Email List Question

by Zanath

Posted: 11 years ago 7 replies

EMAIL MARKETING

Hey All,

Long time reader first time poster. At my company we are just starting our email marketing program after months of inactivity. I'm actually new at the company so I'm inheriting their sign up process. It goes like this:

-User signs up for the site
-User receives welcome email
-User starts receiving newsletters on a bi-weekly basis.

We started sending emails to our list of existing customers and the results have been subpar. I believe the main culprit is that, on our sign up form, we have no indicator that they are opting into a newsletter. I'm wondering what people's opinions are on this: Is something like that necessary to have a solid email program, or is it enough that they receive a welcome email and that we have a checkbox in their profile that opts them into emails.

Thanks in advance!

#email #list #question

discrat

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Zanath

Hey All,

Long time reader first time poster. At my company we are just starting our email marketing program after months of inactivity. I'm actually new at the company so I'm inheriting their sign up process. It goes like this:

-User signs up for the site - You need to have an incentive here. Not sure your business and what you do? But sign up form needs to have some motivation to give their email to you. You could say : "Sign up for our VIP List where we you will receive EXCLUSIVE Discounts and Special Promotions on our most Exciting Products". Something like that
-User receives welcome email - Tell them a little about your Company ( bio, staff etc,,)then tell them what you can do for them. Doesn't hurt to break the ice with some humor and personality even in a Corporate setting
-User starts receiving newsletters on a bi-weekly basis.- I think this is a good start. No need to ambush them with too much

Im in bold

Thanks

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discrat

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Zanath

We started sending emails to our list of existing customers and the results have been subpar. I believe the main culprit is that, on our sign up form, we have no indicator that they are opting into a newsletter. I'm wondering what people's opinions are on this: Is something like that necessary to have a solid email program, or is it enough that they receive a welcome email and that we have a checkbox in their profile that opts them into emails.

Thanks in advance!

It does not hurt to have them sign up for an Optin Form for the newsletter. But traditionally speaking they are paying customers and you can go ahead and start sending them follow up emails without Optin.

Just do not be too 'salesy' though ! Be diligent and meticulous with these emails.
They will be the bloodline of your business. Or at least they should be.

Of course there are exceptions, like a high traffic store front retail business.

But even then, you still need to focus on it

- Robert Andrew

Thanks
1 reply

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Zanath 11 years ago

Thanks, Robert! My concern is that our open rates for these emails have been very low, and we've had a lot of abuse complaints as well which makes me feel like users are not understanding they opted into newsletters when they signed up on our site. We've been trying different subject lines with not much success.
- Thanks
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Edwin Torres 11 years ago

You have to make it clear that they are optin in to get email updates. Try giving out a free gift or some type of incentive for them to opt in. Thats more convincing than telling someone to just join your newsletter.

In your welcome email tell them that youll be emailing them bi-weekly and that if they're not comfortable with this they can unsubscribe.

This is how you weed out people and only keep the most engaged subscribers on your list.
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answergal 11 years ago

Edwin is spot on here. Tell people to unsubscribe if they don't want your email. Tell them up front, in big bold letters if necessary, right in the Welcome email.

But make sure to give them a good reason to stay, too. Tell them something like "you'll get special insider deals ever week that are exclusive to this email list"... then say, "but if you don't want special insider deals, please, unsubscribe now. We don't want you here if you don't find value in it."

Meanwhile, make sure that it's really clear to people that they'll be on your "valuable" email list when they first sign up. As you've learned, you don't want to trick people onto your list. That's a common mistake that novices make, thinking they're building a big list. I'd rather have 100 people that really want to be on my list, than 1,000 who didn't even know they were signing up for a bi-weekly newsletter. You don't need "subscribers", you need "responsive subscribers."
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winnermarketing 11 years ago

For the firs time you need send more mail at you subscribers.
In the mails You should Give free materials as advice, informations.
Peolple need to have reasons to be registered.
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BradGB 11 years ago

I have no idea what AR you are using, but you might want to segment off the people that are coming in fresh, versus the old inactive list.

If you have a list that you (or in this case, your company) has ignored for a long time and then start suddenly emailing them, of course you can expect a high complaint/unsubscribe rate.

If you've ignored them too long, you might have lost a good chunk of 'em.

And if you still got them lumped in with your fresh subscribers, it's going to be hard to figure out how effective your campaigns are.
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