Gone are the days when generic emails flooded our inboxes and comprised the same old subject lines and email copy. We are now in the future of email marketing. The possibilities are seemingly limitless, and we need to credit the power of artificial intelligence for powering this brilliant change.
Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing email marketing by empowering marketers and business owners with cutting-edge tools to create highly-personalized and engaging email campaigns that attract and captivate their subscribers like never before.
Want to learn how to use AI for email marketing (the right way) to capture some of these stellar results for yourself? Read on!
Benefits of using AI for email marketing
Business owners and marketers who use AI generate more revenue per subscriber (it’s true!). The rapid advancements in AI are transforming the email marketing space and creating new opportunities for you to engage with your audiences in more personalized and meaningful ways. Here are some of the benefits of using AI for email marketing.
Enhanced customer experiences
AI in email marketing can lead to more advanced personalization options, quicker follow-up, and content tailored specifically to a customer’s journey or preferences.
By using artificial intelligence to send relevant email content, you can prioritize the customer experience. This can, in turn, can increase your customer retention and loyalty–something that’s always good for business.
Improved performance
You can leverage AI-generated data to create more targeted and precise email marketing campaigns. How? Artificial intelligence can successfully analyze past customer behavior and anticipate future customer actions.
As a business owner or marketer, this data can help you identify potential risks like increased churn rate and take appropriate actions accordingly. This leads to an improvement in performance and a better overall email marketing strategy.
Find out the email marketing KPIs you need to track and potentially improve with AI here.
Better efficiency
Using artificial intelligence can help email marketers streamline and optimize different aspects of email campaigns which can lead to an increase in their efficiency.
AI can automate repetitive tasks such as email scheduling, saving marketers time and effort. It can also successfully analyze and optimize email deliverability, improving inbox placement rates and ensuring that the content reaches the targeted recipient on time.
In fact, 54% of businesses reported cost savings and better efficiencies once using AI.
More accurate predictions
Artificial intelligence can help email marketers analyze large amounts of data in a short span of time, negating the scope of human error, while at it. In this way, AI can improve your decision-making by leaps and bounds.
Artificial intelligence can also help you study customer responses to emails, such as clicks, opens, and replies, allowing you to effectively gauge customer sentiment and feedback. Subsequently, you can shape your future strategies accordingly.
How to leverage AI in email marketing campaigns
Now that you understand some of the benefits of potential risks of using AI for email marketing, here are some tips to use it responsibly.
Personalize emails for the subscribers
As mentioned, artificial intelligence can successfully analyze huge amounts of data about your individual customers, like their purchase history, browsing experience, demographic information, etc., to create personalized and super-engaging emails.
Sending personalized emails to your subscribers can eventually lead to increased click-through rates and more conversions as people are more likely to engage with emails that are curated according to their tastes and preferences.
Here’s how Epic personalized its email based on the choices and preferences of its subscriber to tap into impulsive buying.
Offer great customer support with chatbots
AI allows you to offer automated customer support to your subscribers using chatbots. Chat tools can help you to answer the questions that are frequently fielded by your customers. This helps you save valuable time and provides a positive experience for customers and prospects.
Run automated email campaigns
When you run email marketing campaigns powered by artificial intelligence, you can automate many aspects like sending emails at the perfect time, segmenting lists as per customers’ profiles, and optimizing content according to real-time data.
You can set up automated email campaigns for tasks like welcoming new subscribers, engaging customers as they move through the buyer’s journey, and following up with sales inquiries.
Leverage AI-powered A/B testing
Running automated A/B testing with different email subject lines, content, and call-to-action (CTA) buttons, can help you determine which version performs the best.
This can help you dial up the quality of your email content, ushering in increased open rates and conversions.
Draft click-worthy subject lines
Compelling subject lines are essential for successful email campaigns. Since the subject line depicts the content of the email, it must be strong enough to leave a positive impression on the recipient. Moreover, it should create excitement within the receiver, urging them to open the email and take the next action.
You can use ChatGPT and other AI content marketing tools to help ideate compelling subject lines. By feeding a prompt to these tools with information about your ideal subject line, you can tailor the results to meet the needs of your campaigns.
Use predictive analytics
AI can help you analyze historical data to understand patterns and trends, which can, in turn, help you predict your customers’ behavior, their choices, and their probabilities of engaging with specific email campaigns.
This can assist you in making data-driven decisions and optimizing your email marketing campaigns to reap maximum results.
Tap into impulsive buying by sending product recommendations
By crunching live metrics like click-through rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, email sharing rate, list growth rate, and overall email performance, you can send your subscribers targeted recommendations that are relevant to their interests.
By using the power of artificial intelligence, you can draw up comprehensive buyer personas and deliver personalized recommendations accordingly.
A few guidelines on how not to use AI in email marketing campaigns
It may sound like AI is the all-knowing answer for all your email marketing problems. But it’s not without its drawbacks and must be used responsibly. That’s why it’s also important to understand where you should avoid using AI in your email marketing campaigns.
Do not use AI for spamming
Email marketing should always be conducted in compliance with applicable laws and best practices should be followed. This includes a focus on obtaining consent from recipients and delivering valuable content to subscribers.
Using artificial intelligence to send unneeded emails is akin to spamming—it’s unethical and can damage your reputation significantly. It is best that you abide by all set laws and regulations such as GDPR while sending emails to your subscriber base.
Avoid creating a fake persona using AI
Never mislead your email subscribers by impersonating real individuals using AI. This can be a common AI marketing mistake and may lead to a loss of trust. Staying honest and transparent with your recipients is the key and will take you a long way.
If you are using AI to “talk” with your subscribers, be transparent!
It’s clear from this email that this is an AI-generated bot.
Say NO to going overboard with automation
While artificial intelligence can automate different aspects of email marketing, you shouldn’t leverage it too much as it will eventually lead to a lack of human touch.
Ensure that you keep a balance between automation and personalization so that your emails are engaging, meaningful, and relevant for your subscribers.
Do not overlook data privacy and security
It is a well-known fact that artificial intelligence relies on data, which is why it’s imperative that you follow data privacy and security best practices. Make sure to comply with data privacy laws and implement relevant security measures to protect customer data you are utilizing to craft your email marketing campaigns.
Cookie consent banners are one way to adhere to privacy laws when collecting customer data.
Don’t forget to take an ethical approach
Even though AI can be relied upon in most cases, there can be instances where the AI algorithms can be biased and showcase content that reflects discrimination or inequality. So you must avoid using AI in a way that results in unethical practices.
For example, your email should not contain sensitive information like religion, gender, etc. as it can earn a bad reputation for your brand, possibly leading to a greater number of unsubscribes.
Harness the power of AI for email marketing (responsibly!)
With AI technologies like machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and predictive analytics, you can easily leverage the aforementioned practices in your upcoming email marketing campaigns. However, it’s crucial to note that while AI offers immense potential for email marketing, you must consider your subscriber’s privacy concerns equally.
Lastly, as AI continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative applications of this brilliant technology in the realm of email marketing, eventually leading to even more engaging, effective, and customer-centric email experiences.
For now, here are the best ways to use AI for email marketing
- Personalize emails for the subscribers
- Enable automated email campaigns
- Offer great customer support with chatbots
- Draft click-worthy subject lines
- Take advantage of predictive analytics
- Leverage AI-powered A/B testing
- Tap into impulsive buying by sending product recommendations
Now that you know the future of email marketing is being redefined by the power of AI, we can envision you harnessing its power in your upcoming email marketing campaigns!
Want more AI marketing resources? We’ve got you covered:
- 12 Ways to Use AI for Small Business Marketing
- The Small Business Guide to AI Content Marketing: Tips, Tools & Precautions
- 43 Insane AI Statistics & What They Mean for Your Business [Infographic]
- 6 Ways to Use ChatGPT for Small Business Marketing (+6 Ways NOT to Use It)
- Completely Awesome ChatGPT Prompts to Make Marketing Easier
