Every e-mail marketer knows that the personalization of his campaigns leads to better results. More companies use the different personalization options their e-mail marketing partner offers.

Econsultancy’s "Email Marketing Industry Census 2010 'reported that 52% of the surveyed companies engaged in e-mail personalization. In 2009 only 38% of them did.

There are of course different ways and levels of personalization in email marketing. The simplest and best known is the personalization of the salutation in the e-mail.

Studies show that even this easy mentioning of the name of the subscriber in the salutation in the e-mail "body" text improves tactical metrics such as the open rate and the "click through" rate.

But that's just the beginning. Personalization goes much further than that, at least if you want to optimize the ROI of your campaigns as much as you can. 
It is obvious that the most personalized and one-to-one e-mails are only possible through an integration of various platforms in the field of interactive marketing, customer intelligence, marketing automation, etc. Data and an intelligent and real-time usage of  them, are the basis of the best personalized e-mail strategies.

In addition to improving the open and click rate, the main advantage of personalization undoubtedly is the increase of the relevance and value of your emails for the recipients. This in turn improves interaction and thus deliverability.

Here are some tips to better personalize your e-mails.

Most of them can be used by everyone, at least if you make the effort, through various actions, to learn more about your subscribers than just their e-mail address and name.

1. Personalize the subject line

You can personalize the subject line of your e-mails in function of the demographic characteristics, interests, interactions and online behavior of the recipient. Make sure to carefully test the effectiveness of this (in e-mail marketing test everything) and ensure that an automated personalization of the subject lines of your e-mails doesn’t have them end up in spam filters.

2. Allow the subscriber to personalize his mails himself

Ask the subscriber more information as you plan more personal e-mail messages. Clearly state the benefits of a more personal e-mail interaction. People do not give more data if there is nothing in it for them. Furthermore, provide a so-called "preference center". This allows your subscribers to adjust the frequency, type of 'content' that they want to receive, the channel (PC or mobile) etc. to their needs, whenever they want.

3. Develop a data collection strategy

Whether it’s through event-triggered follow-up actions, surveys, webinars, online purchases, white papers or contests: make sure you have a strategy to acquire more information about your subscribers. This allows you to better profile your customers and prospects and send them increasingly more personalized and relevant content as you acquire more data. Plan a systematic monitoring of the quality and “freshness” of your email list in this strategy, as well as the adaptation of your e-mail strategy in function of the evolution of the life cycle of your subscribers. This way you avoid, for instance, that you send promotions for baby toys to someone who has teenagers by now.

4. Integrate data and systems for optimal personalization

If you want to move beyond personalizing the content, salutation and subject line of your e-mails and want to send highly personalized and targeted mails in function of real-time online and offline buying signals or the interaction behavior of the subscribers, you will need tools and advanced data strategies. Integrate all data available about your customers and prospects from various databases and integrate all systems that contain both historical and real-time data with your e-mail solution and tools to monitor and track real-time signals. Think about CRM, marketing automation, lead management and even social media monitoring.

Finally note that personalization and segmentation are related. Besides offering a more relevant e-mail experience through personalization, you can also segment your subscribers, and thus deliver even valuable emails.

The key to a successful personalization is that you have a clear strategy that is function of your business goals and the needs of your recipients, preferably in real time. On top of that you want to analyze the ROI of a progressive personalization and thus the need for more platforms, data collection actions and personalized content.

The author is an interactive marketing consultant and experienced blogger. You can connect with him via Twitter or visit his blog.