A member of the Chamber of Commerce Professionals Group on Facebook shared a good tip with the group this week on the value of personalizing emails:
Brad Ball, Executive Director at the Cary Grove Area Chamber of Commerce pointed out how his chamber management software (ChamberMaster) has a mail merge feature that also adds a log to the member record. Another chamber pro shared that Weblink has a personalization feature too.
Does your management software?
Even if you don’t have chamber management software, you can create mail merges in a number of email software programs.
Why Email Personalization Gets You More Opens
Let’s face it. The most obvious answer to this question is that a personalized chamber email looks less like spam.Less like spam = more willing to open. After all, nobody wants to miss a message that isn’t spam.
Tips to More Convincing Personalization
But personalization is more than just Hi “first name” these days. Technology has given us the tools to do so much more. Here are some suggestions:
Use the first name with a conversational greeting. “Hi first name” is so last decade Microsoft. Use something less formal and more friendly even if it’s something that might make your high school English teacher cringe. “Hi there first name” works nicely, for those of us who can’t bring ourselves to use “hey” in an email. This casual greeting makes the email feel so much more personal.
Segment Your List. Often we send out blanket emails asking people to do something they may have already done just because we don’t want to take the time to segment our list. We put the onus on the recipient and tell them to disregard our email if they’ve already done what we’re reminding them to do.
What a waste of everyone’s time because now the recipient is unsure of whether we know they’ve done what we’re asking them to do. For instance, someone who has RSVP’d and then receives an email reminding them to do so will double-check that we know they’re coming. Instead take a moment and send only to those people who have not RSVP’d. You most likely have the technology to figure it out. Use it.
Personalize Your Content. Personalize your email content to the stage of the membership cycle and don’t send generic member benefits reminders if they’re already using the member benefit. Just as in the case above, your member will now feel like you don’t know that they’re using the benefit you’re suggesting.
Maybe they’re savvy enough to know you sent the generic email to everyone, but now they’re less likely to read those sorts of emails from you in the future. You’ve now been relegated to spam.
Are you personalizing your chamber emails? Tell us what you do to make your email recipients feel special.
