Boost Response Rates with Personalization and Dynamic Message Assembly

The most attention-grabbing word in the English language is... your own name. You have been programmed since birth, with reinforcement year-after-year at school, to pay attention when your name is called. The impulse is irresistible: Whenever you hear or see your name, you have to look, even when your name is used in the subject line of a bulk email.

You can leverage that impulse. To improve your response rate, use the recipient's first name in one or more of the subject line, headline, and opening salutation. Also consider referring to the recipient's name when reinforcing benefits and stating your call-to-action in the concluding paragraph and P.S. line.

But personalization shouldn't stop merely with the first name. Leveraging behavioral data from your database can make your emails far more persuasive. Consider this example:

Dear David:

Frankly, I'm surprised that you haven't participated yet in the meat slaughterhouse petition. Is everything okay?

You've been so helpful in the past. In fact, I'm pleased to report that your help with the fur petition has led to another 16 national retailers removing fur from their store shelves.

Unfortunately, we've just learned that the situation in slaughterhouses is even more alarming than first reported...

David, please ask your local member of Congress, Alisha Hudson, to get involved...

This example email targets past responders who have not yet participated in the current petition. The email template uses "dynamic message assembly" to customize passages based on database look-ups:

Frankly, I'm surprised that you haven't participated yet in the meat slaughterhouse petition. Is everything okay?

You've been so helpful in the past the past. In fact, I'm pleased to report that your help with the <most recent campaign responded to> petition has led to <results of the most recent campaign responded to>.

Unfortunately, we've just learned that the situation in slaughterhouses is even more alarming than first reported...

David, please ask your local member of Congress, <pull name of Representative from look-up table, based on zip code>, to get involved...

For bonus points, you could further personalize from "local member of Congress" to "Congressman" or "Congresswoman" based on a database look-up that considers both zip code and gender of the Representative.

Personalization works best when the email appears to be a truly personal, one-to-one letter.