Faux familiarity is worse than none at all
Sure, it's easy to grab a first name from a database or glean some info from a profile. But when you pretend to know me, you've already started our relationship with a lie. You've cheapened the tools we use to recognize each other and you've tricked me, at least a little. Direct mail used to take advantage of this technique a lot, and since they measure everything, they knew when it worked. Online, though, we're seeing less disciplined marketers (big and small) ...
