Turning clients on to opt-in email marketing

For Emma agencies, educating clients on the importance of permission standards and list hygiene is critical. But that doesn't mean it has to be stressful.

by Cody De Vos, Agency Relations | September 27th, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Send great emails to people who want to receive them. That’s the phrase that rings in my head when I ponder how an agency speaking with a prospect might summarize the goal of permission-based email marketing. Pretty simple, right? The “great emails” part is easy to communicate, especially if they’ve seen samples of your work, or worked with you on other ventures. So now we come to the “people” part. Who are these people? Where did they come from?

This is where the conversation with a prospective client will turn to permission, and it’s one of the most important conversations you’ll have. Fortunately, our permission policy is pretty straightforward: To receive your emails, people on your list…

MUST BE:

+ Someone who is a customer, member or subscriber of your business or organization

+ Someone who has specifically asked to receive your emails by opting in or signing up in some way or

+ Someone who has bought a product or service from you in the past 18 months.

Emma’s permissions policy is in place to minimize the risk to our customers’ sending reputation, and to maximize the effectiveness of your email strategy. But the reasons for these standards may not be immediately apparent to a client who’s considering renting or purchasing a list, or attempting to send to an audience full of email addresses that they haven’t contacted in years. So when you’re getting to know a new client’s email list, it’s important to communicate the value of a healthy, permission-based list. Here are a few points to focus on:

A healthy audience means a healthy sending reputation: In the United States, anti-spam legislation doesn’t go as far toward limiting unsolicited messages as most email service providers (like us) do. It’s not illegal to send unsolicited emails as long as you label them as ads, include your business address and offer a way to opt out of your list. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea: Email traffic is privately monitored, policed and regulated well beyond the limits of CAN-SPAM regulations. Most email clients and servers have their own rigorous standards to protect their users’ inboxes from spam overload. And while your client may not realize it, their business builds upon their reputation with servers and spam blacklists with every mailing. Email campaigns to well-maintained, opt-in lists tend to yield high delivery, open and click-through rates, all of which look like little gold stars next to a company’s name. On the other hand, mailings to rented, purchased or outdated lists are pretty easy to spot. They consistently yield low delivery and open rates, and high rates of opt-outs and spam complaints. Servers and spam filters take notice — a company with a history of poor mailings will have a notably harder time reaching their audience’s inbox. In fact, they often have a hard time reclaiming their good name even after they’ve seen the error of their ways and changed their practices.

Our own reputation as the “carrier” of your clients’ messages also comes into play. To maintain our exceptional delivery rates, we work vigilantly to ensure that all the emails we send are in line with our policy, so sickly-looking response rates are often a sign that we need to step in to diagnose the cause. In situations where we need to find out more about an email delivery issue, we always start by learning more about the email list. In most cases, the source of the problem lies with the manner in which the email addresses were gathered.

Smart list practices yield a higher return on investment: In the early days, a good deal of conversation around email marketing revolved around accumulating the biggest email address list possible. Growing your audience is still an essential piece of any smart marketer’s strategy, but in recent years, email marketing specialists have increased their focus on engagement over simple accumulation. A good subscriber’s initial points of engagement came before they saw their first email — they bought a product or service, or they asked to hear from you. There’s a connection to build upon. An audience that hasn’t made this connection, or made it so long ago that they’ve likely forgotten about it, won’t be as responsive to your message.

A good email list is naturally grown: There aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to building a healthy, responsive email list. But there are plenty of great ways to attract the right people to join your audience. Find the places where your intended audience makes contact with you, and make sure there’s an opportunity to sign up waiting for them there. For some businesses, this may be a fishbowl for business cards at the cash register. For others, it may be on your company’s homepage. If your client is a heavy emailer, have they considered including a signup link in their signature? As you grow your audience, find ways to enable them to help you find new subscribers. Tweet links to your email campaigns and post them on Facebook. Encourage subscribers to share your emails with friends. Give them options to choose to receive the content that they’re most interested in. There’s nothing like watching your email audience grow healthy and strong. If your client can get excited about that prospect, they’re already well on their way to finding the people who want to hear from them the most.