List Personalization MAY Blow Up In Your Face

18 years ago

Man, I never personalize mine in for my IM lists. I have people signing up with my name, my product name, variations of my name and my product name, and other ridiculous stuff, so I just say screw it and don't do the personalization.

A lot of time I actually manually unsubscribe these people too b/c I would be willing to bet their are simply wasting my time and falsely inflating my list.

I do use personalization outside of my IM lists though.

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Mike Williams

18 years ago

Originally Posted by matthewd

Man, I never personalize mine in for my IM lists. I have people signing up with my name, my product name, variations of my name and my product name, and other ridiculous stuff, so I just say screw it and don't do the personalization.

A lot of time I actually manually unsubscribe these people too b/c I would be willing to bet their are simply wasting my time and falsely inflating my list.

I do use personalization outside of my IM lists though.

Don't unsubscribe people who put in your product name. Those people are serious. They are just doing that so they can identify if you've sold their info to somebody else.

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matthewd 18 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Williams

Don't unsubscribe people who put in your product name. They are doing that so they can identify if and when you've sold their info to somebody else.

I never thought of that... I just thought they were being smart alecks. Then again, I would never think of selling their info, so I have no reason to ever think of this.
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tomw

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Williams

Don't unsubscribe people who put in your product name. Those people are serious. They are just doing that so they can identify if you've sold their info to somebody else.

LOL! I thought that was MY sneaky evil scheme!

Nice one, Mike. Thanks for telling everyone!

Thomas

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Mike Hill

18 years ago

Yeah I hear ya guys... I never send out emails with firstname_fix anymore to my main list. The only time I do in fact use the first name is my coaching program were they are more serious.

Mike Hill

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natedamm

18 years ago

I agree with you all. I don't bother to use personalization anymore because of the same problem you mentioned. Good post.

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George Wright

18 years ago

Hi Steven,

In the pole I put "depends on niche." I think in all niches except the IM niche there is a slight advantage to personalization. However, not that much to worry about.

In the IM niche I think it doesn't matter as we all know it's the auto responder and not the actual person sending the email.

I laugh when the autoresponder messes up and says "Dear First Name" so and so...

George Wright

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Andy Money 18 years ago

I never do first name either. lol @ the creative names though. My fav is "adasdafasdf"
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Lynn Stivers

18 years ago

Hi Steven,

Why on earth would someone put something like that for their name? That sounds like a serious self esteem problem to me.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to be called something like that but I firmly believe a person deserves to be called whatever they choose to be called. If that's what they chose maybe they're right.

However, in my opinion something like "QueenOfTheUniverse" or "Millionaire" might be kinda cool if you had to use something other than your real name. Maybe I'll try that - it might be worth opening a few newsletters just for an ego boost.

Seriously though - for myself I actually like seeing my name on the newsletters. I know they come from an autoresponder but I still like it anyway.

Lynn

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Michael Silvester

18 years ago

Hi Steven,

1. Dont assume that everyone knows that it comes from an Autoresponder.
2. Personalization still works...I've tested it!
3. Dont change your whole process if a couple of fools break the rules!

Take Care,

Michael Silvester

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mudmat

18 years ago

I'm still using the [[firstname]] personalisation and I never thought that someone would put a name such as idiot and so on.

I think I should stop personalising my emails. I don't want to be calling people idiot without realising it. It sounds funny but some people may get angry.

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Floyd Fisher

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I did something tonight I never thought I would do for one of my lists. I
totally gutted the old messages and put in a brand new series.

I then reset, by hand, every opt in back to message 1 so they could all
get the new series.

In doing this, I noticed something very interesting.

You know that when you put up your squeeze page, you normally will
have just name and email to fill out.

Well, it's up the the PROSPECT to fill it out correctly. This applies NOT only
to their email address but to their name as well.

Imagine my surprise when I started going through this list and made notice
if a few names like:

spammer
idiot
dipsh*t

and so on.

Imagine starting your email message with:

Hi idiot:

Do you REALLY think you're going to endear yourself to this person?

Now granted, somebody who fills out a form like that probably isn't going
to be a serious prospect, but certainly calling him an idiot isn't going to
help your cause any.

It got me thinking, should I continue personalizing my emails or should I
try the non personal route?

And in the IM niche, how much does it matter? Most IMers know that
these aren't personal emails and you're just getting an autoresponder
followup.

So what do you think?

I'm making a poll to see how others feel.

Feel free to give your feedback.

Yet another reason to always confirm your optins. If the name is messed up, what do you think the chances are the emails are bouncing?

Thanks

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Chris Lockwood

18 years ago

If someone enters "idiot" or "asdfasdfd" as their name, that's what they deserve to get called.

Has anyone actually received a complaint about this? I never have.

I think people who enter "names" like that either don't care that they get called that in the emails or aren't serious prospects anyway, so it's not like you just threw up on them or something.

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Ken Preuss 18 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

If someone enters "idiot" or "asdfasdfd" as their name, that's what they deserve to get called.

Haha. Totally agree with you Chris.

Steven,

Here's my take on it. List personalization works far better than not in my own testing - as long as it's not done to excess.

Meaning you are making it seem like you are writing directly to that one person even though they already know you have a large subscriber list you send to. This pisses people off and rightfully so.

Having said that, if someone want's to sign up with "idiot" as their first name go right ahead. That's just a notch on my list, that is not a customer of mine.

They'll probably stick around and mooch whatever they can get free for a while, then either 1) opt out (hopefully sooner then later) or 2) realize that I offer them value and re-name themselves or opt-in with new information.

These people are a small minority. Don't let their stupid antics affect how you communicate with your REAL subscribers and customers.

Ken
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WritingMadwoman

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

If someone enters "idiot" or "asdfasdfd" as their name, that's what they deserve to get called.

Has anyone actually received a complaint about this? I never have.

I think people who enter "names" like that either don't care that they get called that in the emails or aren't serious prospects anyway, so it's not like you just threw up on them or something.

I agree, I don't let this bother me. I get email notifications when someone opts in and I can see instantly what they put as their name - just from memory I believe I have a few "XXXXXX"'s, "none of your business"'s, and oh yeah - GOD signed up some time ago! I'm so honored, but I don't think she's ever bought anything from me. LOL

I don't change them, and I haven't had any complaints - in fact I can't remember any of these people unsubbing either so they must not mind.

Wendy

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globalpro

18 years ago

I like using the personaliztion tag for their name. I realize they will know that it comes from an AR, but it's still nice to do.

I do check through my lists and have deleted erroneous names. I figure if that's the best they can do, then I don't want to mail them.

I do admit, sometimes I leave the strange ones there for a short time to see what the response is.

Thanks,

John

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Adrian Jock

18 years ago

You may want to read also the latest report issued this month by MailerMailer.

I quote:

"Personalizing only the subject lines shows a decrease in open and click rates while personalizing just the message itself shows an increase in opens and a significant increase in clicks.

Personalizing subject lines is a tactic used by some to get recipients to open unsolicited email. As a result, the decrease in opens due to personalized subject lines is likely caused by people becoming conditioned to delete such messages because they are often unsolicited."

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Steven Wagenheim 18 years ago

Thanks for all the responses. I will probably keep the personalization even in
my IM niches, but boy, some of these subscribers are REAL characters.
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- Frank Donovan 18 years ago
  
  The other thing worth considering, if you're not going to use the personalization tag, is whether to amend your opt-in form to just ask for the email address.
  
  Ryan Deiss said that he tested that recently and saw an 8% increase in opt-ins.
  
  Frank
  
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  J.Knight 18 years ago
  
  This is an interesting thread.
  
  Surely people with small lists could edit the names given? Usually the email gives away the first name anyway, or would that be a bad thing to do?
  
  Originally Posted by Frank Donovan
  
  Ryan Deiss said that he tested that recently and saw an 8% increase in opt-ins.
  
  Frank, that's really interesting. 8% is quite a bit when you're getting big numbers.
  
  But I suppose the question is, does personalization result in high enough conversions to do better than what you might get from the extra subscribers?
  
  As I said...interesting.
  
  JK
  
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- Kunle Olomofe 18 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim
  
  Thanks for all the responses. I will probably keep the personalization even in
  my IM niches, but boy, some of these subscribers are REAL characters.
  
  ROTF LMAO .. those punks deserve to be called whatever they put in the forms.. in my book "Hello dipsh*t" is actually an understatement for people like that so they're more than welcome.
  
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Leanne King

18 years ago

I'm so boring! I always sign up as "Leanne" my real name! From now on I'm going to sign up as Domestic Goddess instead

Leanne

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Shaun OReilly

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

It got me thinking, should I continue personalizing my emails or should I
try the non personal route?

The only way to know for sure is to do a split-test for
that list - and track the response.

Which one wins?

Use that one.

And what works for that list may not work for another
list or somone else's list.

Test and find out.

Personally, I prefer to use personalized e-mails - but
only use their name sparingly - once or twice.

If you were face-to-face with the person, would you
use their name?

Most likely at the start.

And if people put in false names or trackable names
- so be it. They don't trust you enough yet.

Focus on the ones who do trust you enough to give
you their details.

Don't change your policy for the majority based on
what a minority of people do. Especially if those in
the minority are unlikely to buy just yet.

Dedicated to your success,

Shaun

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Michael Forey

18 years ago

I guess my question is if your not going to use personalization, then you only need to ask for an email address in your opt-in, will this increase your opt-in rate? Obviously something that would have to be A/B tested.

Michael

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tommygadget

18 years ago

I know that the "Gurus" use personalization. I like to keep their otherwise boring emails fun by registering with inventive and often quite vulgar user names. It makes me feel good to see the titles in my inbox

TomG.

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rename

18 years ago

it is more convenient to use autoresponders

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Gail Sober

18 years ago

That's funny. You should see what my inbox looks like with all the IM'ers calling me names.

It I'm forced to subscribe, I generally use something like that so I can just skip over them in my inbox.

Other lists, I will use something to identify the list owner.

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Gail Sober

18 years ago

ROTF LMAO .. those punks deserve to be called whatever they put in the forms.. in my book "Hello dipsh*t" is actually an understatement for people like that so they're more than welcome.

It actually cracks me up when I see these. I think here's this person making millions of dollars on the internet by telling other people how to make millions of dollars on the internet and they don't even know what their emails look like going out.

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List Personalization MAY Blow Up In Your Face

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