Amir Greenstein is a lecturer and researcher in marketing and entrepreneurship at Northeastern University in Boston and VU in Amsterdam. Writes on Twitter about @ AmirGrinstein behavioral research.
Jana Schechterman is an Organizational Consultant, Executive Coach and Teacher at Northeastern University in Boston. yanashechterman.com
AMLK: Summary of the study in 4 sentences
1. The research question: Does using a recipient’s first name increase the chance of opening a marketing or sales email?
2. The research process: 3 experiments compared marketing campaigns in email in which the names of the recipients appeared, compared to those that did not
3. Conclusions: When the names of the recipients appeared in the subject line, the email opening rate was 20% higher than the control group. Interest in the product soared by 31%.
4. Side to side: Email personalization has great value. It increases the sense of relevance and significantly reduces the rate of requests to be removed from the mailing list
Every day we get dozens of emails. Some come from people we know like colleagues, partners or customers, and some from people who want to sell us something, convince or interest us.
The use of email as a tool for organizational conduct or as a marketing / sales tool is still very common, and although in recent years new tools have competed in it (Slack for example) it is still a critical tool and marketing tool for networking and engagement.
Due to the large number of emails we receive – and in general due to the fierce competition for our attention – employees and managers, advertisers and marketing companies, need to behave wisely when writing an email.
One of the questions to pay attention to is what can increase the chance of reading the email sent to us, especially when it comes from a stranger who wants to sell us something, but will also increase the chance of being answered faster if it comes from a colleague or manager asking for help?
A relevant component to this issue is related to one of the main trends of recent years – personalization. When the product or service is especially suitable for us – because of our tastes or needs, due to previous behavior and the like, so that satisfaction with the product or service will increase. The ability to tailor products and services to consumers is improved due to tools of artificial intelligence and accessibility to information about our behavior (in the supermarket, our viewing habits and the like). In the world of media and advertising, too, a message tailored specifically to us will be more effective.
“Where did I get my email from?”
Research has examined one aspect of communication that has the characteristics of personalization and its effectiveness: What happens when the recipient’s name is added to the subject line of the email? The study was published in the journal Marketing Science in 2018 by researchers Sahni, Wheeler and Hintagunta from Stanford and Chicago universities.
On the one hand, it is possible that the use of the recipient’s name will lead to a negative reaction because it raises the concerns that always exist around information leakage, and the feeling of invasion of privacy: “How in the world did the marketer obtain my details?”.
On the other hand, using the recipient’s name can lead to a positive response, since using our name grabs our attention and increases the chance that we will be referred to the email. Many times the use of our name makes us feel better about ourselves (a psychological sense of self-empowerment), and it is even possible that using the name makes us think that the message is more relevant to us.
The main research in the article was conducted in collaboration with a company that helps guide employees in the field of finance and accounting, for the benefit of upgrading their professional ability (certificate studies), through virtual exams. The company has launched a marketing email campaign of about 68,000 emails, aimed at recruiting new customers.
The campaign is randomly divided between two groups: one group of potential customers was sent an invitation to the course when their name appeared in the subject line of the email, while a second group of potential customers was sent an invitation without mentioning their name.
“Please remove me from the mailing list”
The main finding is that when the recipient’s name appeared in the subject line of the email, the number of recipients who opened the email was 20% higher than those whose name did not appear in the subject line (an increase from 9% to close to 11%).
In addition, the study found that adding the name to the subject line also resulted in a 31% increase in lead generation (customers who were interested in the product). The company will price the alternative cost of obtaining these leads at a value of $ 3,500.
And another interesting detail: in the group in which emails were sent stating the name in the subject line, fewer recipients (17%) asked to remove themselves from the company’s mailing list.
The researchers duplicated the findings in two more experiments – with an e-commerce company and with students at Stanford University. The structure of the experiments was similar to the main experiment, and it is possible to reach additional target audiences and show that the effect can be generalized.
As part of the e-commerce company (MercadoLibre.com) which operates in 13 countries, the email campaign was directed to 1,111,130 recipients. In contrast to the main research experiment, here the company focused not only on employees (who are interested in professional courses), but on a wide range of consumers who are interested in products in a variety of fields.
In this huge sample, the increase in opening an email with the name of the recipients on it was 6%, and here too fewer recipients (11%) compared to the corresponding group asked to stop receiving emails from the company. Also in the second study, the one conducted with Stanford University, a sample of 5,000 students found similar findings: The increase in mail opening with recipients’ names was 23% compared to the corresponding non-referenced group in the name.