By: Christina Galbornetti, Director Creative Services -V12 Group
Attrition rates for email marketing lists will continue to challenge marketers well into 2013 The never-ending battle to forge past advancing spam filters, engage recipients and maintain subscribers just add to the email wars. The DMA estimated that marketers spent $1.6 billion on Can-Spam compliant commercial email in 2011. That number will likely increase for 2013 so the focus on email marketing and keeping recipients happy will be paramount in helping to maintain an arsenal of valuable opt-in email addresses.
Can-Spam compliance is a top priority to stay in accordance with laws that require email marketers to receive permission from individuals before communicating with them via email. This process is referred to as “opt-in”. Every email must provide an accurate”From” line, subject line, a physical mailing address and provide a clear way to opt-out of future messages. Therein lays the challenge where marketers must give the option to leave a mailing list or “opt-out” of all future messages, but that’s the worst possible scenario for e-marketers (aside from the dreaded Spam button). An email recipient who opts-out is a lost sale and eliminates any future opportunities to communicate with that consumer.
If you are losing a significant number of consumers from your lists, assess and examine the following areas of concern:
Relevancy
Have you selected the right target audience for your campaign and is the information relevant to them? Consumer profiles, segmentation and modeling can help you better define your targets so you can pinpoint interests, tailor your messages, and predict buying behaviors which will help to reduce overall opt-out rates. Using surveys and polls is another great way to determine what most appeals to your audience (ie. sales, exclusive email only events, in-store offers)
A relevant email is a read email and drives the recipient to take a positive action(to buy) and lessens the chance for a negative action (opt-out).
Frequency
Many marketers bombard customers with too many emails which lessen their impact, annoy recipients and lead to higher unsubscribes. V12 Group recommends a send frequency of 7-10 days to avoid list fatigue, opt-outs and increased complaints to ISPs. However, this will vary by sender and recipient engagement so tread lightly and carefully watch those metrics as you begin to increase the frequency. Try not to overwhelm your lists with several emails over a short time frame since this will lead to an increase in opt-outs.
Set Expectations with a Preferences Page
It’s impossible to avoid all opt-out requests BUT handle it with enough finesse to cleverly avoid them leaving your list completely. Offering some alternatives to stay in touch by customizing a preferences page allows the user to control and change the options to best suit their needs and wants. Perhaps they only want one email a month, or wish to only receive exclusive sales by category. Consider asking if you can email them in a year to see if they want to hear from you again. This step is well worth the investment if you have an unexpected rise in opt-outs and have addressed the 2 points noted earlier.
Below is a sample page of the most creative way SEARS handles opt-outs which includes a series of video skits. Giving consumers the choice to change and set their preferences just may save the opt-out.
Strategic marketers will assess how much is a subscriber worth and realize that they must focus their efforts on managing opt-outs to better maintain email lists for both prospecting and CRM campaigns. It is to be expected with every campaign that a number of recipients will opt-out or unsubscribe but pay attention to those numbers carefully or they can spiral out of control leaving you with higher than average attrition rates. Need more help…contact V12 Group for a consultation.
Image credit: Idea go