How Pandora Leverages Personalization in Email Marketing

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Are you a Pandora listener? Then you know the value of this personalized radio station: all the music you like, when you want it. But have you wondered how Pandora keeps its listeners around?

Matt Nichols, Pandora's Director of Marketing, recently talked about how his company drives conversion with email. His presentation at MarketingSherpa's 2011 Email Summit highlighted personalization as the key component not only of the product itself, but also of the product's marketing. 

Know Your Business

The first component of successful marketing, Matt told the audience, is having a clear understanding of what drives your business. That helps you expand your reach across different channels and retain subscribers using email. In Pandora's case, this key element is personalization and it is present in most marketing initiatives of the company.

Take Personalization to the Next Level

In every email that Matt sends, he tries to include a personalized bit of information pertaining to the user's playlist and previous activity on the site. “I would rather not email somebody but send them something impersonalized,” he said. As a result, Matt sees higher clickthrough rates from emails and receives personal responses from people.

Don't Assume What You Don't Know

In order to truly engage with your email subscribers, you have to use the information they shared with you. Don't assume anything you don't know about them. Being presumptive can cause more confusion for your recipients and eventually harm your reputation.

So, how granular can you get with personalization in your email marketing? Really granular, we hope.