# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  Sending personal emails

## duncan drennan

There are few online marketers who would recommend desystemising your email sending and making it personal - except the one marketer who actually matters.




> I want you to add friction back in. If you want to be seen as being personal, the best strategy is to be personal, which is slow and expensive.
> 
> Don't send the same email to large numbers of people.If you have more than a few people to contact, you'll be tempted to copy and paste or mail merge. Don't. You'll get caught. It shows. If it's important enough for someone to read, it's important enough for you to rewrite.Careful with the salutation. Don't write, "Dear Claudia," if you don't usually write "Dear" at the beginning of all your emails.Don't mush the salutation together with the rest of the note. If I had a dollar for every email that started, "Joe, When experts come together..." That's not personal. That's lazy merging. See rule 1.


Read the rest of these email sending tips on Seth Godin's blog.

What do you think? Will personal emails result in more business for you? Are you willing to add that friction?

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## Dave A

> There are few online marketers who would recommend desystemising your email sending and making it personal


How do you send a truly personal email when there is no relationship?

I also think there is a difference between personal and personalisation.



> Don't mush the salutation together with the rest of the note. If I had a dollar for every email that started, "Joe, When experts come together..." That's not personal. That's lazy merging. See rule 1.


Nope. That's just bad writing style. "Personal" has got nothing to do with it. 



> Will personal emails result in more business for you?


I'm sure personal emails will increase sales to people you've already got a relationship with. But should you be sending them personal emails *only* and drop them off your "news" mailing list? 

If that's your solution, the *real* problem is what you are sending out as bulk mail and/or how you are managing and personalising your list.

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## derrickm

I agree with much of what Seth says, and I think what he's really saying is 'Don't send impersonal emails'. 

I like what Josh Bernoff wrote about "How to be a human"

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## duncan drennan

> I agree with much of what Seth says


I am interested to know what you don't agree with...

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## 3x-a-d3-u5

I have to agree with Dave A here.

I send out plenty of email every day all saluted (is that right?) the same way. 

Hi XYZ, 

blah blah blah

Kind regards,
name sdsfljksg

I don't think you can catch peoples attention using unsolicited email anyway. Personally i think that SPAM isn't really read, no matter how great its written. Unless it has some catchy keywords while I'm glance over it, it will get deleted. As Dave put so correctly:


> How do you send a truly personal email when there is no relationship?

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## derrickm

I've read most of Seth's books, and I'm a fan. But I disagree with a couple of his tips and his assumption that if you are someone who wants to "blast as many emails as they can as cheaply as they can", you're 'greedy' or 'lazy'. 

Email marketing is a great tool for any business, whether it has a couple of dozen customers or a couple of thousand. Just because the same email goes out to a thousand people doesn't automatically make it impersonal. 

Personal email is always one-on-one. Mass emails can be written in such a way that they engage the recipient in the same way as a personal email. It comes down to knowing your audience and sharing something about yourself.

I disagree about not sending HTML or pictures. Every email I send is sent in both HTML and text versions, by my email client. That's the way I have it set up. My HTML emails look like text emails, except that I can use anchor text for links, and I can insert pictures if I like. I don't know where Seth gets the idea that people don't send pictures in personal emails - ever heard of holiday snaps? 

The rest of the tips are great, and they apply whether you're writing to a friend or to a hundred subscribers on your mailing list.

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Dave A (13-Jan-09)

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## garthu

Mailing is mailing! Personal emails (merged) do without a doubt grab better attention and with out that "dear john" , the mail is disregarded before it is even started. In my case can you imagine trying to "personalise 2500 emails!! Of those 2500, prbably around 350 or so are people i deal directly or have done in the last couple of years. Even try to "personailse 100 emails   :EEK!: 
Gives me shivers to even consider. I reckon bulk exceeds the benefits of personal... but thats my opinion  :Smile:

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## Dave A

Is it coincidence that Aweber came out with this blog post now?



> Think before you personalize
> If you’ve been subscribing to email marketing campaigns for any length of time, you’ve probably experienced personalization several times.
> 
> How much of it impresses you? How much of it makes the email feel “personal?”
> 
> Yeah… me too.

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