The expectation for personalization is higher than ever in B2B marketing. Most marketing industry articles about email marketing talk about your need to invest in this platform or that one. And they all seem to require expensive software and systems.
But here are some better options that won’t break the bank…
What Do Marketing Experts Say?
Experts talk about segmenting your list, creating personas, triggering custom email sequences based on behavior, A/B testing of campaigns, and automating your leads to nurture them through the buyer’s journey.
That involves marketing automation platforms like Marketo and HubSpot. The problem is, these full-service offerings can cost thousands of dollars per year.
Marketing leaders also suggest using a system for customer relationships, tracking sales opportunities, and providing customer support.
But CRM systems, like Salesforce, are costly to implement and also to maintain. They require spending a pretty penny on software licenses, data integration, and ongoing support.
What Are Our Pain Points as Marketers?
For many writers and solopreneurs, the investment in costly data collection, multiple programs, and sophisticated systems may be prohibitive for email marketing alone.
Yet, we know email marketing is effective. According to HubSpot, 87% of brands said that email marketing contributes to their business’ success.
And Salesforce found that 84% of consumers say being treated like a person, not a number or a sales target, is very important to winning them over.
So, you have to personalize your email marketing to reach prospects. How do you do it without draining your bank account?
Hacks You Can Use to Personalize Your Email Marketing
While automation is important, for many of us including beginning writers, we need a simpler and less expensive way to tackle email marketing personalization.
I’ve come up with seven alternative shortcuts and creative solutions. These should help you become successful in tailoring your email marketing. Here they are:
For small businesses with very limited budgets, take advantage of these three free and affordable options:
- Try Mailchimp, a freemium marketing automation platform. You get basic features for free and can upgrade to paid plans for more advanced functionalities. Mailchimp can handle email list segmentation, automation, and A/B testing.
- Check out Zoho CRM, a free and open-source It provides basic contact management by storing your customer’s name, email and contact information, and sales pipeline tracking from Lead to Closed, as well as customer support ticketing for inquiries and requests.
- Look into Optimizely, a specialized platform and industry leader in A/B testing. With its robust features and low-cost plans, they’re known among marketers seeking to optimize their email campaigns.
Next, we get to the fun part. Here are creative solutions that are very human to help you with your email marketing.
And they don’t require fancy programs or systems!
- Segmentation: You’ll easily get your client demographic info (age, gender, location). You just need more psychographic (interests, values, lifestyle) and behavior intel (spending pattern).
Why not simply ask three more fun questions up front? Use a sign-up form, intake form, your screening tool, or a regular email to get the answers!
- If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be and why? (Tapping into values and aspirations.)
- If you had a free day to do anything, what would you do and why? (Provides interests and motivations.)
- When purchasing services, which two are priorities? (Gives insights into purchasing and decision-making.)
- Quality/Skills
- Experience/History
- Reputation/Professionalism
- Cost/Budget
- Creating Personas: Spend time on social media and online communities where your ideal customers hang out. Your prospects are not just demographic labels like fellow small business owners or Millennials. You’re looking for their values and motivations. Pay attention to their language, interests, and pain points. Talk to them! Ask them questions. Use this information to create rich, human personas.
- A/B Testing: Try sending the same email with slightly different subject lines to smaller segments of your list. Keep track of which subject lines get the highest open rates on a simple Excel spreadsheet.
- Buyer’s Journey: Use storytelling and intuition to create your buyer’s journey. Here’s an example. Imagine Sarah, a Baby Boomer graphic designer (your ideal client) needs email help and sees your funny email-related Facebook posts (Awareness). She reviews your website and testimonials and compares it to another local copywriter’s (Consideration/Evaluation). She decides to contact you for a free consultation (Decision).
Hopefully, you’re inspired to try out these ideas. By exploring these no cost or low-cost alternatives, you can implement personalized email marketing strategies — without costly expenditures or undue stress.
