Email Marketing and Me: Questioning the “First Name” Tag

I read a post on Substack today that perfectly summed up something I’ve been thinking for a while (and in true ADHD fashion, I lost the post in question—but trust me, it’s out there).

In it, the author said that they don’t like being called by name.

Their comments section was awash with “I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME,” and “I couldn’t agree more!” The consensus was that having a stranger call them by name felt intrusive and vaguely threatening.

When I read the post, I thought immediately of my email inbox.

Why? Because this opinion stands in direct contrast to a common piece of email copywriting advice: “Make sure you use the FIRSTNAME tag in your emails! It helps your readers feel connected to you!”

…It turns out that people are more complex than a set of copywriting tactics allows for.

Personally, I hate it when someone uses the FIRSTNAME tag. Unless you know me personally and/or are writing an email specifically to me, I don’t want to see it. My inbox is flooded with “Do this, Meg!” and “Wait ’til you hear this, Meg!” to the point where I just want to run away.

It’s overwhelming. It’s overpersonal. It (I’m gonna say it) feels kind of sinister. In other words, for me and people like me, it achieves the exact opposite of what you’re trying to do.

When I learned to blog (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I remember reading that I shouldn’t refer to my readers as a group because it would break the illusion that the blog post was a conversation between that one individual reader and me.

And that’s valid—I love a personal touch, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. What I don’t love (and it turns out I’m not alone in this) is when you shift from an implied one-on-one conversation to using my actual name. The first approach makes me feel connected. The second makes me feel manipulated and imposed on.

I’m not going to tell you what to do (because I also hate it when people do that). If you adore the first name tag and get excellent results, I love that for you. Go forth and first-name to your heart’s content. Don’t feel the need to defend yourself to me—copywriting tactics exist for a reason, so clearly, some people are all for it.

However, if using a first name tag makes you die inside, and if you’ve been forcing yourself to do it because “they” say you “should,” let this be your sign that…it’s OK to not. You can create a feeling of personal connection without it—and honestly, if you haven’t done that, using the FIRSTNAME tag isn’t going to solve your problem!