5. Conditional variables for personalization at scale
There’s a belief that personalized email outreach is hard to do at scale — which often leads to debates about its effectiveness in general.
No argument there. It's indeed a time-consuming task, as in most cases, SDRs have to manually research each prospect and find relevant information that they can use as a personalization hook.
But what if you could make email templates slightly more personalized and more human without any extra effort? One way to do so is by using Conditional Variables 🙌
I’ve been experimenting with this tactic for months, and now I’m ready to share a few easy-to-implement ways to personalize your outreach at scale with Conditional Variables:
Greeting
CTA
P.S.
Fallback syntax
If-else syntax
1. Greeting
In my opinion, the greeting is one of the most underestimated parts of an email template. Most SDRs and AEs tend to go with the default “Hi {{FirstName}}” opening and then jump directly to the pitch.
The first thing that the prospects see once they open your email, a greeting is way more important than you might think. And using Conditional Variables is a great way to make your openings even more engaging and effective.
For example, here are some ideas for your inspiration:
how is your {{today}}? — e.g., how is your Thursday?
how's is your {{today}} going? — e.g., how’s your Thursday going?
how was your {{day_before_now_1}}? — e.g., how was your Wednesday?
good {{time_of_the_day}}, {{FirstName}} — e.g., good afternoon, John
how is your {{today}} {{time_of_the_day}} — e.g., how is your Thursday evening?
2. CTA
On the other hand, we all know that CTAs are super-important — that's how you make sure that the prospect takes the required action after reading your email.
Yet, there’s also a way to make them more human and effective with Conditional Variables. My favorite personalization tactic is to dynamically change the days I propose to schedule a discovery call based on the day when an email should be sent.
For example, if the email is sent on Monday, we can still schedule a call for this week, but if an email is sent on Thursday or Friday, it's more likely that a prospect would be busy:
Do you have 10-15 minutes for a quick chat {{#if is_monday}}today or this Tuesday{{/if}}{{#if is_tuesday}}today or this Wednesday{{/if}}{{#if is_wednesday}}today or on Friday{{/if}}{{#if is_thursday}}today or tomorrow{{/if}}{{#if is_friday}}later today or early next week{{/if}}{{#if is_weekend}}early next week{{/if}}?
So, if the email is sent on Monday, this is what the prospect will see instead of this variable:
Do you have 10-15 minutes for a quick chat today or this Tuesday?
3. P.S.
I always try to be very casual and friendly while sending my cold emails. So, even if a prospect doesn't respond to me, I want to leave a positive impression on them. And the P.S. line is a perfect place to do that.
Here is how I use the Conditional Variables in my P.S.:
{{#if time_of_the_day == 'morning' }} Have a wonderful {{now_month}} {{time_of_the_day}} 🌅 {{else}}{{/if}} {{#if time_of_the_day == 'afternoon' }} Have a wonderful {{now_month}} {{time_of_the_day}} ☀️ {{else}} {{/if}} {{#if time_of_the_day == 'evening' }} Have a wonderful {{now_month}} {{time_of_the_day}} 🌇 {{else}}{{/if}}
This variable changes my wish based on the time of the day when the email is sent. For example, if it's sent in the morning, the prospect would see just this:
Have a wonderful February morning 🌅
4. Fallback syntax
Fallback syntax comes in handy when you have to personalize some part of a template manually, but still want to do your email outreach at scale.
For example, if you have to research prospects' industry but can't find the necessary information for some of them, you might use a default value in case that Industry field is empty:
Reply has already helped other companies in the {{Industry | "SaaS"}}, such as ...
In this case, if the Industry field is empty for some prospects that are already in the sequence, the fallback variable will be replaced with the default value — "SaaS"— so I can be sure that the email would still be tailored accordingly (although not as precisely).
5. If-else syntax
It's a super-powerful approach to personalize email templates based on different fields, conditions, etc. For example, I love personalizing my follow-up emails based on the number of views of my previous email.
Another approach is to personalize my call to action based on whether I know their phone number or not, for example:
{{#if Phone}} Can I call you on this phone number {{Phone}} to discuss details? {{else}} Btw, what is your phone number? {{/if}}
There are tons of other useful tactics to make your outreach emails more personal and human with the help of conditional variables. In most cases, it takes just a few minutes to incorporate these tactics into email templates.
You can find some ready-made templates including Conditional V variables here - https://reply.io/new-in-reply-dynamic-and-conditional-variables-september-2020/
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