An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words or phrases.

I regularly receive email newsletters in which the company’s name is shortened to an acronym – often in every instance: the From field, the Subject Line and in the body of the newsletter.

Something along these lines:

From: IDN /Subject: The IDN August Newsletter

If I’m not familiar with the company and their standard initials, I find it creates an immediate mental stop sign. If the subject line provides no further clues as to what the company does I usually delete it. I have no interest – nor do other subscribers – in trying to guess if something is relevant or of interest to me.

Why do companies create barriers to being opened and make it tough for people to instantly recognise them?

It think it’s because we’re all so close to our own company names and specific industry terminology we forget there are probably a lot of recipients who don’t know what they stand for.

Remember, you have seconds before people decide to delete or open (or maybe save for later) – why provide an excuse for them not to open? Sure, your established customers probably do recognise you – but what about new customers and/or new subscribers? What if the initials are the same as another company or organisation, it could be very confusing.

-> Speaking of acronyms, when used to shorten phrases or terminology, it’s a mistake to assume everyone knows all the buzzwords for your industry or business sector.

Your readers are most likely made up of customers and prospects. Some of them may be new to the industry, or new to an industry term. By throwing around acronyms you could be appearing too much of an insider – a company not willing to share knowledge. You want to make your readers feel smart – most of us don’t want to have to admit to anyone we don’t know what something means. Here’s a perfect opportunity to do some jargon busting – right there in the privacy of their own inbox.

I suggest:

• If your company does generally use initials instead of the full name, ensure the full name appears at least once in either the from or subject line – and also at least once in your newsletter.
• The first time you use an industry-specific phrase in an article, provide both the acronym and the complete phrase, e.g. Email Service Provider (ESP), and then you can use the acronym throughout the rest of the article.

Posted on September 14th, 2007 under Email Marketing, HTML email newsletters, email newsletter content, ezine strategy .
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