The first and most obvious thing to consider when creating our email lists, is what information to actually put in them. Let’s start with the obvious. Names and Email Addresses. Email Addresses are pretty self explanatory, so let’s talk a little bit about Names.

It’s a good idea to store names in two separate fields, one for first name and one for last name. This way, when you are sending out emails, you can use “Merge Tags” to address your audience by name. Merge tags are what allow you to customize emails for each recipient. For example, you can send the same email to 100 people, but everyone will see their own name, such as “Hey Bill!, Hey Mary!, Hey Steve!, etc…

If you store names in two separate fields, you can then selectively use first and last names in your emails. If you were to store a full name in a single field, when you addressed people by name using a merge tag, everyone would see their full name which comes across as pretty robotic and inauthentic (ex: “Hey John Smith!”)

Another consideration is to store Company Names. This could be helpful because it again could allow you to customize your emails with company names using Merge Tags. These could be used in both the content of your email, as well as the subject line. For example, an email with the subject “Hey Ted, any upcoming Voice-Over needs at ABC Studios?” is much more enticing than “Hey, any upcoming Voice-Over needs?”

So basically think about any information you would like to have available to customize your emails with, and store that info in your lists. Remember, your email lists are not your CRM database, which is where you should be storing more detailed info, so you don’t have to go overboard.

Separate Lists