What’s in a (File) Name?

I just received an email that I almost tossed into my spam bucket. The subject line was “April Newsletter.” Why do people do this? Sure, the sender knows what it means, but this is a question of audience. Is the file or email name meaningful to the recipient? Will they know right away what the file is?

We ask all our clients to label their files sent to us so they are easily recognizable upon entering our system. If we didn’t do this we would get ten files a month called “website content.doc,” another ten called “excerpt.doc,” and a few called “photo.jpg.” And while the sender might know exactly what the file is, the recipient doesn’t. We can tell the difference between “SAN_newsletter.doc” and “HOM_newsletter.doc” pretty quickly. But the file “newsletter.doc” will almost always require more attention which means more resources.

In business it comes down to resources: time and money. But in the case of my “April newsletter” email, I am simply annoyed. I need to stop my workflow and identify before I can categorize and file (especially as I am getting this first thing in the morning — bad newsletter timing). I perceive it to be as a waste of my time and this reflects on my participation in that organization’s brand. If your email recipient is annoyed with your email, then that is the frame of reference as they enter into your content — your efforts have been wasted, and you will likely not get another chance.

But with clients I am on the clock, I don’t have the option of ignoring the file (as I did with the as-of-yet still unread April Newsletter), and the difference between simply following a click-and-save workflow and actually opening the file, making sure it is in fact what I suspect it to be and then renaming it can take a couple of minutes. And two minutes here and there will add up.

My point is to be aware of your audience. Remember that your naming must be meaningful to the recipient. Either code your missives with something clearly self-identifying or make sure that both parties are clear on what the code is between the two of you.

One more thing: exercise version control. Please. If you are resending the file with edits, rename the file by adding an “_02” at the end. It will save everyone time, and therefore money.

And who wouldn’t like to hang onto a little more of that?