What’s The Missing Secret To Getting Your Emails Opened?

by Richmond Kennedy · October 31, 2026

Everyone keeps telling you that email marketing is finished, that nobody opens emails any more, and that you are wasting your time unless you are spending your evenings on video instead. That is not what the numbers show, and it is not what your own inbox tells you either.

What usually gets missed is that most people trying to get their emails opened are chasing the wrong fix. They rewrite the subject line for the third time this month and wonder why nothing changes. The real problem is usually sitting one line above the subject line, in the name their subscriber sees first.

If you are already trying to make ends meet, you have probably spent an hour writing something useful for your list. Finding out that almost nobody opened it feels like a kick in the stomach. That feeling is worth fixing properly rather than patching with another clever headline.

The One Thing They See Before Anything Else

A subscriber does not read your email before they decide whether to open it. They scan the sender name first, in a fraction of a second, and they make their mind up right there.

A name they recognise gets a chance. A name that does not ring a bell gets deleted, sometimes without the subject line even being read.

That is the whole problem with getting your emails opened, and it has almost nothing to do with how good your writing is. It has everything to do with whether your name looks familiar in a crowded inbox.

A name they recognise gets a chance. A name that does not ring a bell gets deleted.

More small, overlooked fixes like this one sit among other things I have shared recently, because they rarely get the credit a flashy headline gets, even though they often matter more.

Why This One Gets Missed So Easily

I spent years in pastoral work before any of this, and years before that dealing with people face to face on the London Underground and driving buses. Both of those jobs taught me the same thing: people only listen to someone they already recognise and trust.

Nobody opened up to me in a church hallway because I had a clever opening line. They opened up because they had seen my face before and knew who I was. That same principle runs straight through to getting your emails opened today, just in a different setting.

Think about the last unfamiliar number that called your phone. You did not answer it, not because the person calling was dishonest, but because you had no way of knowing who it was yet. An inbox works exactly the same way, every single day.

A subscriber on your list is doing exactly what a person in a difficult conversation does. They are checking, in a heartbeat, whether this is someone they already know. If the name does not match what they remember, the door stays shut.

Three Small Changes That Work

None of this needs new software or a bigger list. It needs three small decisions, made once, and then left alone.

First, match your sender name to whatever your subscriber saw when they joined. If your welcome message came from Richie Kenn, that is the name they expect to see again, not something different three weeks later.

Picture signing up to a newsletter from someone called Sarah, then getting your next email from Sarah’s Marketing Team instead. You would hesitate before opening it, because the name no longer matches what you remember agreeing to receive.

Second, where it helps, combine your own name with your business name. I run my own list through eShowcase, and keeping one consistent sender name there has helped more subscribers open what I send.

Third, pick that name and stop touching it. Changing a sender name, even for a sensible reason, resets the recognition you have spent months building and quietly costs you readers for weeks afterward.

What Getting This Right Looks Like

Picture two people sending the exact same email to the exact same size list. One changes their sender name every few weeks, depending on which tool they are using that month. The other keeps the same name, every single time, for a year.

The first subscriber never gets the chance to build a habit of recognising that name. The second does, without even trying. Over a year, that gap in getting your emails opened stops looking small.

You do not need a big list to see this play out. Even a few hundred subscribers will show the pattern once you watch your open numbers over a few months instead of a few days.

Nobody on your list will ever email you to say this is why they stopped opening your messages. They will simply stop, quietly, and you will never know unless you check the one field most people never think to look at.

Where This Leads Next

Nick James has run and tested email lists since well before most of us had ever heard the term email marketing. He puts it plainly: a recognisable name is what earns the right for your subject line to even be read.

He built a complete walk-through of what decides whether an email gets opened at all. It covers this exact fix alongside the rest of what makes a list perform well.

If getting your emails opened consistently is something you are still working on, Lazy Way To Email Riches walks through the full system Nick James uses in his own business. It runs from the first subscriber you ever add through to the habits that keep people opening what you send for years afterward. This will not solve everything overnight, but if you want to go further than one sender name fix, it is worth a proper look.

Small changes like this one rarely feel dramatic on the day you make them. Give it a few sends and watch your own numbers move instead of rewriting another subject line. Your subscribers already said yes to you once. Make sure they still recognise you the next time you show up in their inbox.

To your success.
Richie Kenn