When it comes to email leads, the phrase “You win some, you lose some” pretty much says it all. There are times when it seems that not only are audiences opening every message you send, they’re more than willing to sign up for future messaging, providing valuable first-party data along the way.

Other times, however, simply getting an open seems like an insurmountable task.

But as consumers say they’re more willing than ever to provide first-party data in exchange for relevant messaging, there’s never been a better time to grow your email list with relevant leads. So, if your business is losing out on email leads more than it’s winning, it might be time to consider upgrading your personalization tactics.

And what a coincidence! Here are eight easy personalized email tactics centered on improving the customer experience that you can implement immediately in order to win leads that convert.

Clean up your lists to uncover more email leads

No one likes to lose a subscriber, but if your emails aren’t being seen even the best email marketing efforts are being wasted. In order to build a high-converting list that generates more email leads than you can count, optimizing messages to send based on how frequently subscribers are opening is one way to draw leads back in. That said, it’s also important to know when to walk away in order to focus on maximizing the returns from your most engaged audience.

Update (and enrich) your contact data

Another excellent way to ensure your emails are reaching your target audience is to touch base in order to update your contact data. But the updating process doesn’t have to be boring!

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Consider adding an interactive element to your email strategy to bring in new leads. After all, everybody loves a fun quiz — especially if it leads to more relevant offers and more engaging content down the road like the Hot Topic example above.

Optimize your email marketing strategy

While there are myriad ways to optimize your marketing strategy and generate email leads, the most important (and likely effective) tool for optimization will always be innovation. Testing out new marketing tactics, such as personalizing subject lines, making CTAs stand out from your email body, or even experimenting with buttons for social sharing are all small ways to optimize your email marketing strategy that could yield big results in the long run. 

Improve your content through personalization

Understanding your target audience is all about picking up the clues they’re leaving through their interactions with your brand — every open, website visit, and social engagement tells a personalized customer story that you can unlock by using first-party data.

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That way, you’ll be in the perfect position to create custom content tailored specifically to your audiences’ individual interests.

Make your email workflows more efficient

Automating emails is a gamechanger for many marketers, but it’s important to remember not to automate for automation’s sake. Before you adopt new tools to make your email workflow more efficient, ask how it could be more efficient.

If you’re optimizing for leads, for example, make sure your automation is focused not just on opens, but on creating engaging content that gets audiences beyond that initial open. After all, email leads are created based on the quality of the engagement you deliver — not how fast you serve these experiences.

Expand your business network to find new email leads

It never hurts to make new connections, and that logic goes double when it comes to generating new leads from your email marketing. Lead generation and networking really aren’t that different, and approaching the two in the same way makes sense for building lists that actually lead to conversions.

Constantly brainstorming new opportunities for partnership along with using first-party data to discover new audience segments is an excellent way to refresh lists that are feeling a little stale. 

Experiment with new channels outside of email

One of the best ways to freshen up your email marketing tactics and optimize them for lead generation purposes is to think beyond one channel! Savvy email marketers are now focusing on hybrid strategies, combining email with SMS messaging, app marketing, and other channels in order to make themselves available to customers across multiple channels.

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Set new benchmarks and goals

Moving your goalposts by setting new email benchmarks and creating more aspirational goals for email marketing campaigns doesn’t just help your team discover innovative ways to improve the customer experience. It also helps marketers to truly unlock the power of their email reach.

Now more than ever, it’s important to think beyond open rate as the be-all, end-all of email marketing. Today, the mission to generate more email leads hinges on your ability to create robust, engaging content that drives leads, conversions, and — ultimately — revenue.