Last updated - July 22, 2022
In the eCommerce world, reaching out to your audience and getting them to engage is getting more and more challenging. Competition is spreading out everywhere and demand is getting incrementally higher. We all want to drive customers down the purchase funnel so we try any method until we succeed. But some methods are not healthy, neither for the customer nor the brand.
What you actually want to do is improve your customers’ experience, strengthen their brand’s loyalty and nurture existing customer relationships. All while saving time, money, resources and getting a substantial ROI.
In this article, you’ll learn what dynamic newsletters are, which are the best practices, some powerful examples and how to benefit the most out of them.
Dynamic Newsletters vs Traditional Newsletters
The “regular” email marketing looks like this: create lists/segments, select audience, create designs, pick products, pick a date, pick a time, write a compelling email subject. Repeat every time you want to send an email newsletter. Most merchants simply gave up newsletters because of the hassle.
Unlike the traditional, regular emails that blast the same content to an audience, dynamic (or smart) emails change automatically with every send, based on customer browse and purchase behaviour.
The Benefits
Dynamic newsletters allow you to not only enhance your sales and loyalize your customers, but also to save time while doing so.
- The content of your emails stays always fresh, new and exciting
- You can setup a recurring schedule on a weekly or monthly basis
- Your newsletters run on autopilot
- Less time spent on brainstorming and manual content creation
- Less money spent on resources and a marketing team
Which Are The Best Practices When Creating Dynamic Newsletters?
Most dynamic newsletters use customer data, so the more traffic your store generates, the smarter your emails will be. Let’s have a look at some of the key things you have to check when creating dynamic newsletters.
Personalization
As Dale Carnegie said, “A person’s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”
Your customers love to feel special and cared about. Dynamic tags are the key to creating that personal bond between you and them. By using dynamic tags you:
- Personalize the customer journey from the very beginning
- Build trust and loyalty
- Create customer retention
Dynamic tags depend on the email marketing platform you’re using. However, the most common ones are:
- First_Name
- Last_Name
- Product_Title or Product_Name
If you are sending dynamic newsletters with Relevon, there are a few perks you’re probably already aware of. When using the Product Title tag in the subject line, you don’t have to worry about your customers seeing the same subject line every time an email is sent out, as the product itself changes automatically from the product list you have customized in the template.
Hit The Inbox & Convert Your Customers
When it comes to creating emails with dynamic content, you want to optimize your entire strategy. This means, you’ll have to carefully select the schedule, craft your subject line and customize the overall content of your email. Keep in mind, the goal here is high open and click-through rates, while staying away from the spam folder.
Let’s go through each step:
Schedule
Knowing when and how often to send newsletters is key.
For any email marketer, the first big challenge is determining the best time to send email newsletters to ensure high open rates. The truth is, there is no such ‘best time’. Every store has to find out the right days and hours by simply testing out.
Studies have shown that emails sent out on Tuesdays have an overall open rate of 18%. This is the highest record compared to any other weekday. Also, surprisingly, Saturdays have the highest open rate at 20.7%. However, not as many emails are sent out on Saturdays, so the variance can easily be explained.
Moreover, there’s a thin line between providing high quality content and annoying your audience. From my experience, these are the best practices when it comes to finding the right time to send your newsletters.
Frequency
For a smooth increase in ROI 3-4 newsletters per week would be optimal. Depending on the number of your products and how often you add new ones, you can send a New Arrivals newsletter weekly or monthly.
As for Trending and Bestsellers newsletters, you can send once a week, as the algorithm will continuously update throughout the week.
Day of the week
Based on millions of emails sent, here’s what works:
- Monday: New Arrivals (weekly/monthly)
- Wednesday: Trending
- Sunday: Bestsellers
Time of the day
When it comes to time of day, you can try out the following:
- 9-10 am (when people get to work and check their emails)
- 12-1 pm (during or after lunch time)
- 6-7 pm (when people finish work or are already home)
Don’t forget to always test, test and test some more.
Subject Line
Subject lines have one purpose — to make people open your emails.
Creating great subject lines is an art. A little bit of practice, a little bit of creativity and a little bit of luck. Your customers are shelled with emails every single day so you need that secret sauce to get them to open yours. In order for the open rate metrics to spiral upwards you have to be personal, real and adopt spam-free practices.
Here are 5 easy tips for writing subject lines that make people open your emails (+ a few solid examples).
Keep it short & sweet ✅
Aim for under 50 characters or less, as 77% of emails are opened on mobile. Using words based on the type of dynamic content you’ve selected helps people understand the kind of email content they’ll see.
“What’s in it for me?” ????
People love getting stuff for free. A good way of driving higher open rates are casual subject lines with some added value like: Your weekly dose of inspiration. Who wouldn’t want some inspiration, right?
Add some mystery ????
You’ve surely come across an intriguing title and decided to read the blog post or article to feed your curiosity. Sometimes, a good way to get your emails opened is by adding a touch of mystery that makes it hard for people to pass. Example: And this week’s most popular products are…
Don’t be spammy ????
Spammy words not only make your brand look bad, but they also hurt your email deliverability. That means people may not see your email at all. If you use a subject line like Hurry up, this is the last chance! — well, chances are, the email will end up in the spam folder.
Content
If the subject line is what grabs your customer’s attention, the content is what makes him convert.
Spam-free copy applies here as well, so make sure you avoid pushy, ‘salesy’ words like ‘Buy Now’ ‘One-Time Deal’, ‘Free’, ‘Limited Time Only’ or false statements like talking about massive on-site sales that are not real just to make people click on the email. Keep it product-related and provide as much value as you can.
How Does a New Arrivals Dynamic Newsletter Look Like?
Store: Healthy beverage Shopify store
Platform: Relevon
Dynamic Content Type: New Arrivals from the last 7 days
Products: 6
Schedule: Monthly, Week 1 and Week 3, Monday, 10 AM PST
Subject line setup using dynamic tags:
How it looks in the inbox:
Key takeaways
Automating your newsletters enables you to drive growth by sending customers tailored content that matters to them. This way, you also increase customer life-time value, loyalty, engagement and ultimately, save time.
Let Relevon do the heavy lifting by removing the struggle of always having to manually pick the right products and choose the right time for each newsletter. Start sending smart dynamic newsletters and put email marketing on autopilot with a 14-day free trial.
Further reading
