Why the from field is THE most important part of your email

Here’s how important the from field is in your email: in a recent Return Path survey, 60% said “knowing and trusting the sender” was the primary reason for opening an email; a similar Email Sender and Provider Coalition survey found that 73% make the decision to click on the "report spam" or "junk" button “based on the sender”.

Yes, testing and tweaking your email marketing copy, offers, design, landing pages, copy and subject line all help in getting maximum results. But it is the sender field that can make or break you – and in seconds too. Perhaps an email gets a reprieve because the subject line caught the eye first; but even then the eye will shift to see if it’s ‘legitimate’ – as in, a recognised sender. This happens in part because the “from” is the purest distillation of your reputation – as the recipient sees it - and partly because it’s what they see first in the inbox. (Yes, the from email address choice is essential; but we’ll focus on the sender field for this column.)

Here’s a striking example of how much it can impact your results. In a recent customer consultation: A B2B newsletter, with the same subject line, was sent to an A/B split of the customer list. Half received the email from their account manager, half from the company.

Results?

- From the account manager: 62% identified open, 24% Click.

- From the company: 21% identified open, 3% click.

Surprisingly I find the majority of marketers I talk to have not given this field much thought. If you haven’t, co-ordinate the available data you have on your subscribers with the from field that will resonate with your reader. Here are some of your choices.

From: Company – 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, you’ll most likely choose your company name. The long term goal should be to personalise this field to the recipient’s highest recognition factor.

From: Brand – Make a choice based on what’s more meaningful to the recipient. Is it the brand produced by the company or your company’s name? Having a data profile on your subscribers will help you make the right choice.

From: Individual – This might be a customer’s account manager or a prospect’s sales contact. (P.S. Avoid using a phony personal name – it’s perceived as phony and spammy. Especially if they reply to the email and no one, not even the phony name replies to them!)

From: Employee / Company. This is a particularly strong solution in B2B. It gives the recipient two options in recognising you. And it can help you strengthen the relationship by giving them a real person (someone who will immediately answer their emails!) to interact with.

As with everything in email, testing is the secret sauce. That’s because testing can help you confirm if what you think you know will work does work.