Importance of The 'From' Address

• by daniel.c , Melinda Krueger , March 13, 2007

Dear Email Diva,

Please illuminate us on the value of the email "From" address. It may seem a simple question, but the lead management system my clients use has a "From" address that looks like this: 765432@lms.humptydumpty.com. There is no reference to my clients' name or even their brand. The Lead Management System vendor has not been able to offer a solution. What are your thoughts?

Neal

Dear Neal,

As I wrote in last week's article, the primary consideration is the name that appears in the reader's inbox, the "from" name. This is the No. 1 criterion readers use to decide whether to open, delete or save an email. Most do not see the "from" address until they open the email or view it in a preview pane. I assume your provider can show your company's name in the "from" name field.

However, the email address you provide in your example looks very much like spam and is highly likely to be hindering your efforts. If you are using email for lead management, I assume your readers are not familiar with your company. That being the case, the reply address of a number makes it highly suspicious. I would consider another vendor.

Good luck!

The Email Diva

Dear Email Diva,

On Jan.15 you first mentioned Polite Mail. I asked my team to give it a look.

They were impressed initially, as you were. But an early concern was the overhead that it placed on their Outlook environment, even when not using the product. It was so invasive that we deleted the product from our system within three days.

Maybe the problem stems from us using Outlook Clients on laptops, locally storing emails on the laptop and the server. Regardless, this overhead hit slowed us down so much that it took us twice as long to use any and all products on our laptops: Word, PowerPoint, Adobe, etc.

I would suggest that you may want to reconsider the glowing accolades for Polite Mail, since even in January you mentioned you had not given it a full review, and I have not seen any review since that date.

Ed Lemire, Vice President, Marketing & Products

Acteva

Dear Ed,

I agree that an endorsement without a rigorous trial was irresponsible, and I thank you for setting the record straight.

The Email Diva

Send your questions or submit your email for critique to Melinda Krueger, the Email Diva, at emaildiva@kd-i.com. All submissions may be published; please indicate if you would like your name or company name withheld.