Never, ever, EVER send an email like this...

There are a few email marketing commandments thou shalt not break, and this is one of them.

January 17, 2022

Howdy,

There are a lot of shady email marketing practices.

From buying lists to sending you multiple sales emails a day to making it difficult to unsubscribe. We’ve all experienced these tactics from desperate email marketers.

But the other day, as I was scrolling Twitter, I was exposed to (perhaps) the worst email marketing tactic of all time.

Someone changed the “From Name” section of their email to Stripe…as in the payment service.

And the subject line?

“You’ve been paid”.

Besides the ridiculousness of impersonating a payment service, the email itself is written so poorly.

“Nick, got you attention?”

“After a while you won’t be worries…”

I mean…c’mon.

In the world of email marketing, few things are as coveted as your sender reputation.

The ultimate goal for you or your brand is that when someone sees your name in their inbox, they stop whatever they’re doing and they open your email.

This can only happen when your brand becomes trustworthy and adds value to someones life.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with your subject line and From Name.

As an example, I can see changing your from name to Santa and having a subject line that says, “St. Nick got you a 20% off your next order with Brand Co.”

Cheesy? Yes.

Effective? Maybe.

Spammy? No.

It’s still obvious that this email is from the fictitious company Brand Co. even though the From Name is changed to Santa.

I have no idea if that tactic would work, but it may be worth trying.

The takeaway here is clear: There is no world in which deceiving your subscribers for cheap, useless open rates is worth destroying your sender reputation.

Happy sendin’. Make sure to subscribe!

Adios,Andrew