People Hate Email That Names Them

Great article! Thanks for posting it Rob.

It looks like the research looks at things from a company's perspective. Most of us try to establish a personal one-on-one relationship with our subscribers, so it might not apply to our situation.

I'll definitely test things out and see what happens.

I call BS on the name in subject lines.

In fact, while personalization works in the email
copy for some niches, it may backfire for others.

I get nearly 50+% open rates without doing
anything related to names... What's important is
that you use copy to "call them" with subtlety.

Those are in niches like health though...

Winston Tian

Great article, thanks for posting the link. It looks like the study itself is currently only available in a subscription database.

The second article said:

"Customers who were unfamiliar with the firm were very likely to click off or unsubscribe from emails with personalized greetings. Customers who were more familiar with the firm were less likely to do so, but still responded more negatively than to emails without greetings. Customers who had made past purchases were unaffected."

From a social standpoint, this makes sense. It's not clear from the articles if the personalized greetings were using first name, full name, or a salutation. If just first names were used, it takes time to build the kind of casual relationship in a business setting where calling people by their first names is generally acceptable, so it's not surprising if some people were offended by the premature familarity.

It would be interesting to see results from using formal salutations (Dear Mr. Jones, or Dear Mrs. Smith) during the early stages (or perhaps duration) of the business relationship.

I actually write my emails by hand, first. And then type it into the computer.
IMHO, the message just comes out naturally. I never put the prospects name
in the email, even when I'm writing for my clients.

With me, it depends on the previous emails' quality I send them that affects the open rate. I've made mistake at the beginning to simply copy and paste low quality PLR articles into autoresponder and just throw that {!firstname_fix} on wherever parts that fit, and no amount of personalization can get the subscribers open the emails more.

All my niches are non-IM. I use the {!firstname_fix} for parts of message that talks to the subscriber personally, i.e. "now, {!firstname_fix}, it's time to ask yourself : .....". But overdoing it just make yourself looks like a desperate salesman!

Perry,

Two things.

First, testing shows if you put the person's first name in the subject line, then (one) it will lower your open rate and (two) it will trigger the spam alarm because it's something the spam bots look for.

Why? Because it isn't "normal" for people to put each other's name in the subject lines of emails they send each other. It's obvious advertising.

Second, if you use the person's name inside the body of the email, it has been shown to increase the click-through rate on any links present in the email. As opposed to the normal and boring salutation, "Hey {!firstname_fix}," I've had success with something like this... and this is totally made up and random:

"... But most people aren't as smart as we are, {!firstname_fix}. They're not as good-looking either, but that's besides the point."

The only thing I don't like about "Hey {!firstname_fix}" is this:

People in this industry are so sophisticated... they know all you did was paste that code there and send the message to thousands of people. It's just not what it used to be. But if you can plant it inside a fresh, interesting, fascinating message, you can still use it effectively.

Have a great day!

Justin Quick

Like Justin said, work in the client's name naturally into the copy. Otherwise it's obviously a sales pitch and will be deleted.

I prefer to ask for the name to my clients (buyers), not to my leads... And thanks Justin, that's very smart, and sounds natural

This is certainly my reaction.
I know you're all going to scream 'old world' but here in Europe it seems people prefer to be addressed by Mr/Mrs/Ms + their surname instead of 1st name. Maybe its not so much a preference, but emails are more likely to be considered more business-like if they do address them this way.

I use name in the subj line and I think (just my opinion)
that it creates a personal touch.

The only problem with using first name is that sometimes or most of the time people will enter a different name in opting in. And that will mess up everything including the trust factor because they will know that it is all automated. For example if I enter "daddy" in opting in and you email me saying "hey daddy" that is really bad.