More From the "From" side :-)

Ok, the other day I responded to an article challanging some of my 2005 email trends.   You can view the article here....

Anyway.  There was some question as to the value of personalizing or "humanizing" the email.  He pointed out a travel company as an example: "Worry Free Vacations (sent by ExactTarget) has Worry Free Vacations in the 'From' address.

In contrast, I looked at another Travel company: Carlson Wagonlit. 

They made the switch around April 2004 from sending with a corporate face to sending from the actual travel agents.  After testing both options for a few months, the results for email coming from a Channel Member did better than the results from those coming from Carlson Wagonlit Travel.  Here are the results:

1) Deliverability rates are 5% BETTER

2) Open rates are 26% BETTER

3) Click rates are 79% BETTER

4) Unsubscribe rates are 250% BETTER.

Comments

[Michael Wexler]

Both you and Bill are both putting up single or small N case studies in your discuussion. I always advocate controlled research. Our findings across multiple clients, businesses, types of lists, etc. reveal the following:
* In most cases, actually, using the company name (or brand/product group name) is far more effective in driving behavior than using a persons' name...
* Unless any of the following are true:
** The company's business is predicated on user to agent relationships (Carlson is an example of this, as are many financial services)
** The person name is one that the user might be familiar with (CEO or spokesperson)
** The person is an actual person with whom the recipient has had a business interaction with (many agent or sales relationships work this way)
** The message reflects a personal view about the company, say a testimonial from a fellow user.

Other than those cases (which are certainly not uncommon), across multiple mailings, we've found either company name or product/group brand work far better on a collection of metrics, both "per mail" and over time, than person name in the From. BTW, these include eventual conversion, something you don't mention above.

Your emphasis on trust and the individual are truly important points... but it turns out, many brands have done the work to create that trust in themselves as entities. For some people, that extra human touch is important (as in your "Ron and Walgreens" example previously)... but other segments trust the brand more than any stranger who happens to say they represent it.