Real Personalization Takes Work

From my inbox... (the junk folder that is)

Philip, Get your Free Plastic Surgery Consultation Now!

Philip Become a travel agent in just one week!

PHILIP, We help women reduce their debt.

Um. Yeah, personalized subject lines and greetings. Does anyone believe this personalization hides the fact these emails are spam?

These emails even contained "Dear Philip" in the content. I wasn't fooled. You're not fooled. My spam filter wasn't fooled.

Using a subscriber's name is not enough
Even spammers get the first name correct. That ain't personalization. By now, everyone knows just because an email has your name, it doesn't mean it's from someone you know.

Real Personalization is Relevant
Most email marketers know very little about their subscribers. Typically just email address and name. That's it. Sure, they know the person subscribed to their list (Right? We are talking about opt-in subscribers. Yes, we are.), but overall they know very little about the person receiving the email.

And that is the main problem.

You need to know more about your subscribers in order to send them emails they are likely to find relevant.

Great Example
Let's say you are a retailer of music and for each subscriber you know their last purchase. You could then create an email that let's them know about new albums in that same musical genre. It might look like this:

...

Hey Philip

We hope you're enjoying the cd Simple Things by Zero 7 you purchased from us. We wanted to let you know they have a new cd out this year: The Garden by Zero 7.

Have a great summer listening to your favorite music!

.....

This email doesn't even need a name to be personalized. What makes it personalized is that the retailer took the time to recommend a new cd based on my purchase history. Pretty good odds that I'll want to purchase the new cd. AND, all I have to do is click the link to get to the relevant page.

How do they do this? Well, it could be this simple.

1. A new cd comes out.
2. They query their database of all customers who have purchased a cd by that artist.
3. They update the profile of each customer to run the merge
4. Construct an email with the merge fields of [artist] and [newCD]
5. Set "New CD by [artist]" as the subject line
   
6. Run the merge and send

These not the normal steps for most email marketers. They are the normal steps for successful email marketers. Successful email marketers understand that even though sending an email is free (or very inexpensive), they shouldn't ignore the fact that a little hard work can significantly increase sales.

Real personalization takes work, but that work can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

Benefits of Real Personalization

• Less emails will be sent because you are usually sending to a subset of your overall list
• Less list fatigue because emails are highly relevant
• Less spam complaints.
• Less negative impact to your brand from sending non-relevant emails
• MORE SALES

Not a bad deal and well worth the time and effort.

Questions, comments, concerns? Let me hear 'em.