Oscar Wilde once said, “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” Here at TouchBasePro we definitely look at email as an art form, so let’s talk about individualism. The fact of the matter is your audience is unique. More to the point, every single subscriber in your database is unique. What interests one person, won’t always interest the other. In our everlasting chase to reach the level of personalization where we have an “audience of one”, understanding that your subscribers have unique interests and affinities is key.
So how does this tie into dynamic content (whatever that is)?
Dynamic content is essentially the process of us tailoring the content in your campaigns to only appear to those who are interested. Let’s use a fairly magical example. Your email campaign is the Mirror Of Erised in Harry Potter. Dynamic content does exactly what the mirror does for Harry, it shows you only what you want to see. That’s the goal for us with dynamic content, presenting a wide array of information in your campaign, but only showing your subscribers what they WANT to see.
But what if I’m not a dork?
Well, let’s look a more practical example. A chain of restaurants has several locations. We don’t want subscribers in the western cape to see content for restaurants in Gauteng. Instead of designing 2 completely different campaigns, which is going to take time and effort, why not utilize dynamic content? If you think of a restaurant chain that’s nationwide, this would involve over a dozen different campaigns. Which means a lot of wasted time and effort.
Another great example is the global cosmetics brand Sephora. This a multi-billion dollar company that sends hundreds of millions of emails to subscribers all over the globe. In the campaign below, they offered a free trip to their audience. Do you know who wouldn’t be interested in this, Parisians. There’s a good chance that other European countries that are close by wouldn’t find this engaging either. Dynamic content solves this problem, and a recent study by Campaign Monitor showed that dynamic content based on location increased their click-through rate by 29%.
Location, Location, Location (Yawn…)
There are so many other practical applications for dynamic content. It really just depends on the information you currently have on your audience and what you want your campaign to convey. With Black Friday approaching, I’m sure you have a promotion or two in mind. While everyone in your audience should be able to capitalize on your generosity, shouldn’t you reward long time brand advocates? Imagine a promotional campaign where you offer a 10% discount on all purchases, pretty straightforward right? Now imagine that anyone who belonged to your database for over 2 years gets the exact same campaign, only with a 15% discount and a special thank you. This is just one of a hundred different ways you can use dynamic content to skyrocket your engagement.
Look no further than the below campaign in which Adidas combines dynamic content based on gender and purchase history with a touch of influencer marketing to serve their audience something amazing.
Is anyone really doing this?
Something we do for one of our clients, The Daily Maverick, is very in line with these principles. The Daily Maverick is a news publication. In their case, imagine an entire newspaper delivered via email, sounds great doesn’t it? Now go a step further and imagine that this newspaper was tailored exclusively to you. Your interests, your reading habits, your preferences. You should have to scroll past the business section to get to the Zapiro comic, the business section shouldn’t be there in the first place. Your subscribers deserve content that is tailored to them specifically, and you shouldn’t have to create 10 different campaigns to do it.
In a nutshell, this is why we want you to use dynamic content. Let’s make your subscribers feel like the unique snowflakes they are, and let’s make sure you don’t have to work into the late hours of the night to get this done. This might seem more complex than my unnecessary Harry Potter references, but TouchBasePro is ready to help you get it done!
“You will find that help will always be given at TouchBasePro to those who ask for it.”