RightSpot Media | Digital Performance Marketing

Hey reader, call people by their name

Posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 4:11 PM by Simon Smith  |  Comments (0)

Years ago, a freelancer I hired once asked me for lunch. She showed up to my office with useful gifts (strategic research—not your average box of chocolates) and engaged my reciprocity reflex. Furthermore, she wrote well, was reasonably priced and clearly cared about our relationship.

But just a few minutes into our conversation I noticed something odd. She kept talking about someone named "Andrew." She told me that this Andrew person would really like the research she brought. "I should meet him," I thought. "Andrew seems interesting." Only once we left the office, took our seats at the restaurant and began eating did I realize that, in fact, "Andrew" was me.

Unfortunately for her, my name is Simon. Needless to say, I never hired her again. (I would have corrected her earlier, but didn’t catch it in time, and as a colleague noted afterwards, "Oh yeah, once you miss it a few times, you’re Andrew for the rest of lunch.")

That lesson underscored the importance of people’s names. Use them incorrectly—or not at all—and risk losing friends and customers. But use them properly and they work like magic to attract attention and spur action.

Personalization power

Why? Well, you’re deeply conditioned to respond to your name. You hear it repeatedly from birth. And you must respond rapidly because what follows almost always conveys the most personal of information—sometimes information essential for your survival. Furthermore, when someone calls your name, they’re typically a friend, which predisposes you to be influenced by liking them.

Accordingly, studies show that personalizing emails and addressing mass-mailings directly to recipients can dramatically increase open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates. In fact, simply inserting a person’s name into an email can increase open rates by as much as 10%.

Don’t believe its power? Try this experiment: Email a friend or colleague with a non-personalized subject line such as, "Check out this site." Time how long it takes them to respond. Then run the same experiment a few days later, only personalize the subject line. "George, check out this site," for example. See how that impacts their response speed—and ask which email did a better job catching their attention.

Put it to work

Yet, despite the power of personalization, even inserting people’s names into emails is relatively rare. But it’s quite simple to do. To start, ensure that the absolute minimum information you capture for email lists is an email address and a first name. Then, you can use first names in such places as:

• Subject lines: "Hey Simon, I think you might like this…"
• Salutations: "Hi Simon"
• Static body copy: "Simon, I know you’ve probably thought about this before."
• Dynamically personalized body copy: "Simon, we’re really glad you took the time to buy product x. We hope you’re enjoying it. And we think you might also like product y."
• Postscripts: "PS: Simon, don’t forget to check out that link."

Of course, there are risks. For starters, to avoid sounding like a bad used car salesman, don’t overuse someone’s first name. And always—always—make sure not to misconnect email addresses and first names.

Because, as I can attest, having someone call you the wrong name is a powerful turn-off.

Tags: copywriting, personalization