How Opt-Ins Influence your Email Marketing Results
When you start using email marketing as part of the Marketing Mix in your business, you will need to be familiar with the term opt-in. Opt-in refers to sending emails to your list only with permission. That means the user should have given his email address to you voluntarily and expects to receive emails from you.
As far as email marketing goes, generally, the bigger your email list, the greater your profits. Of course, a lot of other factors come to play in the responsiveness of a list.
The biggest ROI is from the house list ie. your own list of customers. These are people who have purchased from you in the past. Mailing to them is the easiest way to make further sales.
If you are emailing to a rented list, it is better to ask about the list building practices of the vendor. Compiled lists are lists generated from various public databases and have the least return in most markets.
Another kind of list may be termed as the opt-in list. This is where the user has opted in to receive emails from you in return for receiving something useful. Very often it is some kind of information product such as a newsletter. At other times, it is because you promise to send him something in the mail or a digital product that the customer perceives as valuable.
Here is why opt-in is very important for good email marketing.
You may have a big list but if the user is not expecting your email, he may not recognize it. If the user does not recognize your email, it will be treated as junk or even worse spam. Of course, if your subject line solves a problem that the user currently has, you are in luck. Your email gets opened.
To make sure that your emails don't end up in the trash or spam; you have to make sure that you email only to an opt-in list as far as possible. There are basically three types of opt-in lists:
1) Single Opt-in.
This is where the user enters an email address and you start emailing to this address without any further communication or action on the part of the user.
This kind of opt-in is almost never used nowadays. A person may enter his email address to receive something for the moment, but may soon forget that he signed up to receive email. When he starts receiving email from an apparently unknown person/business, this email never gets opened, gets deleted or gets marked as junk.
Someone may add your email to a list or multiple lists just out of spite. You suddenly start receiving a lot of un-solicited email (spam).
2)Confirmed Opt-In :
This is where the user enters an email address to receive your communications. You send him a one time special email saying that he has been signed up to receive emails. You offer a chance for him to unsubscribe with a link in the email. If the user does not unsubscribe, he is considered as confirmed.
This option is better than Single Opt-in since users at least see your email informing them about the opt-in. They have the option to sign out if they are not interested in the information you are offering. This helps keep your list clean.
3) Double Opt-In:
In this case, the user is sent an email with a special link as soon as he enters his email address at your website. Once the link is clicked, your database is updated and the user is marked as confirmed. You add him to your list only after this confirmation.
In this format, the user has to click a link within the email to confirm his willingness to receive emails from you. This action on the part of the user causes him to acknowledge and remember that he is giving you permission to send him emails.
Why is an opt-in list so important for successful email marketing ?
- In these days of information overload, your emails vie for the users attention with hundreds of other emails. If the user recognizes you, your email gets opened.
- More and more Internet service providers are taking upon themselves to rid their users' inboxes of spam. If a lot of your emails get marked as spam, your emails get blocked by the ISP.
- Most email marketers nowadays require that any lists you import into your account be double opt-in.
To sum up, a double opt-in list ensures a better return on your investment of time, energy and other resources. Most email marketers can set it up for you such that you can require a double opt-in of your customers.
Hope this helps,
Deep Janardhanan
The Marketing Outsider
http://www.NobleRiver.com