How To Avoid The Dreaded “Dear Firstname” Error

This morning, it happened again. I received a letter with the kind words “Dear Firstname” as the introduction. I guess some Internet marketer has very red ears, now, when he’s discovered mistake. I’ve done it myself in the past, but I found a foolproof way to avoid it. (It works for me = proof.) And you can use the same method.

Look at this letter 😀 And now read how to avoid it.

I use a small application that lets me write a keyword or abbreviation that I’ve chosen beforehand, and it will then spit out the whole text. It can do tons of things, even include graphics, but for now, what I want you to show you is this:

Instead of having to remember the code, AWeber uses to automatically insert the first name, I just remember the word “first”. That simple. But since I don’t want my application to replace every “first” with the code {!firstname_fix} , I’ve added a precaution. I have to put a # before the keyword, like this: #first. Everytime I feed the program with this key, it will spit out the full AWeber code.

No more “Dear {!firstname_fix } or any other error from me.

I use the program called Typinator for this task. It’s for Mac, and the price is at the moment 19.99 eur. I’m sorry, I cannot see the price in dollars, since it has automatically switched to euro.

Before I switched to Mac, I used ShortKeys under Windows. It is now priced $24.95, and as far as I remember it can do almost as much as Typinator. Not sure about the graphics, though.

WARNING: Shocking fact! I’m sorry, but none of the above links are affiliate links. Yes, I know… A bit shameful, but well, things like that can happen to anybody, you know.

Update 2018: I use Nagarsoft PhraseExpander now instead of Typinator and ShortKeys. There’s also a free tool called TextExpander (or is it Phrase-something?) which I hear is good.