I am sure you would respond better to a person who called you by name than one trying to get your attention by shouting 'hey'. Let me ask you this. How do you respond to letters that come through your letter box addressed to 'The Occupier'. Simple, it feels like they are referring to someone other than yourself - very impersonal I say.

Referring to your subscriber or customer by their name has been shown to be effective in building a relationship with people in general. In my local shop the staff have name badges but I can assure you that not many people refer to them by name. That said just call them by their names and see how they perk up. Yes, they feel they have been recognized as a human being and not just as a person running your shopping through the till. I am sure I have made my point. You simply must relate better to your subscribers and customers so they can respond well to you.

This simple relationship concept is used online to get a much better response to your emails than referring to your subscriber as 'Dear Entrepreneur' or Dear Marketer or Dear Friend. It will also help get your emails opened.

You may wonder how to do this. Well, the software to help you do this is no other than the humble auto responder. It is certainly not human but does a great job in breaking down the cold space between you and your subscriber who you have never seen.

To ensure your auto responder is able to address people by their first name or last name - or both, you must use the code supplied by your auto responder. It is most easy to use as you simply write your message, place the codes in the right place and that's it!

It is important to note that the very name that your subscriber enters at your squeeze page is the very same one that will appear once entered in your auto responder personalization code. It goes without saying then that if your subscriber does not enter a name then your auto responder will not be able to address them personally.

You must therefore make sure you ask for their name before they leave your website.

It must be said also that no one is deceived that you actually know their name but it makes for better relationship building to be referred to by name as people like to see their name in print.
The best part of all is that personalization can actually increase your response rate. This has been proved by research.

If you have got an auto responder make sure you are using the personalization features as this is likely to improve your open and response rates. If you have not got one then this should be an incentive to get one.