How to Personalize Email Outreach Using AI For Marketing

In an age in which customers are bombarded with endless marketing messages, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to grab their attention. Personalization, especially email personalization, is key in making your communications stand out, and artificial intelligence (AI) can significantly enhance the efficacy of personalized email outreach.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the process of utilizing AI to personalize your email outreach.

The Importance of Personalized Emails

Email personalization is much more than a cheeky message incorporating the user’s name. It’s about understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors and customizing your communication to meet these elements. 

According to a survey by Accenture, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that feel relevant to their own lifestyles. In other words, today's consumers expect more -- they want to feel understood, seen, and valued by the brands they interact with, and this is where deeper levels of personalization, driven by an understanding of customer needs, preferences, and behaviors can make a significant impact.

A well-crafted email that feels like it was written just for each individual reader can make your customers feel like you understand them and your needs, strengthening their connection to your brand.

But how do you customize your marketing email outreach for every single customer?

This is where AI comes into play.

How AI Could Help Personalize Your Emails

AI and machine-learning algorithms can analyze heaps of data to draw conclusions about customer behavior, preferences, and likely future actions. These actions can not only help you customize your email content, but they can also empower marketers and business owners to offer personalized product recommendations and send emails during conversion prime times.

Here are some of the major ways in which AI can help with email personalization.

Personalized Email Offer

With AI, you can customize the content of your emails based on each recipient’s past behavior and interactions with your brand and customer engagement.

AI can analyze customer data from various sources, such as website browsing history, past purchases, and email click-through rates, to understand what content is most relevant to each individual.

This can help you create personalized product recommendations, custom content, and bespoke offers.

Predictive Emails

AI can also enable predictive email personalization by predicting future customer behavior based on past data.

For example, if a customer regularly buys a specific product, an AI algorithm can predict when they might need to repurchase and send a strategically-timed email or offer.

This approach not only increases the relevancy of your emails, but also improves customer experience by providing value at the right time.

Optimized Email Send Times

The timing of your email can significantly impact engagement rates with users.

AI can help you optimize this by analyzing each recipient’s past email interactions to determine when they’re most likely to open and engage with an email.

How to Personalize Email Outreach Using AI

Now that we understand how AI can enhance email personalization, let’s look at a step-by-step guide on implementing it.

1.) Use Performify For Email Copywriting

Performify uses your customer insights, product benefits/features, and your audience research to craft high-converting copywriting.

We invented this tool for our own agency and have proven the tool to increase open rates and conversion rates for our clients.

Step 2.) Collect & Analyze Data

AI thrives on data–the more you have about your customers, the more accurate the AI’s predictions and recommendations will be.

This can include transactional data, browsing data, demographic information, and more.

Some AI tools can analyze this data to identify patterns and trends, providing you with insights into your customer’s behavior and preferences.

To collect email data, you may need permission from the email’s sender or recipient, depending on local regulations and laws. Data can be collected with email client APIs or web scraping tools, depending on your situation. Always make sure that the data collection method you use complies with all relevant laws and regulations.

"Research suggests that email personalization increases click rates by 14% and improves conversions by 10%"

What is email personalization? 9 tips for personalizing your email

Step 3.) Use Predictive Analytics

Once you’ve collected and analyzed your data, you can begin to implement AI-driven email personalization. The simplest form of AI personalization could be integrating personalized product recommendations with your email marketing.

Here’s how it works:

Based on your customer’s previous purchase history, AI algorithms can generate recommendations that align with the customer’s known preferences. For instance, if a customer has frequently purchased science fiction books, the AI might suggest new releases in the sci-fi genre. This level of personalization goes beyond generic marketing, showing your customers that you understand and value their individual tastes.

Going a step further, AI-driven email personalization can evolve into a much more sophisticated technique. Predictive analytics can be used to determine what a customer may need or want in the near future, and this is typically achieved by analyzing a wide range of data points including purchasing habits, browsing history, time spent on different website pages, and interactions with previous emails.

For example, if a customer’s been browsing kitchen appliances and reading blog posts about healthy recipes, an AI system could interpret this data to predict that this customer might be interested in purchasing a high-quality blender or juicer. Consequently, you could send an email offer highlighting these products, providing them with a personalized and timely offer.

Now, you might be wondering: “doesn’t this approach rely on how customers interact with my brand?” In short, no. You can also take external factors into account; for instance, the time of year can play a huge role in a customer’s needs. An AI system might predict that a customer who bought camping gear in the summer might be interested in winter outdoor gear as the colder months approach, prompting a personalized email featuring insulated clothing for portable heaters.

"High ROI: personalized emails have the potential to increase your revenue by 760%, so investing in email marketing personalization is a clever idea."

What Is a Personalized Email & How to Send One (Tips, Examples) - GMass

Step 4.) Test & Refine Your Email Personalization

Implementing email personalization is not a one-time task, it's a continuous process that demands rigorous testing and refinements to ensure optimal results. As part of this crucial step, it's essential to closely monitor and analyze the performance of your personalized emails. 

Key metrics to pay attention to include:

• Open Rates
  
• Click-Through Rates
• Conversion Rates

After you gather this data, use it to refine and improve your personalization strategy. Identify what's working and what isn't. 

For instance, if your data shows that emails personalized with the recipient's first name have higher open rates, continue to use this strategy. If location-based content isn't improving click-through rates, you might want to reconsider its use or alter the way you're incorporating it.

Click To Paste 

"And while 78% of those that do personalize emails with the subject’s name, just 51% personalized the body copy."

What is Email Personalization and How to Leverage It - Neil Patel

Step 5.) Continual Learning & Adaptation

In the fast-paced, dynamic world of email marketing, what works today might not work tomorrow.

The preferences, behaviors, and needs of your customers are constantly changing, and your AI-driven email personalization strategy should too. Make sure to regularly retrain and update your AI algorithms with the most recent data.

Continual learning enables your personalized email AI tool to adapt to changes and remain effective in delivering personalization, and this step is essential to keeping your emails relevant and your customers engaged over time.

Continual learning also helps you stay ahead of any emerging trends or shifts in your customers’ behavior. Regularly schedule these updates and retraining sessions to ensure your AI tool is always up to date and ready to offer the most relevant email personalization.