How to personalize a newsletter or subject line with the recipient's first name or full name

Flashissue lets you personalize your emails with the recipient's name. Personalization can be used in the newsletter itself, and also in the subject line.

Personalizing the newsletter text

To personalize an email in Gmail with a recipient's name open the text block to edit, and follow the following steps:

1. Click the right-most toolbar button to show the advanced toolbar:

2. With the advanced toolbar showing, find the *Insert* button, click it, and select either First Name or Full Name:

3. A special code will be added to the content block's text -- if you selected "First Name", the code will be:

%{first_name | fallback:"REPLACE THIS"}%

If you selected "Full Name", the code will be:

%{last_name | fallback:"REPLACE THIS"}%

When the newsletter is sent, this special code will be replaced by the recipient's first (or full) name.

(You don't have to use the toolbar to add the personalization codes. You can also add them by typing them directly into your text block, if you prefer that) 

Personalizing the newsletter subject

 To personalize the newsletter's subject, manually enter the special codes for First Name or Last Name into the subject line:

• First name: %{first_name}% 
• Full name: %{full_name}%

 

Using the Fallback option

In case your list doesn't include a name for a recipient, you can set a fallback option -- edit the part of the code that reads REPLACE THIS with whatever you want Flashissue to use when there's no name for the recipient.

For example, if you edited the code to look like this:

Hey %{first_name | fallback:"you"}%!

Then if the recipient has the name "John" set in your Flashissue list, the text in the newsletter will look like this:

Hey John!

But if a recipient does not have a name set in your list, it will look like this:

Hey you!

Using the fallback option is completely optional -- if you leave the code as-is, Flashissue will simply use a blank when a recipient doesn't have a name set in your list.

(You can also use the fallback option in the subject line)

Note: when you Preview your email you'll see a sample name called *John Doe*. We suggest you send a text email to so how it looks with your own name.

Example

Using Hi %(first_name | fallback:"There"}% would address all emails as Hi Jane, Hi John, etc if the contact has a name or Hi There if no name is available.

The final email will look like follows (if recipient has no first name listed in Google Contacts *Phil* will be replaced with *There*:

(Tags: mail merge, merge tag, personal, personalization)