Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Permission-based is the only way to go. I advise your third option, except offer a little something in return for the opt-in, such as a white paper. You may want to include the newsletter opt-in over the course of several email alerts, as opposed to a one-shot offer.

This course has worked well for me. Granted, it may take a while to get a good portion interested, but it's well worth the effort.

Best of luck!

Maria

Amy

I also run my own opt-in newsletter for clients and prospects (mine is based on Constant Contact, and you can easily subscribe via a link in my profile, and unsubscribe via a link in every e-mail I send via the system).

I presume your B2B client is just starting out with an e-mail newsletter and furthermore let's assume for the moment they have never had a hard-copy newsletter list before.

What I did was to take the e-mail addresses from all my contact databases or systems (e.g. Outlook) and create a spreadsheet which I then imported into ConstantContact.

In my first newsletter sent out using this system, I explained to readers that this was number 1 and the reason they were receiving it was because of our past relationship of whatever kind and I thought this might be of some value to them. And if they didn't want to get it in the future, they could instantly, automatically, and free-of-charge unsubscribe using the link in the footer. (That's where Constant Contact places it, there's not a huge amount of flexibility with that).

I had around 5% of the list unsubscribe from the first mailing, and generally get about two or three people unsubscribe each mailing I do. My list is about 450-500 addresses.

I don't mail all that frequently, and presume that some people just feel too busy to read it when I do send, or else they have moved on, their mail is diverted to another employee, and they don't find my content relevant. The thing is not to take it personally!

I also invited recipients to forward the e-mail to any friends or colleagues who they thought might enjoy it, again using the "send to a friend" link in the footer. BTW I've also built "send to a friend" logic into most of my web pages, leveraging the facility on Constant Contact, although I made my own graphic, see my website for an example.

I use the ConstantContact sign-up box logic on my "Subscribe" page, which also provides a warm fuzzy statement about the list ethics and a link to the Privacy Statement, which everyone should have, and in some jurisdictions, you may be obliged legally to display.

So, to answer your question, I have selected option 1 for my own business, and I recommend you do too.

Incidentally, ConstantContact warns users on their website that while double Opt-In might be the gold standard for privacy and Can-Spam compliance, it can lead to a very, very large drop off in subscriptions. Generally, people don't take much action, so you would be well advised to leave them to opt-out (which they probably won't, in the majority) than to ask them to opt-in (because the majority won't do that either).

Anyway, that's my experience. I hope it's helpful!

Going back to whether the client has run soft or hard-copy newsletters in the past: If anyone ever asked to be taken off the list, I hope you know who they were, and will not add them to your database for even an initial mailing.

People hate it when their opt-out doesn't work, and face it, if you tell them they can opt-out, and that doesn't work instantly, how can they trust anything else you might tell them?

Good Luck.

ChrisB

I'll take the opposing view, just for fun (and because I really do believe it).

If you're truly talking about CUSTOMERS here in a B2B environment, I think you could email your newsletter to them on an opt-out basis. Be sure to include an obvious and functioning mechanism to unsubscribe.

You might want to send a personalized text-only email at the onset to announce that a newsletter will begin soon. Be sure to highlight the value of the content that will be coming, and be sure to make it super-simple to say at that time, "I don't want the newsletter."

You should probably give people the option to get alerts-only, alerts/newsletter, or nothing at all.

When we started an eNewsletter, we first sent out an introduction to our client list with a method to opt-out.

From that point forward, we asked if people would like to join our mailing list and only added those that wanted it.

On new lists/names/prospects, again, an introductory newsletter with opt-out was sent prior to adding anyone to our list.

Donna
Marketing Riot

I agree with Inbox_Interactive. We send out a customer newsletter and have an opt-out option and it's been incredibly valuable. If we asked them to opt-in, no one would. With prospects and anyone else, however, I'd use an opt-in list.

Amy,

I agree with Paul (Inbox_Interactive) as I am also a strong proponent of Opt-Out when launching a new email marketing program to a pre-existing list of customers.

If you go with the Opt-In option I can guarantee you it is going to cost you many, many subscribers (80% minimum will never Opt-In) who really do want to receive your email marketing.

I have seen this happen many times and the end results are never good because of the loss of those 80% of customers who really did want you to strengthen and deepen your relationship with them.

In fact, Opt-In can backfire on you as many of those who did not confirm will, over a period of time, start to ask why you are no longer including them in your marketing communications and when they find out you "dropped them" they will get irritated.

For the same reason I am not fan of the so-called Gold Standard of Double Opt-In. That is just a disaster and a shameful waste of a good subscriber, again minimum 80% won't confirm even though 2 minutes earlier they told you they wanted to receive your communications.

BTW, with Constant Contact you can actually include the Opt-Out link in the top in the "Permission Reminder" box as well as at the bottom. Although this may be overkill as you don't want to put too much emphasis on Opting-out UNTIL they receive your first campaign.

This is what I would encourage, that is ask them "to wait until you have an opportunity to see how much value we have built for our customers into our new email marketing communications".

Then, if they find no value they can unsubscribe.

Think postive, not negative! They'll love your new email marketing program!

Lastly, Paul's suggestion to give a heads up in the form of a plain text email is excellent advice.