Cutting through the noise with email marketing is tough. You send a campaign, and half your audience ignores it—because it doesn’t speak to them. If you’re using Postal and want your emails to actually land with different types of buyers, you can’t just tweak a subject line and call it a day.
This guide is for marketers and sales folks who are tired of generic outreach. You’ll learn exactly how to customize Postal email templates so they feel like they were written for real people—not a faceless list.
Let’s get into it.
Step 1: Get Clear on Your Buyer Personas (No, Really)
Before you even open Postal’s template editor, you need to know who you’re talking to. If “buyer personas” makes your eyes glaze over, don’t worry—I’m not talking about those 20-page documents nobody reads.
Here’s what actually matters:
- What’s their job? (Not just the title—what do they do?)
- What keeps them up at night? (Pain points, not “thought leadership.”)
- How do they talk? (Formal? Jargon-heavy? Straightforward?)
- What do they care about? (Saving money? Looking smart? Avoiding risk?)
Pro tip:
If you can’t answer these for your top 2–3 customer types, hop on a few sales calls or read through customer support tickets. You’ll get more real-world language there than any persona worksheet.
Step 2: Map Personas to Postal Email Campaigns
Postal doesn’t natively “know” your personas, so you have to bridge the gap. Here’s how:
- Group your contacts:
- Use tags, lists, or segments in Postal based on persona traits—like “IT Directors” or “Small Business Owners.”
-
If your CRM integrates with Postal, sync persona fields over.
-
Decide which emails need customizing:
- Not every email needs a unique version. Focus on key touchpoints: cold outreach, onboarding, retention, or upsell campaigns.
- Don’t waste time rewriting transactional emails unless there’s a clear ROI.
What to skip:
Don’t try to make every persona feel “special” in every message. Start with your highest-value personas or those you struggle to engage.
Step 3: Clone and Label Your Templates for Each Persona
Postal lets you create and manage multiple templates. Here’s the workflow that actually saves time:
-
Clone your base template:
Start with a solid, generic version. -
Rename clearly:
Use naming like “Onboarding – IT Director” or “Welcome – SMB Owner” so you can find them later. -
Keep a master version:
When updating, change the base template first, then roll out updates to persona versions. This avoids template chaos.
Pitfall:
Don’t make minor tweaks (“Hi, IT Director!”) just to check the custom box. If the persona differences are tiny, use merge fields instead.
Step 4: Edit for Persona-Relevant Messaging
Now, get into the guts of the email. This is where most people get lazy or overthink it. Don’t just swap out a greeting—actually adjust your message to fit what that persona cares about.
Focus on These Elements:
-
Subject Line:
Speak to their priorities (“Cut IT headaches” vs. “Grow your business fast”). -
Opening Sentence:
Prove you get their world. For a CFO, “Keeping costs predictable isn’t easy…” For a founder, “You’re wearing a hundred hats right now…” -
Body Copy:
Use examples, pain points, and benefits that hit home for that persona. Cut the fluff. -
Call to Action:
Make the ask fit their motivation. Technical buyers want details; execs want results.
What works:
- Using snippets of real customer language from support or sales calls.
- Naming concrete problems (“Avoid surprise downtime”) instead of vague promises (“Increase efficiency”).
What doesn’t:
- Over-personalization. If you sound like you’re trying too hard (“Hey, fellow marketing rockstar!”), it reeks of automation.
- Generic claims (“Transform your business!”). Nobody believes it.
Step 5: Add Conditional Content or Merge Fields Where It Actually Helps
Postal supports tokens/merge fields to drop in contact-specific info (like name, company, or even industry). Use these to avoid creating too many templates.
Good uses:
- Address the recipient by name.
- Drop in company or industry references.
- Reference recent activity (“Thanks for downloading our IT checklist!”).
Bad uses:
- Trying to fake deep personalization by stuffing in too many details. (“As a [TITLE] at [COMPANY] in [INDUSTRY], you must…” Nope.)
Pro tip:
Test your templates with real data before you send. A broken merge field is worse than none at all.
Step 6: Preview and QA Like a Skeptic
Don’t trust that everything looks right just because it did in the editor.
- Send test emails to yourself and a teammate.
- Check for awkward wording or merge field fails.
- Does the email sound like it’s for the intended persona? If not, go back and tighten it up.
What to ignore:
Overly fancy formatting. Focus on clarity and relevance, not on cramming in images and banners that most people won’t see (or that get clipped in Gmail).
Step 7: Set Up Workflows and Automations (Optional, Not Mandatory)
If you’ve got your personas mapped to segments in Postal, you can automate which template goes to whom. But don’t stress if you’re not there yet—manual sends are fine while you’re still figuring out what works.
-
Start simple:
Trigger key campaigns (like onboarding or re-engagement) with persona-specific templates. -
Iterate:
Once you see what’s working, automate more touchpoints.
Reality check:
Don’t automate just because you can. If your segments aren’t solid, you’ll send the wrong message to the wrong person. Clean data beats fancy automations every time.
Step 8: Track, Learn, and Actually Update Your Templates
This is where most teams drop the ball. Personalization is never “set it and forget it.”
- Review open, click, and reply rates by persona/segment.
- Look at which templates are getting real engagement, not just vanity opens.
- Update your messaging based on what you learn (and keep a changelog so you don’t lose track).
Ignore:
Getting hung up on tiny differences in A/B tests—focus on big swings that actually move the needle.
Wrap-Up: Keep It Simple and Iterate
Don’t overcomplicate this. Start with your top personas, make a few meaningful tweaks to your Postal templates, and get feedback fast. Over time, you’ll find the right balance between “personalized” and “scalable.” Most importantly, you’ll stop sending emails that nobody reads.
Remember: nobody cares about your clever copy if it doesn’t speak to their real-world problems. Write for people, not personas on a slide deck, and you’ll see better results—no magic required.