Do I know you? Why the 'from' field counts

Does your inbox groan under the weight of email, both wanted and unwanted?

For most people, it's a split-second decision whether to open an email or not. If your recipents are using a preview pane, they can see a small section of the email. Otherwise, they only have two pieces of information to go on. The subject line, and who it's from. I've talked about subject lines in a previous eTip, and there'll be an update on that very soon. But what about the 'from' field?

According to research by Return Path*, 'knowing and trusting the sender' is still the number one factor influencing opens. Overall, people are opening less - so becoming a 'trusted sender' is more important than ever. It doesn't happen overnight, but here are a few simple things you can do for starters:

- Make the 'from' field a recognisable name, and keep it consistent. The most obvious choice is your company name, or a version of it that people are familiar with. For some businesses, having the email appear to come from a named person may be appropriate, for example Boden's newsletters come from 'Johnny Boden'. Or you could use the actual email address, such as 'Dina@wordfeeder.com'.

- Monitor the return address. There's nothing more discouraging than hitting 'reply' only to get zero response. It amazes me how many companies forget that email is essentially a two-way communication medium. It's like calling someone on the phone, talking for five minutes, then hanging up without giving them a chance to say anything. Plain rude!

- Ask recipients to add your 'from' address to their address book or contacts. It gets you special treatment in some email clients and will help make sure your emails arrive in the inbox rather than the junk folder.

*January 2007, Return Path Third Annual Holiday Email Consumer Survey

Interpret the stats to improve results

When it comes to email marketing everyone's looking for definitive answers.

You know the kinds of questions I'm talking about. What sort of open rate should we get? What's an average click-through rate? If our unsubscribe rate is 2%, is that good?

Unfortunately, there are no absolutes. The answers are dependent on so many factors. Firstly you can seek out industry benchmarks from firms such as Marketin Sherpa or e-consultancy, which is a good starting point. You can even try carrying out your own research, either formally or just by asking around.

Next, look at your own campaign statistics over a period of time and establishing your own benchmarks. Then you can get down to interpreting what the numbers mean and using that information to improve results next time.

For example, if a campaign achieves a lower than average open rate, this probably means that:

1. either the subject line was poor, or
   
2. the email got filtered as spam and went to the junk folder, or
   
3. the average age of the email addresses is going up

If a campaign achieves a lower than average click-through rate, this probably means that:

1. either the offer wasn't enticing enough, or
   
2. the creative (copy, design or both) wasn't strong enough, or
   
3. (if combined with a high open rate) the subject line was misleading

You might then decide to go back to the testing stage, remembering to test one factor at a time in order to find out just what makes a difference.

Of course, there are many more stats on an typical report than just open and click through rates, and the principle applies to all. Establish your own benchmarks, interpret what the numbers actually mean, identify areas for improvement, tweak and test.