The Email Wars

The trend has been growing and I am very happy to see this I might add. The more that I see people asking for you to set and manage your profile, email preferences, and giving you the ability to tell them more about yourself makes me feel that the world is getting to be a better place for email marketing. Piperlime, personally love them, does a solid job each week with the creative but also stands tall as an example for retailers building the trust and admiration of their consumers. 

It was a little detail that I caught, not one that took over the email campaign, that stood out to me to take a look. Now in my opinion this could have been the whole topic of the email, or your email, to use progressive profiling opportunities to ask more about your subscribers. When you ask, they tell. Really. 

So many times we see long forms just to opt into an email newsletter. What a waste of not only your time, but theirs. Many businesses ask so many questions just for the fact that they have you there and not for the reason that they have a business plan of how to use the information you are going to “complete” for them. Ask what you need to ask to start a relationship. Think of it in terms of someone you first meet. You never ask for it all, you ask for the information you need to evaluate and move to the next stage. The Date. The Dinner. The Movie. 

Don’t move in for the kill on stage one. Use opportunities like the Thank You email, the double opt in confirmation, the Thank You page for signing up, and yes even a stand alone email campaign to ask for more. Many of us will not tell you what we don’t think you need until there is a trust established, a relationship and wins for both sides.

Take some time this month to review the stages you have created in your email marketing relationship development. Are you asking for a subscription or for the next of kin?