Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and been addressed by name?

This has probably happened to you at stores that you frequent often. The shop owner knows your name, and uses it. He remembers you, and he wants you to know that he cared enough about you and your business to remember you. In the offline world, this is just one aspect of customer support.

Customer service like this is almost impossible to achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it can exist when you personalize your autoresponder messages.

Autoresponder messages can be set up to address people by their first name, last name, or both. In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information that can be added, depending on the autoresponder that you are using. 

The information is included in the autoresponder messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will use different codes to insert the information in your messages. You simply write your message, and put the codes where you want the personalized information to appear. For instance, your message may start out with "Hello (code for first name)!". In this case, the person's first name will be inserted where that code is. 

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will most likely improve your response rate as well. Research has shown that emails that are personalized with the person's first name are opened more often, and those people are generally more receptive to the contents of the email message. It is usually very easy to do. You write one message, using the codes where you want the personalization, then, no matter who that one email is sent out to, their personal information will appear where the codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the information first. This is done with the use of forms that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you are giving away a free ebook and you have your visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive the download instructions, that form should collect any type of information that you want for personalization such as a first name or birthday. If that information is not collected, the autoresponder won't have anything to insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your autoresponder, and find out what type of personalization you can add to your autoresponder messages. You may be very surprised at the improved results!