Hey, [First Name] Is Personalizing your Emails Still Works In 2016?

Haha, very keen observation. It seems nowadays that the less people have to put in to subscribe to email, the better. And I agree and think the first name input has lost its effect over time. I don't flinch as much if I see my name in emails. It seems from my testing with Facebook and Email Marketing that the first 4-5 words in a headline are what will break or make your efforts to catch attention. It might be even harder to catch attention on Facebook because of the numerous amounts of information and activities people are exposed to constantly.

Depends on the niche. First name works well in some that have not been spammed to death. Better not to use it in the IM niche. They know good and well it's auto generated. If you do collect first names in the IM niche, take a look at your list. You will find all types of crazy stuff in the name field.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

I would rather the email has MY name then, "Hey Boss" or some other BS! I use to follow a well known marketer until every email sent to me opens with Hey Boss, I then unsubscribed, which didn't work either, and kept unsubscribing until finally had to contact support to get them to stop.

I know they are NOT addressing me by name because they know me, but when I get emails without my name I don't even bother to open, they go straight to trash and/or spam.

Just my 2 cents.

I generate a lot of leads and think it is still can be worthwhile...test.

My biggest concern is always if it's valid or not. I've seen a lot of crap, so I have created many filters to catch as much as possible.

I personally rarely ever use my real name and use all kinds of stuff, so if all the sudden I get a bunch of spam, I can tell who it originated fro,, assuming they are using it.

I do like to use City and/or State in the body when it makes sense. At least the city/state can be gotten from the IP, so it will be valid.

It also helps if you can personalise a lot of various fields, example, First name, email address, heck, even City/Country.

This does help with not sending the exact same size email to 1000's of email addresses, which spam filters pick up on as well.

I like using it every so often, just for a bit of "shock" effect.

Yes, if you personalize every email you send, it will come across as a bit of a gimmick.

But if you do it just once or twice a month it can be very powerful.

Tom

I noticed that some people, maybe 20-30% only put fake name, so it may to be a good option to personalize emails.

I'm thinking not using email field.

I cleaned up my email just recently, unsubscribed to newsletters that I don't even remember subscribing in the first place.

Of course, having my name on the subject looks personal and I like it. But it will always depends on what they offer, that's my concern.

This is such a hotly debated topic and one that has so many levels.

Personalising email subject lines and the 'Dear' field is something that is done with the view that it makes the reader think that you're talking directly to them. I must say I do it, should the information be available, and this post has made me question my technique. Which is a good thing.

On the one hand, personalisation is a tried and tested technique used to encourage engagement. It's also something that has been considered over-used and for that reason, ineffective.

Email personalisation can take many forms and if done correctly is a highly effective marketing tool. Nothing will have me unsubscribing faster than a Dear. J, Dear boss, Dear Mrs. B or Hello Banana! The worst thing you can do is try to personalize but get it wrong. That's more insulting to the reader than not personalising at all.

When I don't have my marketing hat on, personally (pardon the pun) I don't look at anything that doesn't have my name on it, I immediately write this off as spam, if something has my name in it I'm happy that I've signed up for the email somewhere along the line and they have permission to be using my email address.

What I would like to see more of is personalisation throughout the email, such as referring to the time I last clicked on the website/bought a product etc. We're not stupid, we know that every email we get has been sent to many more people but it's those little touches which will see a click through. Likewise, geographically I'm just not interested if you're promoting a sale for hardware in a town 1000 miles away, pffft what the.

It's an interesting discussion, I'm torn obviously however I do agree that testing this out for each of your lists would be the only way to determine a definitive answer.

Still works 100%, in fact, really personalized emails convert much better. I mean if the email had information about you of course you're going to read it right.

I always write my emails to potential clients as if they were my friends. Of course I still keep some degree of professionalism.

No need for names unless your planning on going into niche detailed. Good for big cost type of niches.

Here's what I've been taught by many BIG TIME Marketers City Cowboy...

When you are just collecting emails to build a list, just use an (Opt-in Form with just the Email Field)

This keeps it simple for them and less to fill out.

There is no need to use the [firstname] tags, because if you think about it in the real world, it would be like someone coming into your store (SALES PAGE) just to browse around, but didn't buy anything right, they are just looking around.

So you really wouldn't Know their name in the first place.

Now, a few weeks down the road, you see them again come into your store (SALES PAGE) , but this time they buy from you, so you strike a conversation at the check out (CHECK OUT PAGE) and ask them their name (Opt-in Form)

Now they are on your Buyers List, so now you can follow up with them using the [FIRSTNAME] TAG, because now you really do know them by name.

Make sense?