2009.09.29

Tags: Marketing

<< Previous Entry

Next Entry

I've heard reasons for both sides of the common email marketing question, "Who do we include in our mass emails?" You can include every email you've got, and try to hit everybody with the hope that you'll get hits - giving people the chance to unsubscribe after they receive their first email. The other end of the spectrum focuses on a purely opt-in method, requiring that people specifically ask to be included before being sent anything. There are many companies, like Clarion Safety Systems, LLC (at least at the time of this post), that use something in the middle, where subscriptions are collected from website account registrations, but while users have the option of choosing to sign up for subscriptions at the time of registration via a checkbox, the checkbox is selected by default.

I recently received a mass emailing from TechForLess.com. As far as I knew, I didn't know this company, so I decided to unsubscribe, figuring it was a legitimate e-commerce site and not a site trying to harvest emails (don't unsubscribe from just any emailing without knowing the difference!). Little did I know that this company did something extraordinary to prepare for my action: they flat out invited me to examine for myself how I was included in a particular mailing list and, upon accepting, told me in detail.

After clicking on the "Change Email Preferences" at the bottom of the page, I was sent to a simple page that had only this on it:

My original thought was to simply unsubscribe - after all, I didn’t recognize the company and thought that they had gotten my email from some list somewhere. However, after looking at the simplicity of the page, my eye was immediately drawn to the "Click here" link that I was told would inform me how I got on the list in the first place. So I gave it a chance, thinking I'd get maybe a sentence, but more likely a typical form saying that they didn't know how it happened for me. Again I was pleasantly surprised with yet another simple but informative page:

This company had not only taken the time to inform me that I was put on a list for a reason, but also told me why I was on the list, that I was a previous customer (something I was even unaware of!), and when I was added as a customer. As a result, I ended up going back to the store to review my order history and check out their promotion.

Granted, I am just one example, but if it could happen to me, imagine how many other potential visitors it could happen to for your business.