Personalizing Autoresponders
Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and been
addressed by name? This has probably happened to you at stores
that you frequent often. The shop owner knows your name, and
uses it. He remembers you, and he wants you to know that he
cared enough about you and your business to remember you. In the
offline world, this is just one aspect of customer support.
Customer service like this is almost impossible to achieve on
the Internet, but some semblance of it can exist when you
personalize your autoresponder messages. Autoresponder messages
can be set up to address people by their first or last name - or
both. In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information
that can be added, depending on the autoresponder that you are
using.
The information is included in the autoresponder messages by
using codes. Each autoresponder will use different codes to
insert the information in your messages. You simply write your
message, and put the codes where you want the personalized
information to appear. For instance, your message may start out
with 'Hello (code for first name)! In this case, the person's
first name will be inserted where that code is.
Personalizing your autoresponder messages will most likely
improve your response rate. Research has shown that emails that
are personalized with the person's first name are opened more
often, and those people are generally more receptive to the
contents of the email message. It is usually very easy to do.
You write one message, using the codes where you want the
personalization, then, no matter who that one email is sent out
to, their personal information will appear where the codes are.
Of course, the autoresponder must collect the information first.
This is done with the use of forms that activate the
autoresponder. For instance, if you are giving away a free
ebook, and you have your visitor fill out a form with their
email address to receive the download instructions for the ebook
by email, that form should collect any type of information that
you want for personalization - such as a first name, as well as
the email address. If that information is not collected, the
autoresponder won't have anything to insert where that code
appears in your messages!
Take a look around the control panel of your autoresponder, and
find out what type of personalization you can add to your
autoresponder messages. You may be very surprised at the
improved results!