This is a weird question, but, I’m wondering if the send name should be my brand name (Damesly) -- or my personal name (kelly)?
My company is larger than just me, of course. Asking because it could be an advantage to send it out under my name. Would it help the emails to land in a primary gmail folder instead of a promotions tab?
Is there any research around this? Best practices? Would love to hear your thoughts!
Hi Kelly!
I recommend using your name. It will feel more personal, which helps build rapport. However, it helps to have your brand in there as well.
One brand who does it well is Deux (eatdeux.com).
Sometimes the sender has the founders name, if it's about a big new development like being on Shark Tank; sometimes it's somebody from operations with an update that a beloved flavour is back in stock, etc.
Other times, they just come from "Deux".
You can customise it with each campaign, so play! When you get to step 2 (Content), you'll see you can play with the Sender name, but keep the Sender email address the same if you like. I keep the address the same so that their inbox comes to trust it, and just play with the name.
Possible sender names: Kelly from Damesly, Kelly (Damesly), The Dames At Damesly... you can even have a giggle to get more opens. Let's say you had a website outage, you could flick an email to notify people and make the sender name 'Damsels In Distress' just for the one broadcast!
It can have a huge influence on opens.
With your welcome low, I'd recommend using your name and brand together e.g. Kelly from Damesly or Kelly (Damesly). Because people are new, and need reminding who the brand is, BUT it's also a prime time to nurture relationships, so a real person's name goes a long way. Even if your other flows are just from 'Damesly'.
Hope that helps 
Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. It was SO helpful and your ideas were so cute!
Hi
This is a great question, and
It’s my understanding that the “from name” doesn’t make a significant impact in deliverability. By now, Gmail, Hotmail, and others know when Klaviyo or other email marketing tools are used to send an email.
What matters more is your sending domain, its verification status, and your sender reputation. You might need to do some list warming while you’re getting started; focusing on small segments with the most engaged people, then reaching out to less engaged segments.
The person receiving your email is always the most important factor here. If they’re confused, and they don’t recognize who your email is coming from, the likelihood they will report your email as spam increases significantly.
That’s the root behind why things like “Kelley at Damesly” or “Kelley from Damesly” are so useful. It gives people the feeling of a real person at your company reaching out to them, and it reminds them of what brand this person is attached to, so they can recognize this as an email they did sign up to receive.
Come at this with a proactive customer service approach, and that can help guide your decisions when to use things like “Damesly” or “The Damesly Team” or “Kelley at Damesly” depending on what the context is for the email you’re sending.
With a welcome flow, you might start with a personal-feeling letter type of email, sent from “Kelley at Damesly” and then stick with that when you send a “here’s the story behind our brand” email. Then you might shift to “The Damesly Team” when you have a third email recommending the top 3 products for this new subscriber to start exploring.
Or if there are shipping/ order notification emails; it makes more sense for those to come from “The Damesly Team” instead of the personal touch of “Kelley at Damesly.”
What
The big important piece of this is don’t confuse your subscriber or your customer. Treat them like a person who’s being introduced to you for the first time, and then probably also needs to hear your name 2-3 times more before they start to match your “face” with your name in their mind.
It’s remarkable how many large/ successful companies I see sending emails without this introduction context, especially for new subscribers. It’s a small detail to put effort towards, but it goes a long way towards building trust and confidence in your brand.
Taylor Stitch is an interesting DTC company that does a good job of rotating through several different “from names.” Last thing I should mention is it’s almost always the same email address sending these messages. The “from name” is the only part that changes, since your sender reputation is tied more directly to the email address/ domain name used.
I hope you have fun experimenting with this while you find your brand voice for email!
~ Gabrielle
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