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WHITE P A P E R
Standing Out
in the Inbox:
Secrets of Successful
“From” Names
and Subject Lines
Email.Marketing.Automation.
WHITE PAPER
Standing Out in the Inbox:
Secrets of Successful “From” Names and Subject Lines
W
hile there is some debate about just who first muttered the phrase, “You never get a second chance to make a first
impression,” one can safely assume that neither Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde nor Will Rogers had email communications in
mind when he did. Yet the phrase has never been more applicable than in today’s world of the cluttered inbox, where customers
and prospects overwhelmed by marketing and advertising messages give emails a mere scan before deciding how to interact
with them—or even if they should.
For email marketers looking to stand out from the noise, determining “From” names and subject lines could be among the most
important decisions you’ll make. These will be the first aspects of your email recipients see and will help dictate whether they
ignore, delete or open your message—and are even more critical for growing companies that lack instant brand recognition.
Yet despite the significance of “From” names and subject lines, many misconceptions remain concerning best practices, causing
marketers to spend valuable time and energy focusing on the wrong areas. Here’s a look at the key factors marketers should
consider when choosing “From” names and subject lines, from general guidelines to the details worth agonizing over—and the
ones you can safely place on the back burner in favor of focusing on long-term engagement.
THE “FROM” NAME
When selecting a “From” name, many marketers use the company or brand name,
while others opt for a publication title or person’s name. Some simply go with an
email address.
It seems like a minor item, especially because it occupies less space and prominence than the subject line, but the “From” name is critical. Most recipients
will look at the “From” name first and will discard or mark as spam
messages from senders they don’t recognize.
Several changes in today’s email environment have made the
“From” name more important. Attention spans are shrinking.
And although people aren’t less interested in email, they are
spending less time on irrelevant email.
Today’s inboxes are getting flooded with
commercial emails, transactional
messages and social-network
notifications—many bearing
repetitive or undistinguishable
subject lines.
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So, the “From” name has taken on added importance in
determining how recipients will interact with an email.
Another game-changing trend: Many email recipients
use mobile devices to triage their inboxes and then
more closely read what they are interested in later on
their laptop or desktop computer. With some inboxes
on mobile devices cutting off the subject line after
only eight to 10 characters, or about 35 characters on
iPads, the “From” name is what stands out.
What Makes an Effective
“From” Name?
When choosing a “From” name, there are two key
attributes to keep top of mind. The first is selecting a
name that’s easily recognizable. The second is consistency—using the same name to increase recipient
familiarity with your brand and build a relationship.
An effective “From” name:
• Becomes the “face” of your company or brand
• Serves as a trigger to open your messages
• Stands out in the sea of subject-line sameness
• Helps readers find your message if it gets routed
to the junk folder
• Differentiates individual message streams such
as promotional versus transactional
• Is what the recipient uses to sort or search
messages
In general, the obvious choice—the one that makes
sense and which recipients would expect to see—
is the best option for a “From” name. Then, it’s just a
matter of sticking with it to establish instant recognition
and trust.
A vague and ineffective “From” name, on the other
hand, can doom an email to be deleted, unopened
or even provoke a spam complaint, along with
accompanying decreases in clicks and conversions.
When “From” Names Go Bad
The worst mistake marketers make with the “From”
line is not specifying a friendly “From” name at all,
instead using a generic address such as “edeals@
bigbrand.com” or “[email protected].”
These from “names” are harder to recognize, less
trustworthy, simply look like spam, and are basically
missed branding opportunities.
Although almost any email address is bad as a
“From” name, the most heinous of these is the chilly
“[email protected]” address. If a customer has just
made a purchase or otherwise interacted with you,
“don’t call us, we’ll call you” is not the warm and
fuzzy vibe you want to send.
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While certainly more personal than donotemailus@
123.com, using a specific person’s name—or worse,
several different individual names—is also a mistake.
Unless that person is your brand, it’s likely one of the
biggest email mistakes you’ll ever make.
When You Should
Use “Mary Smith”
as the “From”
Name
The reason? Your customers and prospects are likely
receiving emails every day from some variation of “Mary
Smith”—and in many instances have no idea who
“Mary Smith” is or what company she is with.
In two situations, using a person’s
name in the “From” line is the
best bet:
It’s even worse if the company or brand name is so
widely known that having a stranger’s name attached to
it makes it looks suspicious. Think of those pitches that
fill up today’s junk folders with offers to enhance this,
enlarge that or help you get rich quick.
Even if you can show you have built up some brand
equity or recognition by using a person’s name, what
happens when that person leaves? General Mills
doesn’t have this problem with Betty Crocker, but
your email program will suffer if you’re changing your
“From” name every time your “Mary Smith” leaves
the company.
Why do companies make this mistake?
1) The “Celebrity Persona”: The
person’s name is your brand or is
so recognizable, especially in your
business domain, that it actually
makes sense (e.g. Steve Jobs,
Martha Stewart, Seth Godin).
2) The Nurture Email: If you’re a
company deploying lead-nurture
emails, and the prospect has
already had direct contact from a
specific salesperson, using that
sales rep’s name in the “From”
line works well because of the
direct relationship the prospect
now has.
• They don’t know any better.
• They believe the urban legend that says that ISPs
filter emails that come from companies but not
individuals.
• They believe some unknown person’s name will
stand out in a sea of popular brand names. Yes, it
might stand out—but as a spam indicator.
• They’ve always done it this way. And they aren’t
going to change now.
Bottom line: Going with a brand name readers will
recognize is usually the best bet.
The Curse of Inconsistency
Changing your “From” name to reflect a one-time or
occasional change in message content simply confuses
the recipient.
Common temptations to make this mistake are: special
messages from the company president, brand manager or publication editor; an invitation to attend a live
event; or mass content written to look like a one-to-one,
personal message.
Resist the temptation to switch out a perfectly good
“From” name, such as the company, brand or publication
name, simply as a gimmick or attention-getter.
Do, however, customize the actual content within the
email. A special message from the CEO can end with
his or her signature, an event invitation can actually look
like an invitation, and an email touting a special promotion can feature coupon imagery.
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New Inbox Enhancements
and “From” Names
an essential factor in prompting users to mark your
messages as “Important.”
Facebook’s “next generation messaging” system, Gmail’s
Priority Inbox, AOL’s Project Phoenix and other similar
inbox enhancements have added prioritization features
that enable users to sort and view email according to
whether the sender is a contact or connection.
In addition, with Facebook doing away with subject
lines, “From” names and brand ID become even more
crucial in determining whether recipients ignore, delete
or open your message.
In this new landscape, the marketers’ challenge is
to get their messages categorized as “Important” (or
similar term) rather than being banished to categories
such as “Everything Else” or “Other.” Having a highly
recognizable, trusted and consistent “From” name is
THE SUBJECT LINE
Countless articles have been written about subject lines,
covering everything from length to wording to style in
exhaustive detail—and with good reason. Subject lines
convey important, timely information to the recipient, can
support or hurt your brand image, and are a major driver
of click-through and conversion rates.
But keep in mind that if your email program needs
a “killer” subject line on each and every message to
succeed, you have larger issues to tackle. Tinkering
endlessly with your subject lines can be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: It solves a little
problem, but not the big one that could sink you.
Although it’s still important to test subject lines (see sidebar on p. 5 for tips), improving the foundational elements
of your email program, combined with the directional
approach of your subject lines, likely will have the greatest impact. Here’s a guide to 12 keys for successful
subject lines, the primary factors that impact subject line
importance, and how subject lines affect social sharing.
12 Keys for Successful Subject Lines
Though different situations may call for different
approaches to subject lines, there are
a few core best practices that savvy
marketers should keep in mind. To encourage
message opens, properly convey your value
proposition and help direct recipients to
take the desired action:
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Without question, now’s the time to revisit your “From”
name and make sure it’s the shortest, most logical,
most recognized brand that would make sense to
subscribers and that they would most likely expect to
see in their inboxes. This is one first impression you
can’t afford to get wrong.
1) Consider including a product, sub-brand or
newsletter name early in the subject line when
you use the same “From” name for multiple
message streams.
2) Use subject lines of short, medium or long length
but make sure to include key information within the
first 40 to 50 characters.
3) Be creative. Use personality and humor when
appropriate, but make sure humor is consistent with
your brand.
4) Never trick or mislead in an effort to inflate open
rates. Subject lines that overpromise or deceive will
ultimately destroy trust with recipients, damaging
your brand and driving customers away.
5) Highlight the primary offer of the message. Generic
content approaches, like “Wednesday’s Deal of the
Day,” or “Top Headlines for Thursday August 26,” will
have minimal impact on engagement unless you
make them more relevant to the email’s
specific content.
6) Use a sense of urgency—
dates, deadlines and a sense
of scarcity to help motivate
recipients to take action.
Do’s and Don’ts
of “From” Name
Usage
1) Do pick the most logical, recognized brand that would make
sense to subscribers and that
they would most likely expect to
see in their inboxes.
2) Don’t change “From” names
repeatedly. Once you choose a
name, stick with it.
3) Do use different “From” names
to differentiate among newsletter
brands or email streams. However, incorporate a common style,
such as the brand or company
name, to promote continuity. As
an example, bmibaby, the UK airline, uses multiple “From” names,
each of which clearly signals a
different kind of message stream:
• “bmibaby” is the “From” name
on promotional messages.
• “bmibaby Customer Contact
Centre” is the “From” name
on flight-related triggered
messages, such as pre-flight
checklists.
4) Don’t use a long “From” name—
keep it as short as possible,
while still conveying your
brand correctly.
5) Do test a few “From” names
(over a few sends to increase
confidence in the results) if
you’re starting a new email
program or if you have a
strategic reason to change your
“From” name and are unsure of
the best new option.
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7) Personalize with targeted content based on preferences, demographics and behavior, e.g. “Price alert:
Cheap deals from Atlanta going fast” or “Lindsay,
Details on Your Upcoming Hotel Stay.”
8) Avoid subject lines that are generic/boring
(“From the desk of John Smith, Editor – June 19,
2011,” “September’s White Paper of the Month) or
spammy/vague (“Making History”).
9) Generally avoid all caps, exclamation points
and overly aggressive subject lines that might get
flagged as spam.
10) Test, test, test—sometimes breaking the rules
can pay off.
11) Be contextual and timely. Leverage topics in the
news, cultural events and customer lifecycle stages
for creativity—but be careful that you don’t offend
segments of your subscriber base.
12) Use conversion rate to measure subject line
effectiveness. The purpose of a subject line goes
beyond opens and is key to setting recipients up to
take the action you want them to take.
By adhering to these practices, you’ll improve your
chances of crafting subject lines that encourage opens
and click-throughs, reflect your messaging goals, and
speak to the needs and interests of your recipients as
individual customers, readers and prospects.
Factors That Impact Subject
Line Importance
Once you’ve embraced the tips listed above, knowing which factors apply to your program can help you
evaluate how much additional time your team should
focus on subject lines. If you have a powerful, recognized and trusted brand, coupled with the right “From”
name, then your subject lines theoretically shouldn’t
matter as much as that of a lesser-known brand or
poorly executed “From” name.
Here are three key factors that help determine
subject line importance:
Viewing Platform: While many mobile devices like
the iPhone/iTouch/iPad show the entire subject line
of an email, others such as the BlackBerry tend to
show fewer than 10 characters. Here, your brand and
“From” name will likely trump what you can do in eight
or nine characters.
Another consideration: Especially in the B2B world,
many recipients view the top of an email message
through their email client’s preview pane. Thus, the top
portion of the email can support, enhance or even top
the subject line content.
Previous Customer Experience. An email message’s
intent helps determine the subject line’s importance.
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Transactional emails such as order confirmations and
shipping notices often have unexciting subject lines,
but have the highest render rates because they are
so relevant.
Renewal notices, billing notices and the like are also
highly relevant, but creativity can have a big impact. For
example, instead of “Your XYZ Magazine Subscription Is
About to Expire,” say “Are You Prepared to Lose Access
to Exclusive XYZ Tips?
Triggered or behavior-based emails such as a cart
abandonment or “Happy Birthday” email are inherently more relevant and valuable to a subscriber than
a generic broadcast email. Unless the subject line is
extremely poor, one of these email types is likely to
deliver much greater engagement than the best subject
line from a broadcast email.
Within a birthday message, for example, testing and
then tweaking different directional styles of subject
lines will likely produce incremental improvement.
Boredom and Repetition: Frequency combined with
repetitive subject lines can hasten disengagement. Four
emails a week from the same retailer, with subject lines
that are mild variations of “20% Off and Free Shipping,”
may put many recipients to sleep. If your company is
guilty of this, you likely need an email program makeover, not just a new approach to subject lines.
Look at it this way: If almost every email you send is
some variation on “Last Chance for Free Shipping” or
“Save 15% & Free Shipping Till Friday,” then you’ve
created a virtual Catch-22. These subject lines work
and pull people in, just like “Sale” signs in store windows, but future subject lines will have to work harder
to stand out.
After a temporary increase in conversions, you’ll quickly
reach a point of diminishing returns if you don’t mix up
your subject lines. Worse, subscribers will likely tune
you out. For more lasting engagement with customers
and prospects, try focusing on conveying your broader
value proposition to recipients.
Subject Lines and Social Sharing
With the rise of social media, many marketers have
been looking for ways to increase social sharing of
their messages, offers, etc. And while some creative
elements don’t seem to factor heavily into an email’s
“shareworthiness,” emails most frequently shared
are more likely to feature brands or product names in
the subject line rather than specific offers. One study
showed that messages in the top-performing quartile
are nearly twice as likely to brand the subject line
(42 percent) than messages in the bottom quartile
(23 percent)1.
Getting Subject
Line Testing Right
A/B subject-line testing is one of
the most popular tests to execute.
Perhaps because of that, the results
are the most misinterpreted too.
But with a few easy steps, you can
minimize testing mistakes.
Before testing subject lines, analyze
your previous sends and see what,
if any, trends you can see regarding
types of subject lines that drove
higher open, click and conversion
rates. Use this analysis to help drive
what you want to test going forward.
If you do an A/B split test, make sure
the list splits are randomly selected
(e.g., every nth name). Otherwise, if
you split by last name, for example,
there can be built-in bias.
In some cases, a more effective
technique is to use an A/B/C/D test
split. You can test more variables
that way and help ensure you’re not
testing apples and oranges.
To that end, make sure the split
email creatives are exactly the
same, except for the subject line.
The split emails should also be sent
on the same day and time—even if
they’re separated by a day or a few
hours, that time difference could
drive different results.
Know what you want to test going
in. Is it subject line length, copy style
or personality? Use of incentives
or product brand names? Have a
plan to test a number of subject
line variables progressively so that
at some point you have a strong
sense of what works best with your
subscribers—length, personality,
offers, etc.
To increase confidence in the
results, don’t just conduct the test
one time and conclude a winner.
Conduct a similar test (testing the
same research question) at least a
few times to minimize variables that
could affect the outcome.
continued page 6
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The greater prevalence of brand names in the subject
line of more frequently shared emails supports the
notion that trust and affinity are important motivators
of sharing. Also, the lower propensity to use offerbased subject lines among emails in the top quartile
supports the expectation that the subscriber’s own
THE POWER OF RELEVANCY
”From” names and subject lines are clearly important,
but today’s sophisticated prospects and customers also
know that you can’t judge a book solely by its cover. In
the long run, a careful mix of trusted “From” names,
catchy yet direct subject lines and relevant, engaging
content is the best way to beat inbox fatigue.
The recurring reminder of value—not just the occasional home run—is what your email program should
therefore aim to routinely achieve. Take subject lines.
Do they matter? Yes, much like headlines in newspapers. But just as people read their favorite columnists
regardless of the topic, so will your recipients be more
inner motivations are superior drivers of sharing over
offers with simple price cuts or savings.
In short, if you want your emails to go viral, focus
more on consistently engaging your subscribers
rather than developing a splashy promotion with a
flashy subject line.
likely to open and engage with your emails if they know
they’ll likely discover something valuable inside.
By carefully selecting your “From” name, making
smart decisions regarding subject lines, and constantly
looking for new ways to make your messages more
relevant and engaging, you can make a strong first
impression that transitions over time into a long,
mutually beneficial relationship.
from page 5
Finally, determine your winning
subject lines using your most
important conversion metric—e.g.,
revenue, average order value,
downloads or registrations. If you
just use the open rate to determine
the winner, you might actually be
picking the wrong subject line.
For example, it’s common for
e-retailers doing A/B testing to
discover that the subject line with a
lower open rate actually produces
more revenue. That’s because
although the “lower” subject line
was of interest to fewer people,
it was of more interest to those
that opened. Hence, a greater
percentage went on to make a
purchase.
Footnotes
1- Silverpop, “Emails Gone Viral: Measuring ‘Share-toSocial’ Performance,” Sept. ’09.
To find out more about Silverpop’s Engage platform and how it can benefit your company, please contact our office nearest you.
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