nth can mean every other one on the list, or every third one, or every tenth one ... and so on.

Steve

or from other sources ...

"The subset of every Nth individual on a list used as a test list. For instance, if one is doing Twelth-Testing, every twelth person on the list is sent an email."

For your example of "we send one email from Salesperson A, and a second email from Salesperson B" simply every other email from salesperson B. Not sure why DB person having a problem.

Oh and obviously you will need to split the list first e.g. two nth lists or better described as an A/B split list. Then use the signatures of salesperson A and B with their appropriate list.

Hope this clears it up.

Steve

Kathy,

Sorry, it's a little late and my thinking is a little slow. Your situation is probably more complicated than just broadcasting email from two salespeople.

Have you done the required testing? Testing the list, the subject line, your specific action step and offer to motivate the action, a landing page, competitor emails etc ....

We have several experts in this area. I recommend contacting Tim Pepper (see 'Pepper Blue' profile)

Steve

Dear Kathy,

The expression comes from the world of algebra, where
the "N" refers to an arbitrary integer that tends toward infinity.

It basically means to review something until the end of forever.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Princeton, NJ, USA

Here's one example of using a Nth select: http://www.accuzip.com/webhelp/Manipulating_Data/Nth_Select.htm

It sounds like you have a good set of answers related to the meaning of Nth, but in reality your issue is finding a way to split the email list so that it fairly is split between the sales guys (so that any sales resulting get split between them).

If the email list order is the order people were added to the list, it is possible that one half is not as good as the other. For example, the first half may have a lot of emails from people who are no longer at their address but not removed from your list, have tagged your messages as spam (so they don't get received, but are still sent), no longer involved in areas that involve your product or service, etc.

However they are ordered, consider whether just splitting in half would be fair for both. If not, do a different means of splititng.

Some things to consider:
- is there value to having the message always come from the same sales person? Do you want the sales person to be the contact for that customer? if so, you may not want to change the list, but find some other way to make it fair.

- Are the sales people both equally as good? Or is this complaint really a red herring for the lesser performing person to cover their tracks? If the question on keeping the name the same for customers over time I asked above is no, then you can just switch the list (so the opposite sales person now gets the top of the list as before) and see the results. If the same sales person does badly again, that is a clue worth considering.

Kathy,
Your sale people are going to whine and moan no matter what you do. You're better off sending the same to all and alternating the distribution of the leads as they come in.

Michael