Email Marketing Tip #18: Keep Your Friendly ‘From’ Line Familiar
EMAIL MARKETING TIP #18
Don’t send your emails from someone at your company. Most likely, your subscribers won’t know your CEO’s name, but they will recognize your company name. They’re expecting to get an email from your company – not from a person at your company. If you want your emails opened, make sure you keep your friendly from line familiar to your recipients.
Here’s why the “From” line matters in Effective Email Marketing
By Christopher Penn, WhatCounts
Not too long ago, I received an email from Ben Downing* with the subject line, “How to Turn a Good Idea into a Great Presentation.” The subject line immediately caught my attention. As a guy with a ton of (good?) ideas who also does a lot of presentations, I was interested. Then, I glanced at the from name: Ben Downing. My first thought, “Who the heck is Ben Downing?” I tapped into my memory bank – for 7 seconds – and came up with nothing. I was pretty sure I had never heard of this Ben Downing.
So, what did I do next? I deleted the email. Total time spent thinking about this email was approximately 15 seconds. That’s about 14 seconds more than I normally spend per email.
Being an email marketing guy, I decided to go to my trash folder a few minutes later and look at that email again (Note: I’m pretty sure this is not what “normal” consumers do). I opened the email. Low and behold, the email was actually from eMarketer. See below for a screengrab of the top of the eMarketer email:
Now let me be clear: eMarketer is a company that I trust. I love their reports. I find value in (nearly) every email they send. I use their content in presentation. I share their emails, their reports, their charts, etc. The only problem? Based on the sender (From Name) Ben Downing, I never would have opened this email. I don’t know Ben.
So, does the from name (sender) of an email matter? You bet.
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Published: September 23, 2012 By:
