, you can send him a message granting special offers or discounts upon purchase of film DVDs. The personalization according to the click may reach a new level when, for instance, films are also divided into subcategories. Thus, when the sales offer is sent, films will be proposed to him according to the type of those he accessed in previous Newsletters, enhancing in this way the relevance of the messages.

Once the personalization according to the newsletter actions has been mastered, the following step may be taken, namely synchronizing the database and the site.
In order to do this, the actions a subscriber performs in the site are recognized and observed, the visualized pages and the performed clicks are analyzed, and, according to these actions, offers are sent to the newsletter.

For instance, if a client logs into the site, with the account e-mail address, and adds products to the shopping basket, but he leaves the site before finishing the purchase, an e-mail alert is sent immediately, which contains clear information about the products he showed an interest in and tries to stimulate the user to go through with the purchase. If a user logs into the site and begins to surf, the newsletter which will be sent to him afterwards will contain either the type of products he showed an interest in or alternative products.

For instance, if a user surfs through several pages with a photo camera, the pages he views the most will be observed, an average price of the product he wants is worked out, as well as the brand he’s looking for and products which are compatible with his search will be sent to him in the newsletter and a discount will be granted to him if he purchases  the product in a fixed time, in order to speed up the purchase.
Another method for dividing users is based on the type of the purchase.

For instance, if a client orders a guitar, offers for guitar strings or guitar lessons will be made to him in the following newsletters.
Users may also be divided into the following categories, according to the actions they perform:

•    information collectors;
•    buyers;
•    purchasers of expensive products

Once the status of a subscriber has been determined and assigned to a certain category, subsequent communication will be made according to this.
For instance, they will try to turn information collectors into buyers, buyers into buyers of expensive products and the buyers of expensive products will be given special treatment by the promotion of up-sell or cross-sell products at the moment when they make a purchase and by granting better offers for products in order to keep them into this category.

The behavioral personalization is supported by the 40/40/20 theory of direct marketing, stating that 40% of the response rate is due to the quality of the database to which the communication is made.40% of the offer per se and 20% due to the creativity employed in presenting the offer. This means that, by making the right offer for the public which is directly interested, the conversion rate will tend to 80%.

Final note

No matter which personalization type you choose, it will certainly take time and need money, but once the e-mail personalization has been implemented, not only will it offer relevant information to your subscribers, but it will also enable you to be one step ahead of your competitors. Because, if it were easy, everybody would do it, wouldn’t they?