This question has a short, simple and direct answer: VERY! The old expression "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" is more applicable to email marketing campaigns than just about anywhere else. Even in an age in which social media is becoming an increasingly popular way for people to read news and communicate with one another, most adults still field dozens, if not hundreds, of emails per day.

So how much time do you have to get someone’s attention and keep it? Seconds! If you don’t make an immediate connection, it’s over, and you may never get a second chance.

Now the best—and perhaps only—way to get the attention your business or service so richly deserves is by personalizing your message. But personalized emails involve more than just addressing the recipient by his or her first name. To help you navigate the twists and turns of email personalization, we’ve assembled some tips and suggestions on how to maximize your email marketing campaign and increase its odds of success with personalized emails.

First of all, years and years of sifting through emails has conditioned people to discard anything that doesn’t come from a recognizable friend or family member and/or doesn’t open with a personalized greeting. Any message that doesn’t refer to the recipient by name is getting discarded—period—never to be pondered again. You have to be on a first-name basis with your recipient. That’ll get you in the door, so to speak, and leave the recipient open to reading your message.

Once you have someone’s attention, get to the point—quick! Maintaining the attention of someone, even via personalized emails, is like walking a tightrope. You’re never really "safe" and one misstep can send you hurtling below, ruining everything. Explain what your email marketing campaign is all about quickly, efficiently and informatively. People don’t have the time or patience for long emails.

It’s very important to personalize a greeting and deliver a concise message that is easy to read and easy to grasp. But even more important than putting a "face" on the personalized emails is adding personality to them. People are conditioned to catch mass emails and send them into the trash. You need to craft an email that sounds as if it was written by a real person for a real person.

How to do that? When choosing email marketing software for a campaign that you will run yourself, make sure there is no company logo but yours anywhere in the email. Personalized emails should ONLY have the name of the company that is SENDING the email. This is the most essential part of a successful email marketing campaign. If someone feels as if he or she is being read a "form letter" that has been generated by some faceless corporation, he/she will stop reading and you’ll lose that reader forever. Make the email look like it came from you and you alone. Then make the content feel folksy and personal and aimed specifically at the recipient. This way, your message stands a far better chance of being delivered.

It’s a challenge to put together a marketing campaign via email. Personalization is absolutely the key to your success, so make sure that you choose the right email marketing software to get your message across safely and securely!