It's a busy season for email - sending and receiving. All the hustle and bustle of the holidays means we're probably rushing to crank out critical end-of-year messages. And when we're rushing, the probability of making mistakes goes way up. Just look at this easy-to-make blunder that showed up more than once in my inbox recently:
While it's certainly not the end of the world, this particular type of mistake erodes credibility and makes it plain to see that the messages are not actually personal. Intellectually, everyone knows these are mass mailings but being called "FNAME" feels a lot like discovering the "wizard" behind the screen - not at all what we'd hoped. When it comes to marketing emails, readers are often willing to suspend their disbelief to some degree, basically saying: "I know this was sent to everyone, but I like that it appears personal and I respond favorably to seeing my own name."
So, this your friendly reminder, First Name 😉, to carefully proofread and test your messages during this busy time - especially the variable or conditional text.
