Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Apologies if I don't get something that is obvious to everyone else, but are you going to offer all of these people the option of subscribing only to the new B, C, D, and E tracks? (Let's call the original track the A track, mmmkay?)

Or are you simply saying that you're going to take, say, a monthly newsletter and slice it up into four weekly mailings, still making it an all or nothing subscription? (I am not saying that you're doing precisely this, but to me the question is, "Can people subscribe only to the tracks that they want, or are you simply asking for the best to handle the fact that your subscribers will now be getting smaller, more frequent emails?"

If there's no content choice, then I would just send out the newsletter in smaller, more frequent emails to all of your subscribers and leave it at that. You might announce in your first few issues that you've made this change, and if you really want to get fancy, you might even offer the chance to stay on the "once a month" plan to get fewer, larger newsletters. (Or you go completely hog-wild and givem the chance to get the select content that they want...that will raise the bar!)

I hope there's a useful answer for you in here somewhere. Our two-year-old kept us up from 1:45AM to 4:30AM (nothing wrong, just playing, not sleeping) so I'm a little foggy today.

Paul

Mickey,
Honestly it's a great time to ask your readers a question. Anytime you get the chance to do that, it's helpful.

So, 1 week before the e-mail goes out you announce a change to the newsletter Ask them which of the 4 they want. Don't forget to ask other questions like, How often do you want to receive the newsletter? Do you pass it on or forward to others? What has been the most useful part?

All that is good info.

Michael

Answering a couple of the questions posed in the answers here.

There will be a different content topic for each.

Instead of one a week, it would be four a week.

The core of my question is, if I ask people which of the four they would like, can you make any assumption of opt-in for all of them? If I ask them the question, and say you can edit your preferences at this web page, should all of those preferences be turned on, turned off, or a single one on and the other three off?

First thing I would do is review whatever policies you have told the people who subscribed and see if that answers anything.

Is the A list going to continue and B-D are 3 new lists of different subjects? if so, then I would send an email informing the members of your list of the other lists, and offer for them to subscribe to some or all. They would still be members of A.

If the 4 lists are all subsets of A (in others words A goes away and you now have B-E which are subsets of the old A list subject-wise), and your posted Privacy Policies did not answer the question for you, then you could either sign them up for all 4 or let them choose. I, personally, would lean towards letting then choose. This may be a good time to do what Michael says and ask.

Splitting up because the existing mailings are extremely long and combine critical member communications with product/service information, training opportunities, and special offers. Afraid size keeps people from reading and important items get lost. Also want better targeted information to people that are truly interested in a topic to improve response.

Without having all of the facts, I don't think you'd be doing anything wrong by just converting everyone on your list to the shorter, more frequent format. They are subscribing to your newsletter, and now that newsletter has a new frequency and format. That's all.

If you have the means to manage subscription preferences elegantly, though, you might send everyone an email saying, "In order to serve you better, we're changing to a weekly format with each week representing a different topic. Over each four-week period, the topics we'll cover are A, B,C, and D. If you want to receive each weekly newsletter on all four topics, you don't need to do anything. You're already subscribed. If there are any topics you don't want, you can manage your subscription preferences here (link).

Then they can go to a Web page and check the boxes that represent the topics that they don't want, and you can take them out of the queue in those weeks where they are not subscribed. Think of it like a topic-specific unsubscribe request.

Then, in each of your four mailings, you'll have a slightly longer unsubscribe blurb. Something like, "This newsletter has four subscription tracks: A, B, C, and D. This is the A/B/C/D track. To unsubscribe from only this track, use this link. To unsubscribe from this newsletter completely, use this link."

Or something to that effect. I'm not honing the copy here, just giving a general suggestion.

These links could actually be the same, and it could even be the same page that you used earlier in the first email that I mentioned, only you'd have a global unsubcribe option, too. (Actually, that global unsubscribe option could just as well be there for that initial email.)

My $0.02. Overvalued at that.

Thanks for all the feedback. This has been very helpful. We'll probably end up with a strategy that is some combination of what we've heard here from most of you.

I'm going to let this question run through the end of the day, then I'll close off and award the points.

Thanks again to all who responded.