What’s the first thing people want to know when they look at their inbox? They want to quickly decide – within seconds – what to do with each email. And how do they do that? By the ‘instant recognition’ factor. Even before looking at the subject line or judging an email on the prior value provided by the company, they want to know whom the email is from.
Here’s a clear illustration of the power of ‘from’: A Newsweaver customer in the telecoms sector sends a regular email newsletter to their business customers. They had previously been sending it from the company name. We had them perform an A/B split test, sending the same newsletter and subject line to their database, but with list A receiving it from their account manager and list B from the company. The results are shown below:
What are the choices?
There are actually a number of choices you can make for the ‘from’ field. (This field is not to be confused with the actual from email address; we’ll cover that one in a moment). The main motive for the selection will be based on it correctly reflecting the relationship you have with that recipient. The goal is to have the email immediately recognisable to the recipient in a positive way. Here are your choices:
1. From the company: As you’ve seen, the from field works well when personalised, but if you don’t have enough information about the subscriber (e.g. who their point of contact is in your company) or if they are a prospect and don’t have a personal contact point at the company, you’ll most likely choose your company name. Plan to personalise as the relationship moves to the customer.
2. From a brand associated with the company: If you have a wide variety of products and services, you’ll want the email to come from the brand the subscriber has shown an interest in or has previously purchased from.
3. From a named contact: This is particularly effective because the personal name used will be an important recognition factor for subscribers. Here’s where the personalisation opportunities kick in. For example, the email could come from the customer’s account manager, from the sales person or the customer service rep – that is, someone they recognise. Avoid using a personal name that means nothing to the subscriber – it could be perceived as a spammer’s ploy.
4. From an employee/and the company: If you are just introducing the correct contact person to the recipient, this is a great way to do so. An example of this is ‘Denise Cox/Newsweaver’. If they don’t immediately recognise the person, the company or brand name will catch their attention.
5. From a department: Perhaps it’s not one person, but a department the subscriber needs to hear from. This expands the personal touch to a group of people who are readily available to answer queries. As you can see, the ‘from’ field is a key personalisation opportunity in an email and the technology is available to help you make the most of it. However, you can only take advantage of this technology if you have the data.Take the time to make sure that this information is appended to the email address. The next step in the process is to test.
JupiterResearch found that marketers who tested any aspect of their email marketing efforts saw a 68 per cent increase in ROI (over non-testers). So, again, take the time to test the ‘from’ field to help you get the best results.
The ‘from’ email address
It’s generally the sender line that appears in inboxes, but the email address is important as well and needs to be given great thought. The email address used must be a functioning address to both comply with legislation (correct contact) and follow best practice.
Avoid using addresses such as info@, admin@, and meaningless ones such as company_ad0@sub_domain.com. Many companies have switched off their own generic addresses due to spam; marketing messages using these generic ‘from’ addresses may be getting blocked at ISP/IT gateway levels. In addition, the person scanning the inbox will perceive these generic addresses as spammy – and definitely impersonal – and will probably delete them.
Please avoid using ‘Do-Not-Reply’ addresses. We no longer live in a do-not-reply world. Companies need to realise that all of us want and expect to be able to reply immediately – and get a reply quickly. In fact, with the impact of social networking, it’s heading quickly towards the ‘we have a right to reply’. There should be processes in place to handle emails coming back into the company.
If it is not possible to have someone to handle the incoming emails, then it’s acceptable to have an initial automatic reply that gives the recipient contact points in relation to the specific question they have. Similar to an automated phone system that says ‘press one for this, press two for that…’Every email sent from a company, even a transactional email, should allow for two-way communications’
