Non-Line Blogging

Digital marketing technology is a great business leveller.  We all have access to the same tools but its what you do with them that makes you successful.  Take email personalisation: You can do some dynamic personalisation with the same ease that you do a "Dear Title Last Name" in a good old direct mail campaign.   For those of you who have never dared to press some of the buttons on your email platform interface, this is an example of how simple it is to drop personalised content into an email from those nice people at Emailvision

So, in 20 seconds we can take a "1 size fits all" message and begin to drop in field values to show we care...click "add field", select your field, click "add to body" and Voila! The downside is that you need to be discerning about the way you play with these tools...the internet is a demanding medium, your inbox is a more personal space than your doormat and we're tired of cheesy direct mail personalisation tricks online.

So, I chuckle when good old VistaPrint take cheesiness to a new level with theis subject line...

In the wrong hands personalisation technology is a dangerous tool.  Slapping first names into subject lines may be worth testing, but it can do a huge amount of brand damage when people think you are trying too hard to weasel your way into their lives.  Maybe its a case of "Less is More", and you should look at all the field values you hold and see whether dropping casually into the subject line "post town" or "product purchased" or "hotel location booked" provides more engaging, tempting, successful campaigns.  You'll never know unless you try.