Which Opt-In Technique Is Best?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 6 of October , 2007 at 8:27 am

There are several opt-in techniques that are used when it comes to email marketing. Some of them are legal and some of them are not. Some of them are effective and some of them are not.

Just as an example, let’s highlight the “I’m going to send out a mass mailing to a list I just purchased and see who responds.” This has been tried many times, but is it effective? On the whole, any amount of email marketing to people who are not familiar with your business is ineffective. You’ll get a lot more mileage if you get people’s permission before you contact them. That’s why I recommend the double opt-in approach.

What Is Double Opt-In?

Good question. Double opt-in is in reference to getting people’s permission TWICE before you start sending them emails. It’s real simple to do, but before I cover that let me just say why you want to use the double opt-in method.

It protects you from accusations of spam.

When you ask people for their permission to contact them in the future, it is important to CYA. Being accused of spam is very expensive. You won’t just get fined, but you could also lose your account with your ISP. That would be a very expensive lesson.

To prevent that from happening you should use a double opt-in approach. Place an opt-in box on your website in a highly visible location. When Joe Blow signs up for your newsletter he’ll give you his name and e-mail address. Next, an autoresponder message (a pre-written message triggered to be e-mailed to a specific recipient when they undertake a certain action - like signing up for your newsletter) is sent to that opt-in at his email address. In the autoresponder message is a link that must be clicked on to confirm the opt-in.

If the respondent doesn’t click on the link then the opt-in is not confirmed. On the other hand, as soon as confirmation is received then the individual starts receiving your periodic emails. It’s called double opt-in and I highly recommend it.

                      Category: Opt-In Techniques