The Email Wars

Over 500 marketers were surveyed about the subscribe/unsubscribe process. While these processes are improving, they have yet to reach what we would call exceptional.

You can get the whole PDF in our resources section (Quarterly Studies tab)/ but the call outs below are not in the PDF.

High Level Thoughts:
- Email marketers are not matching up other marketing efforts like they should. Email, search, DM, Print, Call Centers, and sales teams need to get on the same page.

- Email marketers are not monitoring feedback loops and complaint rates. Are they counting on the ESP to do it? Many ESPs like eROI do this, but some do not. Does yours? Or does your program if you run it in house?

- The thank you page, prime visitor real estate is being wasted. There are so many opportunities to be testing the thank you page with Progressive Profiling and offers. As well as setting expectations.

- Not surveying subscribers at opt out. Remember high school when someone wanted to break up? Didn’t you ask WHY are you leaving? This still holds true. Exit surveys are key to finding out why you have churn.

- Not allowing frequency changes. Subscribers should have access to change preferences of frequency just like they can manage a profile with your programs. Do they want to hear from you monthly, weekly, daily, as things that are important to them change? Listen before you speak.

Here is a teaser. You can get the whole PDF in our resources section (Quarterly Studies tab) . If you already have been there, all you need to do it log back in. No more forms, questions, or steps. Nice touch huh. What other email marketing agencies have you seen do this? None, they all want your information EVERY time. There are better ways to do this, Take a look for yourself.

Opting-in- the cradle
When obtaining permission to send out emails, only about 30% of email marketers use a confirmed opt-in method, where a confirmation e-mail including an activation web link (or requiring a reply email) is sent to verify the subscriber. This number has grown quite a bit over the years, but is still well below where the industryshould be. confirmed opt-in helps ensure quality of the email list by requiring an action by the user to begin receiving emails. about 75% of email marketers provide only a small number of ways for subscribers to opt-in (one to three), whereas about 4% have more than 10 ways for subscribers to opt-in.

This story got picked up by ClickZ last friday which we appreciate.