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!

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