How to Use Prompt Engineering to Create Personalized Email Campaigns

A personalized email campaign is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience and drive sales. Any marketer looking to have a successful email campaign must leverage the power of prompt engineering and personalization.

A study by Epsilon shows that 80% of customers are more inclined to purchase when they receive personalized advertising or marketing.

To achieve your campaign goal, you must use prompt engineering to create compelling and tailored email content. Content that resonates with your audience to improve the click-through rates, open rates, and conversions of your email marketing.

In this blog post, we will discuss the concept of prompt engineering and provide actionable tips on how you can create personalized email campaigns.

Let’s move on!

What is prompt engineering?

Prompt engineering is the strategic practice of creating and optimizing prompts within your email to improve the performance of your campaign by using prompts that encourage action from specific segmented audiences.

Prompt engineering is much more than your email recipients taking some actions. It has everything to do with placement, colors, wording, and optimization of the prompts.

Let’s look at the various techniques you can use to create effective marketing prompts including:

• Personalization: The prompts within your email will be more effective when you personalize them to the recipients. You can do this by using the recipient’s name, interests, and purchase history to craft prompts that are relevant to them.
• Urgency: Adding prompts that create a sense of urgency in your email will give you the expected behaviour from your recipients. Examples of words that express urgency are “limited time offer” or “act now” to make the recipient feel like they need to take action immediately.
• Scarcity: Incorporating scarcity prompts in your email will increase your chances of conversion as the recipients will be motivated to make a quick decision to avoid regrets. You can use words like “ending soon,” “only a few left,” “last chance,” “this offer won’t last long,” “early bird,” “exclusive,” “act fast,” etc.
• Social proof: Prompts are also effective and impactful when you use social proof. It gives your recipient some level of confidence and influences their decision-making. The social proof you need could be testimonials, user-generated content, case studies, social media followers, etc.

Benefits of using prompt engineering in creating personalized email campaigns

A report by McKinsey in 2022 shows that 71% of people expect companies to deliver personalized communication while 75% get frustrated when emails are not personalized.

Prompt engineering can help you improve these aspects of your email campaign. There are many benefits of using effective prompts in your email marketing and below here are some of them.

• Higher open rates: Your subscribers will be more eager to open a prompted email than a non-prompted email. This is because the content of the email is relevant to them.
• Increased click-through rates: Prompted emails contain a clear and concise call-to-action telling the recipients what action to take as this will increase the email click-through rates.
• Higher conversions: One of the numerous advantages of employing prompt engineering in your email campaign is a high conversion because prompts can help to qualify leads, generate sales, or direct traffic to your website.
• Improved customer engagement: Your customer engagement will improve when you use effective prompts in your email. It will enable a more personalized and interactive experience between you and your audience.
• Increased brand awareness: If your email campaign aims to create or increase brand awareness, a well-prompted email can help by exposing your brand to a bigger audience.
• Improvement in customer loyalty: Prompts are powerful. They can help you improve customer loyalty by providing a more personalized and satisfying experience.

If you’re looking to improve the performance of your email marketing campaigns, we encourage you to try using prompt engineering. It’s a simple technique that can make a big difference.

Tips on how to use prompt engineering in email marketing

As a marketer, what you need to know about prompt engineering and personalized email marketing are the best practices. So we have put together here the best tips to guide your campaign.

Let us take a look.

1. Defining your email campaign goals

The first thing you need to do is define your email campaign goals clearly. Knowing these objectives will assist you in designing and putting into practice prompt engineering strategies that will provide you with the campaign’s intended results.

According to a study by Campaign Monitor, personalized email campaigns can generate six times higher transaction rates than non-personalized campaigns.

Let us look at a few personalized email campaign goals and see how prompt engineering can enhance their effectiveness.

Examples of personalized email campaign goals

Here are some of the campaign goals, with their prompt examples, and for the sake of coherence, we will be using ‘Jane’ as the recipient’s name in the examples below.

• Generating sales: “Hi Jane, we want to say a big thank you for recently showing interest in our products. As a payback, we are offering you a 20% discount code just for you! You can start shopping now and save on your favourite items.”
• Driving website traffic: “Hey Jane, we have a new blog post on [topic of interest] and this might interest you. Click here to learn more on the expert tips to [talk about a pain point or achieve a goal].”
• Enhancing brand awareness: “Hello Jane, we have exciting news for you. Can you guess? Our team has recently helped Company ABC accomplish outstanding results, and we believe you will find the story inspiring. You can learn more about it here and discover how we can help you too.”
• Promoting event attendance: “Hey Jane, join us next week for an exclusive webinar on [topic of interest] featuring thought leader [Speaker’s Name]. Use this link to register now to secure your spot and gain unforgettable knowledge in your [relevant area].”
• Re-engaging inactive subscribers: “Hi Jane, It’s been a while since we heard from you. We have a special welcome-back discount for you. Come back and enjoy 50% off your next purchase.”
• Gathering customer feedback: “Hey Jane, thanks for being part of this family. We are constantly working hard to make our products and services better and your opinion about us means a lot to us! Can you share your honest feedback in our quick survey, it takes just 2 minutes. As a token of appreciation, you will be qualified to participate in our upcoming draw to win [incentive or prize].”

Personalization of your email campaign goals and prompts creates a meaningful and impactful experience for your audience. And it helps them to stay connected to your brand.

We have demonstrated in the above examples how the personalization method could be used in different campaign goals, helping your audience to engage with you.

2. Segmenting your email list

If you want to maximize the impact of your email marketing strategy, you should consider segmenting your email list into smaller groups based on specific criteria.

Segmentation is crucial as it allows you to craft targeted prompts for each group increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions.

For instance, if you operate a fashion store segmenting your email list according to past purchase behavior or preferences will enable you to provide personalized recommendations in your prompts.

When recipients receive relevant prompts aligned with their browsing and buying history they are more inclined to actively engage with them.

3. Crafting compelling subject lines or email prompts

Image source

A compelling subject line is a hook and a charm. It is a sure way to catch someone’s attention. If your email subject line is attention-grabbing, they will be eager to open the mail.

Let them know what they stand to gain if they take the action you ask of them in the email using action-oriented language. Refer to previous mail if there were any, and remember to use their names in the email.

Using a hook in your subject line is vital as it gives the recipient some sense of belonging and engagement.

Example of a good Subject Line — “Exclusive offer inside you can’t afford to miss: Get 20% off your next purchase!”

The best way to write the prompts in the body of your emails is by keeping them clear, concise, and visually appealing. Again, use languages that encourage recipients to act upon your email.

This an excellent example of a well-crafted email prompt for your email marketing

4. Implementing A/B testing for prompt optimization

“You have to test, otherwise you are just making an educated guess,” said Stuart Clark of Red C at Litmus Live London 2017.

Another perfect way to use prompt engineering to create a personalized email campaign is by implementing A/B testing — a unique technique used to optimize prompts for better campaign performance.

According to a study by Litmus, A/B testing email prompts can lead to a 49% increase in unique click rates.

To get the best results using A/B testing, we advise you to create variations of your prompts and test them with different audience segments. So, for example, you can test different wording, placement, design, subject line, call-to-action, or even the use of dynamic content.

Also, it is essential to track and analyze key metrics in your email campaign such as open rates, click-through rates (CTRs), and conversion rates to ascertain which prompts are most effective. Use the data insights from A/B testing to refine and improve your prompt engineering strategies.

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The image above shows that most people test for subject lines and call-to-actions, but we advise you to test everything here.

5. Leveraging dynamic content and automation

Dynamic content allows you to deliver personalized prompts based on recipient data or behaviors. It enables you to tailor the content within your emails to match the recipient’s specific interests, preferences, or purchase history.

By leveraging dynamic content, you can create a more personalized and engaging experience, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

For instance, let’s say you have a travel agency, you can automatically create email prompts with destination recommendations based on the past travel preferences of your subscribers. You can achieve this with email automation tools such as Contactout.

Furthermore, automation plays a crucial role in delivering prompts at the right time. “Automation allows you to deliver the right prompt to the right person at the right time, creating a seamless and personalized experience.” — Sarah Johnson, Marketing Automation Specialist.

6. Tracking and analyzing prompt performance

To measure the effectiveness of your prompts, implement tracking mechanisms and closely monitor their performance. Analyze key metrics such as open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates to understand how well your prompts drive engagement and conversions.

Use this data to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve your prompt engineering strategy.

Furthermore, you may use analytics tools like Contactout and Google Analytics to

track and analyze your prompt performance.

A quick look into the two tracking and analysis tools

• ContactOut

Contactout is an AI sales prospecting tool that helps businesses to find and connect with their target audience. One of the features of ContactOut AI is its email tracking tool, which allows you to track the performance of your email campaigns.

• Google Analytics

Google Analytics is also a free web analytics service that you can use to track metrics, including open rates, CTRs, and conversions.

Both ContactOut AI and Google Analytics can provide you with valuable data about the performance of your email campaigns.

For example, if the open rates of your emails are low, you can use the data from ContactOut AI to identify the factors contributing to it. Once you have identified these factors, you can make the necessary changes.

Also, by tracking and analyzing prompt performance, you can ensure that your email campaigns are effective and engaging — this will help you to reach your target audience and achieve your marketing goals.

Final thoughts

With prompt engineering, you can guide recipients towards desired actions, create a more personalized experience, and ultimately achieve your marketing objectives. Implement prompt engineering in your email campaigns and witness a positive impact on your engagement and conversion rates.

Remember that personalized email prompts give your recipient some sense of relevance and it will increase their chances of engagement.