Having an opt-in list is not just a matter of sending your subscribers your promotional newsletters or catalogs. There are many complications you need to avoid. While there are so many ways you can entice people to subscribe to your list, there are also some things you must do to avoid those subscribers from wanting to opt-out from your list.
Apart from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your internet service provider or ISP. There are now many laws and rules that are applied to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and unwanted mails. With the popularity of the electronic mail as a medium for marketing because of the low cost, many companies have seized the opportunity and have flooded many people’s e-mail accounts with promotional mail.
But, with an opt-in list, you can avoid this annoyance issue because people willingly subscribe to the list; they want to receive the newsletters and promotional materials from you. They have consented to being on the list by subscribing themselves, just don’t forget to put an unsubscribe feature every time in your opt-in list so that you avoid any confusion. There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe.
It is therefore very important that you keep your list clean and manageable. Arrange it by using the many tools and technologies available for your opt-in list. Do not worry; your investment in this marketing strategy is well worth it with all the coverage you will get which will likely be converted into sales then to profit.
You must keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the law and the internet service providers. Keep your operation legit and clean. Your reputation as a legitimate businessman and a legitimate site owner depends on your being a straight and true marketing strategist.
As a tip, below are three deadly things to avoid when emailing your Subscribers!
1. Always provide an unsubscribe feature in your site and an unsubscribe link in your mails. When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously. If you don’t take them off your list and keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail.
When you are reported as a spammer, you and your business can get into a lot of trouble. You can be reported to the authorities and maybe blacklisted by many internet service providers. You will lose a lot of subscribers this way and many more in potential subscribers.
2. Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your newsletters. It is hard to decipher the age of the recipient and many complaints may stem from these. Controversial issues also are to be avoided to not be branded by your subscribers. Stick to the nature of your site and business.
3. Take notice of your unsuccessful sends. These are the e-mails that bounce. Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.
There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at that time but can still be delivered in another time. There are also bounces because the inbox of the recipient is full at that time. There are those bounce messages that are simply undeliverable ever. The reason for this is that it may be an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and erased already.
Manage your list by putting markings on those that bounce. Erase an email account from your list so that you have an accurate statistics and records as to how many are actually receiving your mail. You may also want to check the spellings of your email addresses in your list. One common mistake is when an N instead of an M is placed in the .com area.
I know you must have known of these tips before but the question now is….. Have you being practicing it? So let these serve as a reminder to you. Always remember these tips so that you can have a healthy relationship with your subscribers as well as be kept within the boundaries of what is allowed in sending mails to an opt-in list.
Please keep the discursion going by sharing with us your own view of this topic.
Thanks for reading.
Chimezirim Odimba says
You are on-point with making sure you have an unsubscribe link. Believe it or NOT, there are marketers who don’t allow you to unsubscribe. I’ve encountered such and all I do is mark them as spam (and I guess that’s what people will do if don’t allow them to unsubscribe if they want). The problem with this is that it will make more of your messages end up in the spam folder. Here’s how I knew this…
I normally test my email messages (with my different accounts — And you should) to ensure that my messages will get through safely and to ensure that everything looks fine. But then one day, I sent a message from me (Chimezirim Odimba) but from another Gmail account. Google marked it as spam because they felt this was someone else trying to pass off as me. Mind you, this message had gone through successfully in the first Gmail email address I had used.
So I decided to send out a message to my wife’s Gmail address and it also ended up as spam. What was the problem? I discovered then that once your message is marked by spam in one Gmail account, it will likely be classified as spam even to subscribers you love your message. To confirm this, I marked it as “NOT spam” and attempted sending it to another gmail address: It worked fine.
The point here is that you will lose a lot more if you don’t allow people to subscribe very easily — It will affect your delivery rate.
But let’s ask ourselves one important question: Why would someone who subscribed (double opt in) want to unsubscribe? Theodore pointed out one very powerful reason: You added objectionable content to your messages. Now many would they don’t make such mistakes but there are other mistakes that will actually also lead to unsubscribes. Here are a few I can tell from experience…
1. NOT targeting a specific visitor. Many people are in the erroneous belief that they need to build a list that is as large as possible without consideration to how targeted those people are? Wrong! Make sure you know who your ideal target is. Don’t attempt to target two different people on the same list. If you have another target customer, move them to another list.
This will help you write focused messages. For example, in my blog, I am focused on people who have NOT yet made their first $10k online but are willing to invest their time and money to do so in 90 days. I don’t care if I have a lower conversion rate provided I have the right people. I can write tightly focused messages to my audience because I am speaking to just one profile.
2. Sending Messages Too Frequently. Just as your friend can visit you too frequently (to the point that he or she begins to disrupt your family’s “alone time”, so also you can send your subscribers too many message that it gets annoying. Maintain a frequency that’s good for your niche. Send them too many messages and many will just unsubscribe or start trashing your messages.
3. NOT Fulfilling The Sign Promise. It is one thing to promise heaven and earth just to get their email address but it is another thing to fulfill that promise. If you cut corners here you will eventually get a lot of unsubscribes. Under-promise but over-deliver.
4. Selling Too Often. You shouldn’t sell in more than 20% of your messages. If all your messages are all about selling then you have made a big mistake that will lead to many unsubscribes.
5. Recommending Crap. What you recommend to your subscribers reflects on you. If you told them that a product is so good that it will transform their lives, it had better be. If it is crap then it will be obvious that you only promoted it because you wanted to make a quick buck (via affiliate commissions). Therefore, ensure you always test any product or service you are recommending. If you’ve NOT used it, tell your subscribers.
6. NOT Responding To Your Subscribers. Email marketing is a conversation and you can’t claim to hold a conversation if you are the only one talking. People will start tuning off if you don’t give them a way to respond to your messages or if you don’t show the courtesy of responding to them.
7. NOT Showing Respect In Your Response. You may be an expert in your field but then your subscribers are NOT fools. They are also experts in their own fields. Therefore, treat them with respect when they ask you questions. You can show disrespect by your choice of words. You can show disrespect by NOT taking time to read through and give an appropriate answer. You can also show disrespect by NOT responding on time (anything later than 24 hours on business days is NOT on time).
8. NOT Deleting Wrong Subscribers. There’s a reason email software providers give you, the publisher, the power to delete a subscriber from your list. They know that some people qualify for what I call “the subscriber from hell”. Delete them from your list because they’ll either make your life difficult, ruin your stats and then finally unsubscribe.
Theodore Nwangene says
Avery brilliant and comprehensive comment Chimezirim,
I can’t agree more here, even your comment is enough to use as one blog post you know and from what you said, i can see that you really know what you are doing when it comes to this topic.
It is too bad these days that even the so called gurus in the industry no longer value customers experience just as my friend Tim wrote on one of his post. They just after the money and thereby recommending every flashy thing they see on clickbank and other places.
So how often do you email your subscribers?
Thanks for this informative comment dear and do have a lovely weekend.
Chimezirim Odimba says
How often do I email my subscribers? Well, it depends on the list. Like my IM list, I email them daily for first 5 days (as a sequence to my membership site ). Thereafter, I reduce it to once per week and then forth-nightly and then monthly. However, if there’s something I know will be of huge interest, I can interrupt the schedule and send it as an urgent message. Let me know if there’s any other way I might help your valued readers — Email marketing is critical to online success (At least for anyone who wants to build on a solid foundation).
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for your insightful comment Chimezirim,
You seem to know more about this particular subject. What autoresponder are you using for your email marketing?
I also notice you’re a Nig, i like connecting with my brothers that are in this industry. Lets connect. 08069042613.
Lets succeed together.
Danika says
Fantastic web site. Lots of helpful info here. I’m sending it to some buddies ans also sharing in delicious. And of course, thank you in your effort!
Yeremi Akpan says
Hi Theodore,
I agree with all points but have one of my own to add: Open rate of your emails are very important. When sending mails to your mailing list, you have to put your eyes on that indicator which is what will tell you if your emails are just being ignored or read.
Good job here. Keep it up!
Theodore Nwangene says
A very vital point to note Akpan,
If you don’t know your open and click-through rates, there is no way to find out if your efforts are worth or if you’re actually waisting your time.
Thanks for the added point Akpan and do have a splendid week.
Felicia says
Hi Theodore,
I agree with what you said on your post. I usually opt in or subscribe to a newsletter if I wanted to receive updates from a particular site, and I will surely read them when I receive them in my inbox. However, there are a lot of companies (well-known ones actually, but usually new brands) that tend to “buy” customers’ emails from other companies and they send their promotional emails to those customers too, not being aware that they are kind of doing some spam-like activity online.
It is always a must to have an unsubscribe link included in your emails so that the recipients of your online messages will have a choice if they would like to continue getting emails from you or not.
Another thing that some spammy newsletters I receive before were that they do not contain the exact updated information. For instance, I received an email from a company offering a discount voucher if I avail some products from them online, but when I looked closely, there was no specific date on their discount deal. Who knows, the deal might have ended already, right? It’s always a wise move to have a complete and honest promo email message. If it’s incomplete, of course people will think there’s something very important you’re not telling them.
I appreciate the words of advice from Chimezirim too. One of the longest comments (yet very informative) I’ve encountered ever! 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Theodore Nwangene says
Yea Felicia,
I’ve also been receiving many promotional offers these days that i don’t even remember subscribing for, the worst thing is that they don’t even provide and unsubscribe option, isn’t it bad?
Anyway, thanks for your comment. Your contribution to my blog all these while is much appreciated Felicia and i remember i promise you something. Send me your email address via my contact form and i will send it across. Is there anything you’re struggling with recently that you think i might be of help? Please let me know.
Thanks ones again.
Adrienne says
Hey Theodore,
What a great list and it should just be common sense right! Unfortunately for many it’s not.
As per the comments above, everyone has their opinions of even more things that you could share here and that’s probably true. There are so many things you have to watch out for. How many people are opting out, what is the open rate of your emails, how many people don’t open them at all, etc.
I believe if you engage with your list then they’ll be more likely to open your emails and actually care about what you have to share. I think by not giving people the option to opt-out then they are only hurting themselves.
Great points you made here and very important as well. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Enjoy your weekend now.
~Adrienne