donotreply@emailaddress

December 14 2015

If I was Marketing Minister of the World I would outlaw any email addresses that start with sales@, enquiries@ or info@. If you need to have a generic email address, give it some proper consideration and make it (at least) seem as though it is actually going to a human. Make up a name: financefrank@yourcompany.co.uk or annieadmin@yourcompany.co.uk. Both are memorable and instantly identifiable within your business. I don’t mind the ones where someone has tried to be witty such as fun@ or hello@ but really, why not just put a person’s name?

The follow on point from this has to be unanswered emails – a result of these generic addresses. If you have a deadend@ email address, at least make sure it is manned and someone is responsible for replying. The same goes for those awful enquiry forms people seem to like having at the end of their website contact page. “Fill in the form below and no one will contact you EVER”.

And finally, don’t ever send emails out from an address entitled ‘donotreply@’. Ironically, these types of emails always provoke an overwhelming requirement to reply. Communication is 2-way: by removing the ability to respond you are simply being rude. It doesn’t matter if you are a household name or a one-man-band: donotreply@ is the email equivalent of ‘talk to the hand’.

Anyway that’s my Marketing Minister opening address –  if you have any comments, please email andrea@fluentpr.co.uk and I promise to reply!



This entry was posted in Communications, Client care, Branding, Marketing, Business advice and posted on December 14, 2015


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