Previous post: Thinking of Using an ‘Old’ List? – Part 1: The Risks
Here’s some good advice when preparing your re-opt in email:
If you have any questions, Kevin can be reached at: postmaster@cakemail.com or feel free to use our Help Desk.
Nowadays people are really trying to get the most out of their email campaigns. This sometimes means going back and using lists you haven’t touched in a while. This can often do more harm than good, so watch out!
Let’s say you haven’t sent any email to your subscribers for a while – about 6 months – and you have now decided to start a weekly newsletter in order to share your coveted knowledge, making your subscribers very happy. You prepare it carefully and send a few tests. Then suddenly you think: “Wait, maybe it would be a good idea to (re)confirm their permission first”. Phew!
This is actually the best move you could make. Sending content to subscribers who haven’t received anything from you in over 6 months is the best way to get into some serious deliverability problems. Chances are they won’t remember ever signing up and hit the ’Spam’ button before you even have a chance to communicate with them. The next thing you know, even people who signed up yesterday aren’t getting your email, or the email is ending up in their Junk folder.
Using old lists increases the risk of you sending to Spamtraps and getting your Domain and/or IP blacklisted. After email addresses have been deactivated for a while, ISPs sometimes use them as bait to catch people using old lists. If you had been sending to this list regularly, these traps would have hardbounced a long time ago and would no longer be on your list. The best way to regain contact with those on older lists is to send a message asking for permission to contact them again and have them re-opt in to your list. Of course, using 6months as a general timeline is a good place to start – the older the list, the bigger the risk that your subscribers won’t remember having subscribed. It’s important to understand that the further you go back, the more likely you are to run into trouble. Realistically, if you haven’t contacted these people at all in the last year, they should no longer be considered part of your list.
If you have any questions, Kevin can be reached at: postmaster@cakemail.com or feel free to use our Help Desk.
Next time: Thinking of Using an ‘Old’ List? – Part 2: Prepare your Re-Opt in Email
Loren McDonald has just published an interesting blogpost on the need (or not) to add a second unsubscribe link on the top of your email content. If you feel that many of your readers are hitting the Spam button instead of simply unsubscribing to your mailings, you should read her advice.
Consider adding an unsubscribe link on the top of your content if you have:
- High complaint rates with specific ISPs
- Inactive Subscribers (if you segment this specific group)
- ‘Aggressive’ opt-in practices
Certainly, the best advice is to actually use “best-practices” (double opt-in subscription process), using updated lists and targeted content, so your readers won’t have any reason to feel ‘spammed’ by your mailings in the first place.
Previous posts: Are You Designing Emails for Seniors – Part 1 A Few Numbers
Are You Designing Emails for Seniors – Part 2: Visual and Physical Disabilities
Anyone born after the popularization of the Internet, or not long before, understands the language, culture and navigation of this media quite easily. It has always been a part of their lives. But what about people who learned about the Internet at an older age? Some of them have embraced it even more than younger users, but for many others the Internet is often a place where they need to be reassured and feel a connection to ‘real life’.
Help these people understand your content by letting them use their intuition, and make associations with vocabulary they already use. Send them emails with clear titles and simple language and, if possible, relate what is going on in the ‘virtual world’ to real life practices and experiences. For example, if you have a transactional email, use familiar vocabulary and follow a process that reflects brick-and-mortar experience. Make your buttons look like buttons. And you don’t need to reinvent the word ‘shopping cart’!
Try to be ‘as real as possible’ to gain the trust of your audience. Include your physical address and have your email sent by a real person with an actual email address that people can personally contact. Have a clear policy about privacy, an easy unsubscription process and simple contact features. Do everything possible to make your subscribers feel confident about your brand in order to foster a long-lasting relationship.
By the way, all this advice also applies to good email practices in general…
Here are several interesting surveys, studies, resources and email marketing techniques from last months in case you missed it.
> 27 questions for your email marketing in 2009
Various opinions taken from experts’ to face challenges for 2009. Among them: Coping with even more competition, Facing Fatigue, Web 2.0 and Multichannel thinking.
> 2009 Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study (from Smith-Harmon)
Executive Summary
PDF Download
and
> Why Now’s a Good Time to Take a Look at Your Welcome Emails
> How to Double Your Clients: 5 Tips for ESPs to Survive in a Commoditised Market!
> Email frequency: can you increase it safely?
> Do You Use English Or American Spelling?
> More On Making Your Emails Shareworthy
> Five Tips for Fast and Easy DIY Headlines
> The Render Rate is coming
The industry debate on new vocabulary proposal to describe the Open Rate and other stats.
> Notes from eec’s Email Evolution Conference 2009
> Make it Pop!: Words of Love: An Email Copy Mix Tape
A selection of great copy treatments for sale emails
> ‘Emailers, You Don’t Know How Good You Are!’
3 reasons our peers don’t understand the value of what we do.
> Boosting clicks: new results and insights
Adding links to articles or offers from the previous email might catch a few bonus clicks from those who missed the original. (Case study on their email)
> Email campaign case studies (one good, one bad)
We explain it for months, maybe Seth Godin will make it clear? 
> Design Hall of Fame: 2008 Inductees
Great exemples of retail email marketing
and
> Oopsy Hall of Fame: 2008 Inductees
Object spelling errors, images that don’t display properly, some of the worst of retail email marketing
Cupcake of the Week
Here is the time to enjoy several Double-Maple Cupcakes!
