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If you’re anything like most people, you can probably rattle off 100 different things you’d rather do than dig through your inbox.

It starts to feel like a chore, because what’s in there isn’t very interesting. In fact, only 21% of consumers reported that they’ve received a memorable promotional email in the past two months, according to a study by Litmus. 

To overcome that, many brands are using email personalization as a strategy for creating more engaging email experiences — ones that feel less like a robot, and more like a friend.

The best part? Email personalization doesn’t need to be insanely complicated to resonate with recipients. To see what I mean, check out these 12 great email examples that cleverly use personalization.

12 Examples of Email Personalization in Action

1) JetBlue

Oh, JetBlue. You shouldn’t have. 

This anniversary email highlights a creative example of a brand using something as simple as a date to provide a standout experience. Much like a birthday shout out, JetBlue used my colleague’s account creation date to trigger a personalized email to celebrate the fact that they’ve been “emailing for 365 days now.”

If you’re a HubSpot customer, this is an easy email to replicate for your contacts through fixed date or property-based workflows. It allows you to base your workflow on a calendar or contact property date, so you can send anniversary emails, digital birthday cards, renewal reminders, and more. And if your business is sending a high volume of these emails, we also offer the Transactional Email Add-On.

2) Spotify 

Here’s another great personalized email example that leverages a user’s interests to provide a relevant, value-packed message.

The copy in this email is particularly effective because it frames the personalization in a way that makes the recipient feel like they’re being rewarded for their usage. Phrases like “top listener” and “be the first to get access” lend themselves to a sense of exclusivity — making the user feel important. 

The email also closes with a written call-to-action that encourages the recipient to listen to Charles Kelley’s new song  — specifically on Spotify. Again, this push helps to ensure that the user is actively using the streaming service, and therefore continuously reminded of the value. 

3) Amazon 

Last Halloween, HubSpot’s blogging team dressed as the dancing pumpkin man from this viral video. (And, in case you’re wondering, we’ll probably be dressing as a bunch of bananas this year.) But before opting to DIY our own orange masks, my colleague, Lindsay Kolowich, set out on an Amazon search to find us the real deal.

Within just a couple of days, she received this personalized email from Amazon featuring “products similar to ‘full face plastic pumpkin masks’.” (Some of them are quite scary, aren’t they?)

This email serves as a great example of how to use a contact’s search behavior to re-engage them with your company, and hopefully move them closer to a sale. 

4) LinkedIn

Once upon a time, before I worked for HubSpot — practically another lifetime, it feels like — I was about to graduate from business school and actively applying for jobs.

I often used LinkedIn for my search — a business-focused social network that was paying attention the type of listings I responded to. Each day, LinkedIn sent me a roundup jobs it thought would pique my interest.

What’s interesting about this email is that LinkedIn wasn’t using it to earn my paid business. Rather, LinkedIn seemed to be keeping a close eye, algorithmically, to the locations and type of work I was seeking. While some of the listings were more applicable than others, all of them were clickable.

Did you catch that? Clickable. And even if none of these jobs piqued my interest, I had about 250 classmates who might have considered them, driving even more traffic to LinkedIn’s website.

So think about what’s going to make your content clickable, and how you can use personalized emails to drive traffic to your site. Then, set up workflows that remind subscribers how to continue taking advantage of these specially-tailored messages.

5) The Bowery Presents

I received this email back when I was living in New York address, but it still serves as a great example of how to use location information to provide a customized email experience.

In the email, The Bowery Presents pulled shows from New York venues — where I purchased tickets for many events when I lived there — for artists similar to the ones I saw live.  

And when I finally purchased tickets to see one of these artists in Boston? It re-personalized my emails to let me know about shows here.

By making it easy for me to quickly visualize what’s headed to the area and when, The Bowery Presents is able to lower the barrier between me and the point of purchase.

This type of personalization could be extremely beneficial for a company looking to deliver more relevant messages to international leads or existing customers. (For more tips on reaching international audiences, check out this article from our VP of International Operations and Strategy, Nataly Kelly.)

6) Twitter

After following one of her favorite brunch spots on Twitter, my colleague Corey received this email from the social network with suggestions for similar accounts to follow. 

What’s more is that the suggestions were actually super relevant — turns out, a couple of them were just right around the corner from her. (Hello, new grub options.)

When companies have as much data as Twitter does, they usually go one of two ways with personalization: They totally hit the nail on the head, or they have too much data to sift out what’s important. This is an example of accurately identifying what Corey would actually care about, and delivering it to her.

7) Hawaiian Airlines

There are few places on the planet that I love more than Hawaii. I’m constantly thinking about my next trip there, but for a while, could never quite commit to booking it.

That is, until I received this special birthday email from Hawaiian Airlines. In keeping with the Hawaiian tradition of presenting someone with a lei on his or her birthday, the airline instead chose to present me with 500 bonus miles, just for booking a trip within the next year. Aloha, indeed.

There’s more than one noteworthy thing about this email. First, the only reason I received it is because I’m enrolled in the Hawaiian Airlines mileage program, and getting emails like these is just one of the “rewards” of membership. Plus, the airline understands that I joined for a reason — because at some point, I planned to visit Hawaii again.

With that in mind, Hawaiian Airlines used this personalized email to give me an incentive to finally book that trip, with a birthday greeting to boot. That’s a great way for brands to achieve customer reactivation — by using a fixed date, like a birthday or anniversary, to remind people what it was that they loved about your business in the first place. By offering something special from your brand to commemorate the occasion, you’re giving your audience the motivation to take action and making a purchase.

8) HubSpot Academy

There’s a thing about licenses and certifications. They’re valuable. They help you master knowledge and become an expert. Having them makes you look good. But they also have to be kept up-to-date, and unless you’re reminded, letting them expire can be all too easy.

If you have any HubSpot certifications, you know that doesn’t have to be the case. Our Academy team creates personalized emails to let certification-holders know which ones they currently possess, which ones need to be renewed, and which ones might be helpful to add to their credentials.

Eric Peters, the senior growth marketing manager with HubSpot Academy, explained the technology that makes emails like these work. Each certification box in the above email is made “smart,” to show users which certifications are available to them.

“All nine certifications are available to partners. Eight are available to customers, and four to non-customers,” Peters says. “Each one of those certifications has a Smart CTA that appears as a different color, depending on whether the user is actively certified — which means they passed within the last 395 days — expired, or incomplete.” 

“In other words,” he explains, “it’s a bunch of Smart CTAs embedded in a smart rich text box. The CTAs point to the splash page describing the certification.”

(HubSpot Professional and Enterprise customers: You can create Smart CTAs like these in your own emails with your HubSpot CTA tool.)

9) Netflix

Am I the only one that spends more time looking for a movie on Netflix than I do actually watching it?

Aware that its database can be overwhelming, Netflix regularly sends out these personalized emails that suggest movies for its users. (If you want to learn more about the science behind the Netflix algorithms, you can brush up on it here.)

By providing a custom recommendation, Netflix helps ensure that users are actively seeing the value of their subscription. In other words, it keeps them watching, which ultimately keeps them paying. 

This approach could be applied to a number of marketing materials — ebooks, webinars, and blog articles, to name a few. For example, if you find that someone downloaded an ebook on social media tips, you may want to set up a workflow to trigger a follow-up email that suggests they check out your social media guide on SlideShare. 

10) Pinterest

In an effort to keep my colleague Ginny pinning, Pinterest sent her this personalized email. Based off her past activity on the site, the social network provided some suggestions for other topics she may want to explore. (Butter, Lauren Conrad, and cheese — I like your style, Ginny.)

And given that, at the time, she was planning a yellow-themed wedding, I’d say the results were pretty accurate. 

What we love most about the email is its simplicity. It offers up just six topics, which is enough to interest the recipient without overwhelming her. Plus, the copy is quick, friendly, and clear. 

11) WeddingWire

In other wedding-related news, my colleague Ginny also received this email example from WeddingWire, an online marketplace for venues, cakes, dresses, and other wedding-planning items.

While the copy was clever in and of itself, what really struck us was the personalization used in the subject line. After all, your recipients aren’t going to see the content unless you persuade them to click first, right?

By using a witty, custom hashtag —  #GinnysLastHurrah — in the subject line, WeddingWire inspired her to click on the email, check out their tool for creating hashtags, and forward the email to the rest of us. 

If you want to boost the word-of-mouth influence behind your product or service, you should consider how personalization can help propel your message. 

12) Birchbox

Birchbox is a company that’s fixated on personalization in all the right ways — and all it takes is one glance at the header of this email to see why it’s effective.

Birchbox transparently admitted that they took a peek at my colleague Carly’s sample and purchase history before crafting this email. That gave her the sense that what came next would likely be relevant to her — and it was. 

These little, personalized messages always reinforce why Carly continues to subscribe to the Birchbox service — they strengthen her loyalty. 

Let’s Get Personal

With 62% of millennials feeling that online content drives their loyalty to a brand, and 46% of U.S. consumers admitting that they’re more likely to switch providers than they were 10 years ago — it’s clear that fostering loyalty through personalization should be a priority.

It may seem like a big undertaking, but by observing, understanding, and investing in the behavior of your customers, you can help to ensure that they’ll stay customers. So start getting personal — and building loyalty.

Is your company leveraging email personalization? Share your favorite tips below.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

Since 2010, Instagram has garnered more than 500 million users, 4.2 billion daily likes, and more than 95 million photos and videos posted per day. Brands who take advantage of this unique social media platform often find that the level of exposure that Instagram gives them is unprecedented.

But creating a successful, branded Instagram account requires more than just pretty images. To succeed, you’ll need to establish a distinct brand aesthetic, a well-curated feed, and an effective community management strategy — all stemming from your own unique brand identity.

With millions of active accounts, we managed to uncover five main tips and ten inspiring brands that’ll help you understand how to establish a more cohesive Instagram aesthetic.

How to Establish an Instagram Aesthetic: 10 Brands Doing It Right

1) Know exactly what your brand identity is.

A great part of your aesthetic will derive from your brand identity. What’s your brand personality and tone? What are its values? Is your brand playful? Adventurous? Bold and daring?

Having an Instagram feed that reflects the image and purpose of your brand is extremely important because it creates uniformity. Posting content that is random creates disconnect and confusion. When this happens, it’s hard to commit hitting that follow button. See how Taco Bell and fashion illustrator Megan Hess incorporate this into their Instagram feed.

Taco Bell (@tacobell): 935K Followers

When you think Taco Bell, you think tacos and “LiVE MÀS!” This means that social media accounts will reflect a lot of tacos, bold colors, and a lifestyle that includes living fast and “on the go” like their individual posts on Instagram.

Since Taco Bell’s main audience has been increasingly attributed to millennials, they have focused on inserting fun and authenticity into their aesthetic, which makes it easier for them to drum up engagement.

Megan Hess (@meganhess_official): 291K Followers

Megan Hess is an illustrator known for her very beautiful, feminine, and fashion-related artwork. She has built an empire on fashion illustrations that are coveted and aesthetically pleasing. Instagram has become her main outlet for her fans to follow her work and get a glimpse of what happens behind-the-scenes.

As an illustrator, she’s big on personal brand recognition, so she frequently uses one of her most important brand assets in her posts: her logo. Simple, black, and uniquely hers, the logo perfectly matches her aesthetic and illustrations which makes it easy for her to include it with any Instagram post.

Having a distinctive logo is critical to building your brand, so it’s important to create one that’s easily recognizable and matches your brand identity. If your own needs a spruce or you’re looking to create a file that’s easily adaptable for your social posts, try using Canva’s free logo maker.

2) Determine your target market and cater to them without compromising your brand identity.

Your Instagram feed is primarily meant to attract existing and future customers, so it’s important to create content that pulls them in and engages them. To do this, start by getting to know what’s important to your target market — what they love about your brand, products, and services. Then, reflect that back to them in your Instagram feed.

Need inspiration? Check out how brands like GoPro and Squarespace are doing it.

GoPro (@gopro): 10.2M Followers

GoPro’s Instagram photos perfectly represent what it means to capture a lifestyle full of adventure and action through the lens of their product.

Their feed focuses on showcasing a variety of unique moments designed to drive you to want to go out and document your own adventures.

Squarespace (@squarespace): 52.4K Followers

If we’re talking about well-curated content tailored for an audience, we have to talk about Squarespace’s Instagram. Promising the simplest way to create a beautiful website, the brand echoes its tagline through a beautifully-curated feed.

Squarespace intrigues followers by using impressive images reflecting the brand’s minimalist aesthetic. Best of all, it features images from clients, showcasing success stories and the wide range of possibilities on how the Squarespace service can be used, which helps to engage followers and inspire potential clients.

4) Create a story with each photo displayed on the post.

The more compelling your story, the less it would feel to your customers that you’re just selling them something. Narratives tied with your brand identity create the emotional connection your audience needs, giving meaning to your content and making it more relatable.

The story you tell plays a great part in creating brand loyalty from your customers. Instagram is a great avenue for telling this story just as Nike and Red Bull have been doing.

Nike (@nike): 62.6M Followers

With one of the largest followings on Instagram, Nike’s feed goes beyond just great athletic sportswear and footwear. They have created a distinctive “Just Do It” mentality and systematically developed a social media presence to reflect that inspirational brand image.

As seen in the post above, along with the rest of the recent videos uploaded on their Instagram feed, Nike has done an incredible job of featuring inspiring athletes to promote propel their vision. If you want to perform at the highest level like these athletes, you wear Nike.

Red Bull (@redbull): 5.6M Followers

When you think of Red Bull, you think high energy. That’s why Red Bull’s Instagram feed includes so many “epic” videos and pictures — each one more thrilling than the other.

Red Bull associates their brand with a lifestyle that is exhilarating and pushes boundaries when it comes to extreme sports and weekend getaways. Another way they create a narrative is through the cohesive feel of their posts. Notice below how majority of their posts are set in the outdoors. It helps create the image that when you drink Red Bull, you live on the edge.

5) Choose a color palette, “feel,” or filter and use it consistently.

Using a color palette, filter, or even texture in your Instagram posts can give you that much sought-after level of consistency in your feeds. The easiest way to do this is to use the same filter on all your posts or edit your pictures all the same way. Try desaturating your photos or stick to bright white backgrounds with pops of color. Or, create your own brand color palette by playing around with three to four color combinations to repeat in your posts.

Check out how Tough Mudder repeats orange and brown in their posts and how Pantone plays around with their featured colors.

Tough Mudder (@tough_mudder): 935K Followers

Tough Mudder has built an image on conquering a military-inspired obstacle that requires teamwork, tenacity, and a whole lot of feeling like a total “badass.” Tough Mudder’s Instagram feed is brimming with pictures that highlight muddy participants sporting the color orange, which helps to signify the brightness and sense of camaraderie that exists in a otherwise challenging situation.

The beauty of Tough Mudder’s Instagram feed is their ability to capture moments of participants’ emotions throughout the completion of the course. They have mastered the art of evoking feelings of strength and the desire to accomplish a difficult task that only a select group of people has achieved.

The pictures of training hard and being part of a program that pushes you to your limits is exciting as it is rewarding. Tough Mudder showcases a curated Instagram feed that addresses perseverance and toughness, just as its brand name indicates.

Pantone (@pantone): 637K Followers

Since Pantone is the leading “authority on color,” their Instagram feed reflects their importance and influence.

As shown in their Instagram feed, Pantone likes to have direction — and their purpose is to be a source of reference and inspiration. Uploaded by season, their feed chronicles how a color palette is derived and takes shape in the real world.

6) Post content that reflects your brand’s core value.

Don’t be afraid to use Instagram to show off your products or service at work — just get creative. Take detailed shots and create eye-catching flat lays that show off your products in new and interesting ways.

These shots can even encourage and inspire your followers to create their own posts featuring your products to share with their followers. Not only will you increase your brand’s interaction, but you’ll also have user-generated content that’s authentic and organic.

Check out how the Office Depot and Fabletics use products shots to engage their followers and creative a consistent, memorable aesthetic. 

Office Depot (@officedepot): 15K Followers

Through some well-thought planning, the Office Depot is able to showcase its sheer amount of products in fun and interesting combinations. Their “Gear Up for Great” campaign is a great example of featuring products inventively while staying true to its business.

Office Depot is also great at curating content that’s relevant. They do this by working with themes and seasons like “Gearing up for School”, as well as holidays like Teacher’s Day or Cinco de Mayo.

Fabletics (@fabletics): 341K Followers

Fabletics — one of the first companies to introduce the subscription model for athletic wear for women — knows a thing or two about performance, quality, and style.

In a generation where selfies and gym posts are very much a norm, Fabletics makes sure that it sticks to its image of ensuring its customers look good while working out.

Ready to refresh your Instagram?

With these 10 brands that are rocking Instagram as references, get started refreshing your brand’s Instagram feed and take it to the next level. Happy posting!

What tips do you have for creating a cohesive Instagram aesthetic? Share them below.

I’ve always been surprised by how many ad agency executives ignore their own network of contacts. Somehow, between servicing current clients and chasing after new prospects, these valuable contacts get taken for granted.

I’m guilty of it myself sometimes — in fact the inspiration for this post was my own realization that I was getting dangerously close to not practicing what I preach and neglecting the people who are most favorably predisposed to work with me.

Your personal network of professional contacts is one of the best sources of new business you have, but it needs care and feeding. One way you can do this is by conducting re-engagement campaign for your contact list.

You’ve heard it said that it’s cheaper to keep a current client happy than to find a new one. This is a variation of that sentiment: It’s more efficient to convert a contact who knows, likes and respects you into a prospect than it is to build a new relationship.

You should make a re-engagement campaign for your contact list part of your ongoing new business program Here’s my approach:

How Agencies Can Re-Engage Cold Prospects

First, for the purposes of this exercise, put aside the records of people you don’t have a personal connection to — like newsletter or podcast subscribers. These folks may love your content, but they’re still relatively anonymous to your agency. Do, however, conduct a more traditional re-engagement campaign on your agency’s contact list to make sure it’s clean and productive. 

Divide the remainder into four groups. The actual percentages will differ in each agency’s case — of course — but this is what my list tends to looks like:

Top 15%: The Buddies

These are close professional relationships that border on/bleed into the personal. They’re former colleagues or clients who will be excited to hear from you just because you’re you.

Unlike all the other groups, your agenda with “the buddies” has to stay loose. Yes, you’re on a business mission, but this objective takes a backseat to your primary intention, which is to nurture a relationship that’s already important to you both.

Any aggressive selling behavior only risks making you sound hollow and self-serving. Trust that business opportunities and leads will rise organically out of your conversation.

Because you like each other and want to see each other succeed, you might be able to take some liberties that you couldn’t with others in your network. Think about using this opportunity to ask for referrals — just be prepared to reciprocate the favor if you can.

You might also talk to them about a direction in which you want your business to grow and ask for their advice and feedback. Again, make sure they know you’d be happy to do the same for them.

Next 40%: The Dormant Fans

You’ve probably only interacted with these contacts on a strictly professional level, nevertheless they’re warm professional relationships. They’ve witnessed your agency in action and were impressed.

Besides former colleagues or clients, these are people you meet at conferences, agency partners you worked with well in the past, or prospects that you connected with, even if it didn’t result in winning the business.

Make it a win-win interaction by leading with something of value to them. It can be as simple as sharing the results of a research study that’s relevant to a business problem you know they’re trying to solve (ideally a study your agency conducted), or more complex, like offering a specially-priced package of services that might serve as an incentive to work with you.

If they’re a potential partner rather than a client, ask if they’d refer you to some of their clients who’d find your offer valuable.

Next 35%: The Disappearing Acts

You probably had a positive professional relationship with these folks at some point, but maybe it wasn’t strong enough to push it into the realm of fandom despite your best efforts. I wish I could tell you why some people stay responsive and others just disappear, but it’s not productive to dwell on that kind of stuff. Instead, make a last ditch effort to engage before either archiving them or demoting them to your general subscriber list.

Sometimes a small dose of guilt can go a long way. Be honest and a little vulnerable. In your own words that are appropriate to the situation, tell them that this relationship is meaningful to you, but you’ll leave them alone forever if that’s really what they’d prefer.

Some may be jolted into a response that keeps the relationship alive (in which case, I’d upgrade them to the “dormant fans” group and find a way to keep them engaged).

Bottom 10%, the Rejecters

We all have relationships that somehow got damaged beyond repair. Those aren’t the ones I’m talking about here, but sometimes they’re mistaken for them. However, this group does include clients associated with accounts that left and pitches you lost.

The mistake I see agencies make is forgetting about these relationships the moment that they — sad and dejected — turn to walk off the playing field. Unless you lost a client or a pitch because of an egregious mistake, these may actually be some of your best prospects – and they’re often ignored!

Why did you lose that pitch or piece of business? Was it because you lacked category expertise that you have now? Was it a political decision made by someone who is no longer at that company? Or, has your champion gone to a better job at a different company? A little bit of research could reveal some hidden “dormant fans” or even “buddies.”

Make Re-Engagement a Regular Practice 

Like you would with any good re-engagement campaign, plan multiple points of contact that are appropriately timed and contain messages that build upon each other.

And make re-engagement a regularly recurring activity — at least once a year — shifting more valuable contacts into more valuable categories and downgrading, or even eliminating, the contacts that won’t serve you in the future.

Want to learn more about how agencies can maximize their new business pipeline? Jody Sutter will be speaking on this topic at INBOUND 2016. Learn more about INBOUND.