A person’s name… is the sweetest sound… in any language. – David Carnegie
I have a handful of beloved restaurants that I always recommend to friends who are looking for a nice place to have an unforgettable moment. I don’t choose them only for the food: I love those places because they know me and they know what I like. Because they make me feel really special.
A few examples? Alex and his team at Satay Brothers welcome me by my name. They know I’ll order their irresistible Laksa soup, and wait to see if I’ll fall for their pork buns. At fabulous Park Restaurant, the wonderful sommelier Rachel always take a few minutes to chat with us and give us the best advice from her sake card, remembering what we had last time we came by!
Customizing your emails will help your customers feel like VIPs:
- Take the time to ask for their name and birthday to use in your newsletter
- Use their name in a custom field to make it more personal.
- Send them a voucher for a free gift at their birthday (thanks Starbucks!)
- Ask them a little more about their interests. You can then add fields in your database in order to send them more targeted emails
- Look at the links they clicked in previous emails to follow-up with specific targeted content
How to add custom fields
In your list, you can add some cool information about your subscribers an use it in your emails.
To add personalized fields to your campaign, you can type them using the name of the field between brackets. The tag needs to match the field name exactly.
[nameofthetag]
For example, if you want to add the first name of the person in your newsletter:
"Hi [FirstName] Here is your weekly update!"
would become:
"Hi John, Here is your weekly update!"
You can add tags usine each field of your list. For example: [FirstName], [LastName], [Interest]
If you don’t have the information for everyone on your list, make sure to add a fallback field. It’s a backup word in case you don’t have the information. You just need to put if after the field, with a comma.
[field name,fallback]
Therefore:
[firstname,there] – would pick the field [firstname] and populate it with the information available on your list, and if empty, would use there instead.
So Hi [firstname,there], could be read: ‘Hi Alex,’ or ‘Hi there,’
Read this if you want More info on merge fields.
By customizing your emails and sending newsletters that are more targeted to the interests your subscribers have told you about, you will contribute on building this precious relationship with your clients. They will feel more comfortable to talk to you if there is something wrong with your product or service. Even better, they might be more willing to spread your name when someone is looking for a product or service you are offering.
