Sitting at my desk, my phone rings, and I look down at the display and see it's my boss's extension.

It's mid-February, and we are in the midst of a couple of projects. My mind quickly runs through them all to see what this call could be about.

I pick up the phone, "This is Jason."

"Hey, could you please check on the footer of all the sites and make sure that the year is current?"

I must not have said anything because he repeated himself.

I said, "Um, sure, no problem." and hung up the phone.

It was 2000, and in 1999, leading up to Y2K, we did everything possible to make sure the world didn't melt down.

The "world" meant all the websites and applications under Cablevision's umbrella, consisting of Madison Square Garden's, Radio City's, countless TV stations, and its own websites.

How could we have missed the year in the footer of the websites?

Looking back on it now, it's pretty comical, but it was embarrassing then.

If you have the year in your email's footer, here's your chance to update it permanently.

Grab this snippet and replace the year with it.

Another fun and exciting way to spice up your templates is to ask for your subscribers' first names if you don't already have them.

This is especially important if you are using a referral engine like Sparkloop or Creator Network, where you aren't getting the first name in most cases.

Grab them right now and add both to your templates.

It's that easy!

Take a little bit at a time, and do these two things, and you'll show your subscribers that you care.

​Grab 27 other ways to personalize your emails today.​