back to basics - the from line

At this time of year most of our shops are running full bore - phone program calling past donors every night, direct mail well underway and hopefully in mailboxes or better yet coming back to you in USPS crates. I am sure that you have any number of direct mail pieces out there and probably a campaign built out for online engagement.

I am sure that you have thought in depth about the subject of the email and probably to a great length about who "signs" it but my experience has been that there is typically little or passing thought going into the from line. Yet consider that for the vast majority of the users - that is the first part of your email they see. I know that for me, 90% of my judgement of the value of an email is around who it is from. If it comes from a "generic" account it is a much lower priority than if it comes from a person - even more so if it is a person that I know.

So how do you identify a "person" for the email to come from? Can you create a campus account for class agents? or other volunteers? is there a way to use your phone program callers? Most software today will allow you to track who spoke with who and based upon outcomes you can track who had a good call and who might react well to further contact from the caller - not phone program follow up but true additional contacts. what about using a campus employee that folks would know? A long time faculty member? a beloved administrator? Think creatively about who knows who and who you can put in that role.

My one piece of advice is to create an account for that person(s) that you can manage for them - don't crush their email account with responses and bounces. Have fun and test, test, test - try it up against a generic control and see what you get for opens, gifts and clicks and then try it again!