Reclaiming the Inbox: How Email Marketers Can Alleviate Consumers’ Opt-in Woes
1. Top-down Leadership
Acquiring large volumes of email addresses of engaged consumers is not a bottom-up initiative. It requires buy-in from a variety of business functions—online, customer care, operations, IT, direct marketing, advertising, event marketing, business partnerships, etc. Each customer touch point needs to be evaluated and potentially modified in order to maximize the email opt-in opportunity. Only senior executives with cross-functional stewardship can execute a plan across so many disciplines.
Email marketers should first focus their efforts convincing their leadership team about the importance of the email acquisition, then seek their endorsement in managing the operational dependencies and technological enhancements required to collect permission-based email addresses across the enterprise.
Perhaps the single greatest influence for quickly growing an email database is getting executives to regularly review email acquisition metrics. The leadership team should reach consensus about appropriate email acquisition goals and tactics and then closely monitor results. People will do what they measure. Tactics or departments that are performing well should be recognized and rewarded and those that are under performing should be closely scrutinized.
Lastly, as companies derive significant value from the email channel, they should develop organizations that cater to email marketing best practices. Disparate groups can not effectively manage various aspects of email marketing. The combination of strategic importance and increased complexity of email marketing has made the role of Email Marketing Manager or Director increasingly important. This role should be responsible for the entire host of email activities including privacy, creative design, database management, delivery, legal compliance, contact strategies, list and segmentation management, reporting, and more.
2. Painfully Simple Enrollment
“Fish where the fish are”—meaning the simplest way to obtain email permission is to find customers who are already predisposed to the online channel and have favorable attitudes about your brand. The following four tactics are listed in order of effectiveness:
-Online: Every effort should be made to capture email opt-in from your current universe of web visitors. Opt in should be available on every page, prominently displayed above the fold on the home page, and obvious throughout checkout.
-In-Store: Email enrollment should be communicated as a business priority to every sales associate. Tools—either technology based or paper-based—should be readily available to capture email permission at point of sale and at the register.
-Other Customer Touch Points: By mapping every customer interaction, businesses can determine when and where email opt-in is appropriate. Many companies include email opt-in on every paper-based form—credit card applications, warranty cards, surveys, etc.
They also include email messaging in the footers of direct and mass advertising vehicles. Customer service agents are trained to know if the caller has provided their email address and to explain the email value proposition in order to collect the customer’s opt in.
Email registration should be short, simple and user-focused, but not overly brief. Collecting only an email address and opting the user in to everything is not a good solution. Best in class email subscription management clearly defines for users the type, frequency and value they can expect from email communications. After opted-in, subscribers should be offered a simple menu of options allowing them to choose what they want, how they want to get it, and ideally how often it will arrive. The tool should be dynamic so they can alter their preferences whenever they change their minds.
3. Consumer Privacy Protection
In addition to explaining why you want their email, consumers want to know what you’re going to do with it. Studies have found that a clear privacy policy regarding the use of personal information increases consumers overall participation in email activities. The more trusted the brand name, the more customers believe that you will do what you say you’ll do. By explicitly telling customers that you do not sell or share their data with third parties, you’ll absolve consumer’s fears about being bombarded with unwanted messages.
4. Customer-Focused
Customers want to know “What’s in it for me?” The value exchange offered through email differs by company and by consumer. What one person finds compelling isn’t the same for someone else. As a general rule, most consumers look to email to provide more exclusive offers, richer content, and more unique opportunities than is provided via other channels. The key is to make the value compelling and set proper expectations up front so customers aren’t disappointed by what they receive.
5. Retention
A significant factor in growing an email house file doesn’t involve acquiring new names. Rather, it is focused on retaining existing email subscribers. On average, email house files are reduced by as much as 30 percent annually through customer attrition. Attrition is due to hard bounces (the subscriber no longer uses the email address they provided) or opt-outs.
To address the hard bounce issue, subscription management tools, along with messages in every outbound email, should encourage members to keep their preference and account information updated. It must be simple for members to change their email address. Additionally, a good subscription management tool effectively manages the opt-out process. Rather than removing customers from all email communications, subscription management allows customers to get out of some, but remain in other, email streams. Also, if a consumer decides to opt-out of all, it will ask clarifying questions to determine what went wrong.
Consumers feel they’ve lost control of their inboxes. Their increasing reluctance to opt-in to commercial messages is concerning for marketers who believe the easiest way to maximize email revenue and reduce marketing expenses is to dramatically grow the size of their email house file. But marketers should reevaluate the connection between a large list and large profits.
Email marketing isn’t a replacement for mass advertising and success isn’t measured by impressions. Rather, email is a direct response tool that works best when targeted to niche customer segments. Response, not list size, is what determines success. And improving their email value proposition is the best way to attract a critical mass of consumers willing to opt-in.
Reader Comments.
How do I get in touch with Chris Kneeland? He is clearly a genius among us
I think I’ve heard some of this before from someone wiser but balder
Shouldn’t you know how to get in touch with him, since you work at Rapp?
I’ve worked with Chris in the past and consider him a rising star in the direct and interactive marketing industry
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