In life, people recognize each other by name. In the email marketing world, it works just the same — users look at the sender name to identify who’s trying to get in touch with them. In this article, we’ll explore the most popular options of the email sender name and share some of the best practices for upgrading it.
Numbers behind a sender name
Below, you can see a regular Gmail account full of emails, where the first column contains the sender name, or “from” name.
In fact, sender name has a significant influence on subscribers’ decision whether to open an email or not: 42% of users first take a look at a sender name and only then decide if this email is worth opening. Moreover, 43% of users mark email as spam based on the sender name only.
That’s why it is important to find an optimal solution for a “from” name, which will help you boost open rates and build trust with your audience. To find this solution, let’s analyze four most common email sender name templates.
Company or brand name
The first and the safest way is to use your company or brand name as Messy Nessy, Tablet and Kohl’s do.
If your name is well-recognizable and easy to recall, subscribers will be more likely to remember you.
You can make your email sender name sound more friendly and personal by adding a word “team,” for instance, like Secret Escapes or Unsplash do.
Message type and brand name
If you send out different types of email campaigns, dedicate a unique sender name to each of them. For example, Nikon sends out two types of emails: promotional emails with sales, special deals and other offers from the Nikon Store, and educational with useful tips and how-tos for photographers from Nikon Learn and Explore. By the way, the second “from” name hides a call to action behind it, encouraging subscribers to become better photographers with Nikon.
Think of using distinct sender names to show the frequency of your emails. For instance, one of the Travel and Leisure email categories is a daily digest called “T+L Daily Transporter.” Another example is TED, who sends the most interesting videos of the week from “This week on TED.com.”
Another solution for your daily emails is to mention the time of the day when you send them out. Huffington Post, for instance, sends emails every morning, which is evident for every recipient from its sender name.
Representative and company name
Hubspot once held an email marketing experiment and tested two variations of different sender names for the same email. A “personal name + company name” option received 7.10% open rate and 0.96% click-through rate compared to 6.57% and 0.73% for the “company name only” alternative.
See the example from Ometria Blog. The company chooses the sender names for its digest based on the blog post author.
If you have a few regular content writers, this may be a really good option for you. The audience gets used to personal names and, in the long run, will be able to connect each topic to the “from” name.
Make sure the email sender name isn’t too long and is fully visible in the mailbox. Sometimes, it’s a good idea to make your sender name shorter by eliminating the word “from” and replacing it with a simple at sign.
Company or brand representative only
To build trust, you can use a name of a well-known representative of your company — a leading expert, a head of the sales department, and so on. In this case, don’t forget to mention the name of the company in a subject line so that your audience won’t be confused. Here’s an example from SnapApp:
If you run a personal blog like Anna Runyan does, it means that people subscribed to learn more from you. So don’t be shy to use your own name.
Five email sender name learnings to put into practice
The way you introduce your brand and yourself to the audience affects your open rates, subscribers’ trust, and, eventually, the overall success of your email campaign. To enjoy the best results possible, follow these simple recommendations:
- Make your sender name recognizable. First of all, analyze why people subscribed, and then define the name which will respond to their needs.
- If you have a lot of valuable content to share, divide it into several groups and choose a sender name either according to the value each type of your messages brings to the audience or based on its frequency.
- Avoid one of the most common email mistakes, say no to variations like “noreply@XYZ.com” or “info@XYZ.com” as they sound unfriendly and impersonal.
- Always check how sender names look on different devices and email clients to make sure they aren’t too long and are displayed correctly.
- Test a couple of different options to see which works best for your audience.
We are always on the lookout for useful email marketing cases and are eager to learn more about your experience. Share your success stories with us and get published in SendPulse blog!
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