It’s common knowledge that whether an email is opened or trashed depends solely on the “from” address and subject line alone. Most companies include their company name in the “from” address for this reason, but tend to use the subject line for other things, figuring it’s unnecessarily repetitious. Our experience suggests otherwise.
Consider this: when people are sorting through their email inbox, they usually scan the “from” address OR the subject line column, thinking Which of these can I delete? It’s generally easier to scan down one column, rather than read back and forth across two. So if your email recipient scans the subject line column and yours doesn’t grab them, out it goes. If, however, your reader spots your company name in the subject line and you’ve established some brand loyalty, chances improve that they’ll open your email.
One recent series of emails we sent showed that those that included the company name in the subject line consistently outperformed those that didn’t by 17% to 40%, depending on the email. There were other variables at play, but in every case, the subject lines with the highest open rate included the company name. Worth doing some more scientific testing, don’t you think?
