“Hi there…ummm…eerrrr…what was your name again?”

You can’t grow a business without meeting people and whenever I used to go networking (back when we could meet people face to face), I’d always struggle to remember someone’s name.

It was a bit embarrassing at times, chatting to someone and constantly scanning your memory to try and remember their name.

Of course, events with name badges were so much better – a casual glance down and the name was there straight away.

Otherwise, it was lots of “how are you doing sir” or “how is the business going m’dear”  (I know this may not sound great written down, but it’s much more preferable to maam, which will get you a hard stare!!!)

Either way, I’d always struggle with names without a prompt… and as for the business… well that was even harder!!!

Who is Dave?

The thing is, when we send an email to someone for the first time (or in fact any time), if there isn’t a good pre-existing relationship there already, you need to make sure you’re “wearing a badge”, so people know who you are.

I’ve seen it too many times, when I’ve signed up for a new mailing list and the first welcome email comes to me from “Dave”.

Who is Dave?…Where is Dave From?…How do I know him?…Is this a spam email?

It’s even worse when I get an email from a person called “Sales” or “Info”.

Email is sent from an individual to an individual and for most small businesses, your email needs to come from a named person in the business and not “sales” or “info”.

Think about it, you’re trying to create a personal connection with someone, they’ve given you their email and given you permission to contact them – and then you go and send them an email from an info@email address.

Not the best first impression.

How to address your emails for success

When you think about it, it’s quite simple. 

Every email you send needs to have ‘a badge’, just like those networking meetings that I liked.

Your email needs to come from a person AND a company.

The person makes it real and personable and starts to create a connection.

The company lets you know who it’s from, if you’ve not created that connection on a personal basis yet (and so you don’t know who “Dave” is).

How does this work?

Simply put, when you’re creating an email campaign in Mailchimp, no matter if it’s automated or a broadcast email, it needs to be sent from something like:

“Robin at Chimp Answers” or

“Robin | Chimp Answers”

That way, they know it’s from a person AND if they’ve never met me or heard of me before, they know the business I’m associated with.

If you want to get even more creative on a personal basis (and this isn’t for every business), you could get creative:

“Robin, Chief Chimp at Chimp Answers”

“Robin, head of customer happiness at Chimp Answers”

I worked with a personal trainer once and her emails came from:

“Sindy, queen of getting your backside moving at XXX personal training”

You don’t need to go crazy thought.

A simple “name | business” format will work, but you do need to make sure this is across all your Mailchimp emails, especially those that get sent early in the relationship, like welcome emails – this is the point they don’t know who you are, so need that extra “business name”.

Just like the badge in a networking meeting (I always wear mine, or at least a fleece with my business name on), it makes that first uncomfortable greeting a bit more pleasurable and puts the relationship on a stable foundation.

…and remember, unlike networking, you can’t ‘stumble’ and overcome a bad start with email – if you mess up the first step, you’re potentially lost already.

It may seem a small thing, but if it’s the difference between an opened email and one that isn’t, it’s worth it – and Mailchimp makes it very easy for you to make this happen – so there really is no excuse!