Marketers couldn’t fathom a world without HTML emails. We spend a lot of time beautifying our messages with mastheads, logos and images to grab a reader’s attention. However, every once in a while it’s good to try a new (old) trick. MarketingSherpa brings us a report showing the value of sending simple, personalized text-only notes to subscribers.

While HTML emails are still relied on each month to promote their products, Mike Atkinson, Director, Internet Marketing, House of Magnets and his team occasionally send special text-only emails that appear to be personal notes from their sales manager.

The text-only, personal emails generated a 40%-100% increase in open rates and a 10%-20% increase in clickthrough rates! And the best part is you don’t have to sacrifice your tracking with the Dog’s toolset.

Let’s look at 6 steps to achieve personalization bliss…

Use Sparingly

A text email with a personalized ‘from’ link only stands out if it’s used sparingly. Save these messages for special occasions. For example, Atkinson’s team featured in our case study used a personal text-only email for special pricing deadlines on their three key products only.

Personalize Carefully

The key to a personal ‘from’ line only works if that from name will be recognize by – or relevant to – your subscribers. The goal is to provide a more personal touch, so use someone with whom you want your subscribers to have a relationship. You can use a sales manager, well-known founder, or account representative.

Prepare Accordingly

Be sure anyone listed in your email is prepared to respond to any residual inquires. If you are using a founder or sales managers name you can include additional contact information in the email to prevent all responses being sent to just one person.

For example, Atkinson’s team includes a link to their online store and an 800-number to phone orders. The email specifically explains that customers don’t need to speak to sale manager personally to take advantage of the special pricing.

The Good and the Bad

The goal of using a different, personal, ‘from’ line is to catch your subscribers off guard and prompt them to open the email (which is good!), but it also runs the risk of a ‘cold’ subscriber opening your email and forgetting they’ve subscribed and unsubscribing (which is bad). There is also the risk of subscribers not recognizing the person’s name and it going to the bulk folder (also bad), so be sure to consider the name used in the header very carefully.

Atkinson noticed a slight increase in unsubscribes after sending a personalized reminder email, but the increase wasn’t significant enough to cause concern.

So be sure to carefully monitor your results. If the unsubscribe rate dramatically increases, it might be good to re-think your strategy.

Get to the Point

The personalized sender name is designed to ‘look’ like a personal email, not something coming from your marketing department, so here is your chance to use shorter, informal copy.

Atkinson’s team uses short paragraphs and short sentences to get to the point and provides an immediate call-to-action.

Test, Test, and Test

Sending the email from a personal name also gives you the opportunity to work on various subject lines to further improve open rates. A general subject line like “May Newsletter” doesn’t work when coming from a ‘person.’ Instead try using more specific subject lines to reflect the contents of the email.

So how can you achieve personalization bliss? Using Mail Dog personalization tools you’re not limited to using on ‘from’ name per campaign. You can send your campaign with the ‘from’ name personalized to pull in a different name for different subscribers. Even personalize the signature of the email with different contact information (name, phone, website, and even image!). Think through your long-term strategy and be sure to collect additional information about your readers so you can leverage the power of personalization!