You're about to learn a very easy way to drastically increase your email open rates. The only catch is whether it's ethical. Read on...

Spam

Yesterday I was browsing my spam folder for genuine emails that may have slipped through Gmail's spam filter, I'm sure you can imagine it was the usual offenders; pharmaceutical products, sex sites, loans etc.

We all know it's easy to spot spam unless you're gullible but whilst browsing I felt compelled and drawn to open one of these spam emails even though I wasn't interested in the sex site being promoted (yeah ..right!) ...HONEST! So assuming I'm NOT a porn site fiend, what was the appeal? The reason was simply beacuse the sender's last name matched mine; 'Sara Hayes'.

Improving Response Rate

Social psychologists have known for some time that we tend to feel positive towards things we associate with ourselves, such as names. Behavioral Scientist Dr. Randy Garner sent a postal survey using either a similar or dissimilar name to the recipient. The surveys using similar names showed a whopping 100% increase in response rate compared to the dissimilar name equivalent.

I recently conducted a similar test on an email list but instead of similar names I used exact matches of either first or last name. The list using same name matches showed an increased open rate of 144%!

Is it Ethical to Change the Email Name Field?

Are we doing anything wrong? I'm not sure. Is this any different to using NLP in a face-to-face sales environment? In fact it's very similar to 'mirroring' a popular NLP practice. It's also common for call centre and shop floor workers to use fake names.

But, we are lying which isn't the best way to start the relationship. I'll let you decide.

Regards, {USER_FIRST_NAME} Hayes