Capturing the attention of your customers isn’t always easy. They’re not only busy, they’re constantly bombarded with marketing messages in the inbox and beyond.

They key to holding your customer’s attention is delivering it in a compelling way. That’s why storytelling is key for creating successful email content. Using your emails to tell a story makes a connection between your brand and your customer. It humanizes your content and gives people a reason to keep coming back for more.

But let’s take it one step further. What if you could create stories about your customers? If your brand has a rewards program, this is the perfect opportunity to create a story around your customer’s interactions with your brand and deliver important rewards program information.

DSW’s rewards program campaign

In a recent rewards email campaign, DSW showed their customers exactly how many points they needed to a $10 certificate. They’re also reminded of other deals they’re eligible for.

But DSW goes above and beyond simple rewards information by providing a detailed snapshot of all of their customers interactions with the brand over the past two years.

They included savings, points earned, number of purchases, orders with free shipping and the total years they’ve been a member. The email is not only incredibly detailed, it uses data visualization and personalization to bring these numbers to life and provide an engaging, customer-focused experience.

So, how did it perform?

Thanks to a compelling, customer-focused story, and a hyper-personalized email with data visualization, this campaign saw a 64% lift in email opens, a 13% lift in click-through rates and 58.82% of customers who opened the email read it for 15+ seconds.

“Our goal is to be highly relevant and personalized to our customers to ensure we
provide value in the inbox. This campaign is a great example of providing the right content and seeing strong results,” said Melissa Durham, Director of CRM.