Unless you're an inbox zero type of person and can't stand a hovering notification, chances are you have unread marketing communications collecting dust. In fact, 40% of consumers have a least 50 unread emails at any given time in their inbox
Across industries, brands tend to over-message. In the chase to hit YoY numbers and hope that someone eventually converts, brands say “hi” just a little too often for most customers’ liking. This overexposure to brand messaging often results in email fatigue: unsubscribes, disengagement, or even marking these legitimate messages as spam. Customers that eventually churn then enter the difficult cycle of re-acquisition, which is a costly process for brands.
Marketers need to prevent email fatigue if they want to preserve their customer-brand relationships and drive the utmost value from email. To do so, it’s time to trade repetitive messaging and basic segmentation for AI-powered personalization.
Traditional Segmentation Doesn’t Prevent Email Fatigue
When brands find themselves sending customers multiple emails a week, the first strategy they often turn to is segmentation. While relevant content does decrease the need to inundate customers with messages, segmentation and basic personalization tactics simply aren’t enough:
At its core, segmentation is based on assumptions. Customers that become associated with basic demographics—such as gender, location, or age—all receive the same messaging as everyone else listed in that category.
Generic content often results in brand-centric messaging, rather than content that emphasizes and highlights the customer’s preferences.
Because segmentation tends to be broad, brands still end up over-messaging their customers in an effort to drive engagement and conversions. Even though marketers know that customers are far more nuanced than what typical segmentation represents and want to make each of their thousands of customers feel like an audience of one, it simply isn’t possible through traditional methods.
Creating a few different messages for every campaign is one thing, but a completely individualized message for every customer is an impossible task through manual effort. This is why marketers need to leverage their martech stack for scalability. The key tool in that ecosystem? AI.
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One of the ways that AI prevents email fatigue is through hyper-personalized, 1:1 content. While virtually every martech solution lays claim to personalization, AI-powered content truly takes individualized messaging to the next level.
Go Beyond Reinforcement
Rather than purely relying on customers’ past actions to inform future content—leading to repetitive messaging that only adds to customers email fatigue—AI accomplishes more than behavioral reinforcement. By analyzing customer behaviors and predicting what will resonate with them most, the AI will automatically select the most relevant creative asset for that particular recipient. Whether it’s a batch promotion or product recommendation, the AI-powered content will prioritize relevance to lessen customers’ email fatigue.
Automatically Iterate Content
AI’s automation allows marketers to take an always-on approach to testing and experimentation. With every campaign, a control version and an AI-powered version can be sent, allowing marketers to discover their best performing content and keep an eye on measurable value. Additionally, the AI models can leverage the new insights that every campaign brings to automatically optimize each individual experience.
Individualize Frequency
AI not only refines the content, it allows marketers to perfect the send-time and frequency of their email program. After all, even the most relevant content can lose its appeal when customers’ inboxes are spilling over with messages—and remember, when emails are hyper-relevant, the need to send countless emails disappears.
AI can automatically analyze email engagement to determine the best send-time and frequency for each recipient, creating personalized cadences for everyone.
Bloomingdale’s put all of these methods into practice for their email program. In their batch emails, the retail brand uses content decisioning to inform their product categories and data-driven personalization to populate the items, meaning that each customer receives a different mix of modules that fits their tastes. Additionally, Bloomingdale’s uses Send Time and Frequency personalization to create the optimal cadence for recipients.
AI Can Reignite Email Excitement
Ultimately, AI allows marketers to automatically enhance individual customer experiences, optimize campaign performance, and maximize engagement—all while mitigating email fatigue. So, why wait? Discover more about what Da Vinci AI offers email marketers, and learn more about its capabilities through the related resources below.
