To opt-in or double opt-in, that is the question

Should I use single or double opt-in when growing my email list? It's a question I'm frequently asked. However I don’t see it as a binary question of one or the other and I advocate using both. Sounds odd? I’ll explain. The common concern with double opt-in is that it requires the customer to perform the additional step of opening an email and clicking a link to confirm they want to opt-in. Double opt-in leaks That means there is leakage, not everyone completes the confirmation step. This could be because they don’t get the double opt-in confirmation email, don’t get around to reading and clicking the link in the email or have a change of mind. The leakage is significant, 20% is not uncommon and I’ve heard of brands with 40% of people signing-up failing to confirm opt-in. So there is no question that single opt-in will…

12 practical tips for customer preference centres

Preferences centres have never really caught on have they? Many of the big retailers like this one from Amazon or Tesco have had them for years, but they're still not used so widely.

Here's a great example of a B2B preference centre:

I remember, as far back as 2003 I defined these ‘E permission marketing principles’ to prompt email marketers to think how to improve relevance and targeting of emails - the main purpose of communications preference centres. The key advice remains valid I think: 1. ‘Offer selective opt-in to communications’ Offer choice in communications preferences to the customer to ensure more relevant communications. Some customers may not want a weekly e-newsletter, rather they may only want…

Ideas for boosting your email subscribers

Wouldn't it be great if every visitor to your website purchased from you? That's clearly a dream world. There are many reasons website visitors don't buy; not yet ready to purchase, researching product choices, planning to buy in the future, unsure whether to trust you, currently comparing products, comparing suppliers, need to confer with other family members before buying, getting an idea of budget for a future purchase and so on. The next best thing to getting a purchase is getting an email address with opt-in permission, a lead. Being given the privilege to keep the conversation going through email is your chance to tilt the odds in your favour of them coming back to you and purchasing in the future. However, getting an email address is easier said than done. I recently completed a benchmark study 'Leaping over the subscribe hurdle'. This study researched the top 100 UK…

Practical ideas for converting more visitors to subscribers

Bloggers use it, online retailers use it, and social media marketers practically make their living from it. And email marketers? Maybe they should use it more. To quote the ultimate authority on human behavior (er, Wikipedia):

"When a person is in a situation where they are unsure of the correct way to behave, they will often look to others for cues concerning the correct behaviour"

This is the concept of social proof. It underpins the use of such elements as bestseller lists, product ratings and those blog feed & Twitter icons that give prominence to the number of existing feed subscriptions and Twitter followers. All serve to convince or reassure the observer that "buying that product" or "following that Twitter account" is worth doing. Social proof (or the lack of it) is why we tend to avoid restaurants that are empty. So might you use the concept when growing your…

There are many excellent social media blogs providing great content to keep you up-to-date with the latest social media marketing trends and advice. SocialMediaExaminer is one of these sources of great information. So its no surprise they have 47,513 followers on Twitter and 76,391 people have liked them on Facebook, however they have a secret weapon. In fact this same secret weapon is used by the top 7 of the top ten best Social Media experts as judged by SocialMediaExaminer themselves that they picked from over 600 nominations. So, what is the secret weapon?  Email communications! Whilst their Twitter and Facebook stats are impressive, their email following is bigger at 129,329 people. They are so keen to have you as a subscriber that the email sign up gets the prime real estate on their home page.

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Latest statistics reveal the importance of the primary inbox

We talk a lot about getting delivered into THE inbox. But the days of "one person one inbox" are long gone. If you make it into my Gmail account, you join the 2,432 unopened mails filtered automatically into the bulk folder: If you make it into my work account, however, it has only one other unopened email competing for attention: Gulp. So is the real challenge with email response about getting delivered to the right inbox? Fact is, multiple email accounts are the norm. An April 2011 UK consumer survey revealed 65% using more than one email account. There are several questions we need to ask here to get better email engagement: Does it really matter which email address you get? If it does, how do you make sure you get the right one? Does it make sense to block certain…

A tool to compare marketing automation systems

Value: [rating=3] A marketing automation research tool, courtesy of Software Advice. Our commentary : If you're selecting a provider for a marketing automation, CRM or other Ebusiness system then you may find these Software Advice sites useful for an overview of the options. They have a series of usable step-by-step guides and this widget which is shareable to other sites - a nice example of viral marketing. Marketing implications : Take care with using this widget though since it has a strong US focus and some of the well-known marketing suppliers such as Eloqua or Marketo are missing. They do have a slightly broader list of Marketing Automation suppliers but again a US focus. Remember that many email service provider solutions can now provide marketing automation or integration with existing customer management systems and they'll often be more capable as email broadcast platforms. To see a…

This is a summary of a Merkle whitepaper on consumer Email preferences and behaviour published in March 2009. In my summary I have highlighted the main implications of their findings using an example of a great new Enewsletter format I have recently received from the Cancer Research charity:

1. Time spent with permission email

Similar to previous year. Fifty-nine percent of all email users spend twenty minutes or more with permission email weekly, with just over one quarter spending an hour or more weekly. Permission email accounts for about a quarter of all time spent with email, second only to its primary function of communicating with friends and family. Implications for email marketers: This isn't much time, so ensure main information or offers are clear in subject line (of course) and headings of Email.

2.  Adding senders to address books

More common than previously thought. Just over half of all permission email recipients have…