It may not be obvious, but as marketers, it’s our job to be creative. We have to constantly think of new ways to generate leads, convert those leads, and keep prospects engaged so that we’re the first company they think of when they’re ready for a solution.

We try various different methods, like social media campaigns or pop-ups. But one thing that has proven to have the highest ROI is email marketing.

When looking for new, creative email marketing tactics, our go-to is to examine what others are using. But what about the creative tactics they aren’t?

Dynamic content is the least-used email marketing tactic, coming in behind automation, mobile-optimization, contact segmentation, and personalization as a must-do strategy. And yet, 65 percent of email marketers say that dynamic content is their most effective tool for personalization. What gives?

In this blog post, we’re going to bat for dynamic content to help explain why this tactic is one you definitely shouldn’t be skipping over. We’ll cover what it is, how it works, and, most importantly, why implementing it in your email marketing strategy can give you a major edge. Let’s get to it.

What Is Dynamic Content?

Dynamic content refers to any type of digital content that changes based on the user. Factors that might affect a change include user data or preferences, user characteristics, or on-site user behaviors. So from there, it’s easy to see how intricately linked this type of content is with the notion of personalization and an optimal user experience.

But before we get into making a case for dynamic content, it’s imperative that we discuss the different forms of dynamic content that are out there.

There are three primary types of dynamic content:

Outreach

This type of dynamic content is generally associated with email campaigns. It allows you to personalize your emails for more tailored, effective outreach. An example of what this might look like is opting for different subject lines, body content, and call to actions to ensure the message is highly relevant to its particular recipient.

Engagement

Engagement-focused dynamic content lives on your site and helps you do things like streamline a user’s search process or provide targeted recommendations and pop-ups based on their particular needs. This ensures that your site is optimized based on where a user is in the customer journey, instead of trying for a one-size-fits-all approach.

Conversion

Dynamic content can also help you increase conversion rates with banners, forms, and other on-site display content geared toward specific users. And once again, because it’s based on a user’s unique data and behaviors, it’s inherently more effective than just throwing content at the wall and seeing what connects.

By definition, something is dynamic if it changes in relation to outside forces. In marketing, those outside forces are key data points that can make a huge difference in who converts and who doesn’t. Making dynamic content part of your overall marketing plan will open up a lot of opportunities that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to capitalize on.

The Benefits of Dynamic Content

We’ve outlined these a bit already, but it’s worth elaborating on the various ways that dynamic content gives your emails a leg up.

More Personalized Experiences

Even if you’re segmenting your contacts, you’re still going to have some email recipients who engage with your content more than others. With dynamic content, you ensure that your message is even more relevant to its end reader, with content based on more than just where they are in the funnel.

There’s a lot that you can personalize with dynamic content. And because it’s based on specific user data, you’ve got a pretty good idea of how well it will connect. Everything from your subject lines to the progression of your drip campaigns becomes highly targeted, in turn, meeting evolving consumer expectations around personalization and offering an all-around better experience.

A User-Friendly Approach

Your readers are busy, and they don’t necessarily have time to sift through your content and find what applies to them. To be successful, your emails need to get right to the point. Dynamic emails let your recipients skip that step, simplifying the experience and making it innately more user-friendly.

When you send batch and blast emails, you’re including content that doesn’t cater to everyone on the list you’re sending them to. That means that there are recipients who are needing to wade through your emails to decipher if there’s anything in there that they need or can use. It’s a huge time suck, and your prospects will take note of that. What’s more, it will influence whether or not they open the next email you send them or click on the CTAs you want them to. Dynamic content avoids giving your leads a headache, so you can create a more user-friendly email marketing approach and see more positive conversions because you’re giving people what they actually want.

Increased KPIs

As I mentioned in the previous point, the more you personalize, the more you convert. Eighty-two percent of online shoppers who have opted into promotional emails say they’re more likely to make a purchase if the email is personalized to their preferences and purchase history. And just personalizing email subject lines alone is enough to increase your open rates by 26 percent.

Each year our email marketing goals get more aggressive. And in order to meet our goals, we have to be thinking about what our subscribers want from us. We need to continue to provide them with value if we expect those clicks to increase or those conversion percentages to climb. Dynamic content has proven to be the solution that drives value in our email marketing efforts.

Marketing Automation and Dynamic Content

Achieving these benefits can be huge for your email marketing ROI — and it doesn’t require quite as much work as you might assume. Dynamic content is based on data tracking throughout the customer lifecycle, which is done through things like marketing automation software and on-site widgets. Integrate your data, your contacts, and your email system, and you’re already well on your way.

When choosing a marketing automation software, make sure you evaluate the features they offer to determine if they align with what you need, and pay extra special attention to if dynamic content is on the list. Schedule a free demo of their software so you can see first-hand what it looks like, if it will help you achieve your goals, and if it offers the level of personalization that will be beneficial to your customers.

Every company needs an edge. By allowing you to maximize your personalization efforts, dynamic content provides you with that competitive advantage, giving you a streamlined method to better connect and engage with your audience. From there, you can bring a dynamic strategy to your website, too, for an experience that’s totally customized for the benefit of both user and brand. After all, it’s the creative thing to do, and as marketers, “creative” is our middle name.