Power of Persuasion: 5 Tips To Persuade Opt-ins

One of the most valuable assets a business can have is their email list.  Marketers must remain focused on acquisition opportunities to compensate for the 20-30% annual churn rate typical of a house email list. Today, notonly is there abundance of opportunities in traditional online and offline channels, but also in emerging tactics such as social media. Here are 5 tips for persuasive op-tins

1. Make Your Op-tin Convenient and Compelling

Incorporate op-tins at every customer touch-point and ensure you emphasize the benefits in your pitch.

• Website: prominent locations on homepage and other high traffic pages (if not on every page)
• Email Campaigns: direct requests and forward to friend
• Social Media: add op-tin requests on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites
• Offline Tactics: train reps at call centers and in person events such as point of purchase, trade shows, etc.

2. Focus on Organic Growth Methods

Invest in marketing tactics to drive interest and use email to cost effectively nurture. Organic growth through paid placement can be very effective to grow your house list. Marketers are leveraging a combination of channels and exploring new ways to establish the relationship first and then gaining permission to email. These tactics include: Paid search marketing, online advertising, and direct mail.

3. Build Subscriber Profiles Strategically

Develop an email profile building strategy such as what data to ask for, when to ask, and how to ask for it. Always keep the initial op-tin process short and painless. And remember, build profiles gradually over time with a focus on using data to deliver more personalized and relevant messages.

4. Capitalize on Transaction Email Messages

Marketers whose companies conduct business transactions over the Internet have unique opportunities to acquire email subscribers through email itself. Be aware of CAN SPAM compliance by following a two third/one third rule. More than 2/3 of you email content must be related to the transaction and the other one third for promotional use.

5. Test Third Party Acquisition Partners Carefully

Additional diligence is required any time you’re not organically growing your list and you rely on a third party. When all is said and done, the third party will not be responsible for any legal violations-you will. Below are a few highlights of tactics for email acquisition.

• Co-registration- a form of “affiliate marketing” when a company collecting registration from users (ie: via email sign-up) include separate box for users to check if they would like to be added to a specific third party list.
• List Rental – List rental can be used successfully for email acquisition given the right list and list owner.
• Email Append – Taking customer records for whom, they know the complete physical address and match those records against a third party email list.   CAN SPAM does not make it illegal but tends to be a lower performer than those acquired organically. Match rates tend to hover around 15%.

We hope these tips help you to maximize your opportunities to build a more valuable optin list. If you are uncertain with some of the technical capabilities or want to discuss how these best practices may be deployed, we welcome you to contact us to learn more