Having an opt-in list happens to be a lot more involved than just sending your subscribers your promotional newsletters. Beyond that there are many things that you will have to consider in order to avoid complications of various severity. You cannot just concentrate on getting people to subscribe to your list. There are also some things you should or should not do to prevent your subscribers from clicking the unsubscribe link. In addition to that, you will also want to avoid any legal problems or problems with your Internet Service Provider.
Opt-in Email Marketing Basics
There are many laws and regulations that are designed to protect the privacy of Internet users, especially from spamming. Since email has become popular as an advertising medium because of its low costs, many companies have taken the opportunity to flood many peoples’ inboxes with unwanted promotional mail.
However, with an opt-in list, you avoid annoying people because they have purposefully subscribed to your list. They have indicated that they want to receive your promotional materials. They have given their consent to being place upon on the list by manually subscribing themselves to it. The important thing to remember is to always put an unsubscribe link in every email to your opt-in list. This allows you to avoid any confusion. Also, sometimes there will be cases where the actual email owner didn’t subscribe.
Opt-in Email List Management
The first order of business with a opt-in email marketing list is to keep your list clean and manageable. You can manage it by utilizing software tools that are on the market for this purpose.
Keep your business operation out of trouble by following this rule: Keep your operation legit and clean. You can’t afford to deal with potential conflicts with law enforcement. You will also want to avoid the hassle of problems with your Internet service providers. Having a reputation as a legitimate business site and keeping a good reputation depends entirely upon you being a straight and narrow email marketer.
Now let’s get to our 3 tips:
1. Pay Attention to Your Unsuccessful Sends
There will be emails that bounce, ie undeliverable messages. These are messages that, for whatever reason, did not make it to the intended recipient. Occasionally bounces occur because a server was busy at that time of delivery. There may also be bounces because the target inbox was full. This will usually go through OK on a second sending.
Then there are bounced emails that cannot be delivered, period. There are several reasons for this including: an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and deleted. Manage your list by marking email addresses that bounce. Remove, aka srcub, bad email address from your list so that you have accurate statistics on how many subscribers are actually receiving your mail.
2. Always Provide an Unsubscribe Feature
The ability to unsubscribe from the opt-in list should be prominently featured on your site and an unsubscribe link in your mails as well. When someone in your list files an unsubscribe request you must always take that request seriously. Should you not take them off your opt-in list and keep sending them your e-mails, you have stepped over the line and become a spammer. When you are reported as a spammer, you can get into a lot of trouble. First of all, you will be likely to lose a lot of subscribers this way. You may get blacklisted by Internet Service Providers. You could even be reported to law enforcement authorities.
3. Stay Safe For Work
You do not want to send pornographic or other potentially disturbing content in your opt-in emails or newsletters. Since it is very difficult to determine the age of the recipient this is just good business sense. You would be surprised at how many complaints stem from this kind of situation.
Controversial issues, such as politics and religion, should also are to be avoided unless this is the overall theme of your site or newsletter.
Keep these tips in mind. They will help you develop a healthy relationship with your subscribers. Plus, following them should keep you within the boundaries of what is allowed when it comes to sending mails to an opt-in list.
