We’ve all received the ‘personalised’ email that demonstrates just how impersonal it really is:

Dear TURRELL
Dear wouldn’t give his name,
Dear tURRELL rICHARD

Is it really that hard for someone to send an email that includes the correct details? The problem is that it’s a lot easier to personalise an email badly than it is to get it right.

Without pointing fingers this usually goes back to database management, poor collection of data and more often than not human error. As most databases are free flowing and accessible by many different users they can often be inaccurate at best, incorrect at worst.

This leaves you with two strategic directions:

1) Most of the data is correct so send a ‘personalised’ email knowing that for 90-95% of your database it will work but you could end up annoying the remaining 5-10%

2) Invest time making sure that your database is as clean as possible before you start to personalise emails. If you are missing key data such as names or job titles then you can either place them on a list where you send them emails without personalisation or better still get in touch with these contacts and address your database.