When Your From is Done: Updating Your From AddressPart II

In March 2010, I had a similar article to this about updating a From address. Here is another example of updating ones From address. 

There comes a time in most email marketer’s life that the email address he or she sends from needs to be changed.  This change might be warranted because of an IP update, a change to a new email marketing service provider, a hosting update, for ascetic purposes, or other reasons.

When a change like this must be made, what should be done? Two of the most critical goals are, one, to do your best to be sure deliverability does not suffer when the new email address is used and, two, that subscribers recognize that the email is from you and do not hit the spam button.  After a thorough white listing process what’s next?  Do you alert your subscribers about the new email address, if so how?

Diapers.com recently tackled this issue.  In their case they were updating their ‘from’ email address, diapers@diapers.messages4.com, to the easier to digest diapers@baby.diapers.com.

This retailer of all things baby sent an email to their subscribers explaining that to better serve them they are making some ‘technical upgrades’ to their website including changing the address that they send email from.  The message requests that the subscriber does one of three things.
 

1. Right click on the from address with the email, select "add to contacts."
OR
2. Right click on the message before opening it, select "add to contacts" or "add to people I know.
OR
3. Click "add to address book" from within the email next to the from address.

This message is clear, simple, and sincerer.

One update that Diapers.com should make to their creative, however, is add the new email address to the header of the email.  Here is a good example from Current Catalog.



This way the subscribers will be more conscious of the change since it is in the top of the creative and top-of-mind.

Here is the creative from Diapers.com.  The subject line is: We're updating our email address‏




Here is another example. This one is from Kenneth Cole.
The subject line is: Add our new email to your address book

When Your From is Done: Updating Your 'From' Address

There comes a time in most email marketers' lives when the email address he or she sends from needs to be changed. This change might be warranted because of an IP update, a change to a new email marketing service provider, a hosting update, aesthetic concerns or other reasons.

When a change like this must be made, what should be done? Two of the most critical goals are:

• Do your best to ensure that deliverability does not suffer when you begin sending from the new email address.
   
• Make sure subscribers recognize that the new 'from' address is you and do not hit the spam or unsubscribe button in error.

After a thorough whitelisting process, what’s next? Do you alert your subscribers about the new email address, if so how?

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA) recently tackled this issue. In their case they are updating their ‘from’ email address, 'mfamail@mfa.org, to info@email.mfa.org. The reason for the switch is not made clear in the email creative — nor does it need to be. However, the new email address does contain some similar characteristics as the original but uses 'info' before the '@' instead of 'mfamail.' The 'info@' handle is more accurate and widely recognized than 'mfamail@.'

MFA sent this email prior to using the new email address. This is smart for a variety of reasons:   

• This allows time for subscribers to update their contact list with the new email address prior to the new address going live.
   
• Sending information about the new email address while still using the old email address should help with deliverability once the new address is used. It is less effective to send a change-of-address email using the new email address because there is a chance that some recipients never see the email due to spam filtering.
   
• MFA is also following a best practice by asking their subscribers to add their email address to their safe senders list (i.e. address book) in the header of the email.  Adding this to the footer text would also be a good idea.
   
• MFA is also wise to limit the creative message to just the email address change — this eliminates the possibility of such vital information getting lost among clutter.

Here is the creative from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  The subject line is: "Our e-mail address is changing"