What makes someone want to open the emails you send them? What drives you to open the emails in your inbox?

Well, the answers vary, and it can depend on a whole range of things. Something we’ve settled on as being instrumental in driving engagement is creating email campaigns that speak to people.

This is where dynamic content comes in. What is it? Simply put, dynamic content is a piece of content added to an email that changes to show the information that relates to the recipient. Think of it as just another way to say ‘personalised.’

Dynamic content is easy to use, and you probably already have all the data you need to start implementing it, without having to look any further, or take up any more of your time.

Why Use Dynamic Content?

Implementing personal content into your emails is an easy win for engaging your contacts. With dynamic content you can send one campaign and show each recipient content tailored to them.

Using dynamic content can give your email that extra touch of personalisation, whether it’s just using the recipient’s name instead of a generic salutation, or a unique value to them such as their dietary requirements, or the name of the venue they registered for an event at – the gesture won’t go unnoticed.

How it Affects Conversions

Generally speaking, everyone wants to feel special and valued. It’s human nature, and it holds true for email marketing. Customisation of emails can make your email stand out significantly from an inbox of bland, one-size-fits-all marketing. This is especially true if your company has direct relationships with the contacts you are emailing. It’ll make recipients feel listened to, and like you’re making the effort to maintain the relationship. The more people feel like an email is relevant and relates to them, the more likely they are to open it, and if it carries through to the content, it will drive click throughs and ultimately, conversions.

Dynamic Content in StoneShot

If you’re currently a StoneShot user, you’ll know that StoneShot offers numerous ways to personalise emails. With different types and levels of dynamic content, you’ll be able to find a solution that suits your needs.

Custom Fields

The first and most commonly used is what we call ‘Custom Fields’. A custom field is a snippet that you can store information in, such as salutation, dietary requirements or travel arrangements. We normally use the salutation field to personalise our emails which is why you’ll often see ‘Dear {CUSTOM1}’ in the emails we create.

You can easily add these custom fields to subject lines or really, anywhere in your email. Recently, we’ve introduced Contact Custom Fields which are our normal custom fields – with no limits.

Below is an example of an email using a custom field. Once sent, the field will populate with a salutation.

Segmentation

The next, and quite commonly used in emails is segmentation. Segmentation is broad, and highly customisable. It’s often used to pull in details for things such as sales manager sender and signoffs. If you’re using this (which you should be!), ideally each of your contacts will have a sales manager or business development representative assigned to them. The way this is done is by setting up signoff and details for each of the sales managers that you send from, and storing that information in StoneShot for each contact. Once stored, you can pull through the appropriate details and signoff for each user. This is simple to implement, and another quick win, as the recipient should recognise the sales manager and the details coming through, and thus – be more willing to engage with your content.

Here we pulled in the appropriate signoff based on the team our clients are assigned to:

Here it is in action, as an example of what will pull in once the email is sent (the results differ based on what is assigned):

Note that segmentation is not limited to sales managers but can be used in a variety of ways to pull through different information specific to each contact. Segmentation is especially useful in event management. It can be used to pull in event locations, or timings and can also be used to send location-specific confirmation emails.

Content Distribution System

Another great option to take customisation to the next level is through a dynamic content distribution system (CDS). This is a method where you can create purely dynamic emails based on user preferences. This usually ties in with using a preference centre and letting users choose the type of content or topics they wish to hear about. You can then rely on the system to select from your offerings what to send to your audience. It’s a seamless way to ensure that your contacts are receiving what they’ve actually selected as interesting to them. This results in less work for you and a better chance for engagement.

Including personalisation within your email campaigns is more important than ever. If you’re new to dynamic content – start small with some information you almost certainly already have (such as pulling in a first name, or sales manager details), and then continue on from there – aiming to send preference-based content in your campaigns so your readers won’t be bogged down with information they may not find useful.

If you want to learn more about dynamic content or how StoneShot can help with your personalisation initiatives, contact us.