Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, 23 of October , 2007 at 8:48 am Leave a comment
You want people to opt in to your newsletter, right? Well, it helps if you offer them something. You’ve got to provide a clear benefit and one way to do that is to offer them something in return.
People will not just opt in to a newsletter for no reason. They are giving you something valuable - their personal information. They are afraid to pass out their e-mail addresses to just anyone. Just look at the dangers fraught with doing so:
- E-mail spam
- Virus downloads
- Tracking cookies
- Come ons and trash offers
- Loss of privacy
People really are on guard. And well they should be.
So how do you get them to opt in to your newsletter? Offer them something valuable for something valuable in return. You get a valuable e-mail address, something you can use over and over again. So what should you offer your prospects?
How about a free download of some kind. It can be an e-book. It can be a podcast, or it can be a video. But by offering something of value in return for your prospect’s email address, you are building trust and giving your prospect a reason to opt in. That’s the least you could do.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 6 of October , 2007 at 8:27 am Comments (1)
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.
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