Non-Line Blogging

I’ve been involved in email marketing for over 12 years now, as a client, for a technology vendor, as a trainer and as a consultant.  It’s been really exciting helping to shape a channel that continues to deliver the highest ROI of any direct marketing channel ever ever ever.  I have a particular (un-healthy?) fascination with the way that marketers have adapted to the changing legislative environment, specifically in the emotionally charged area of un-subscribing.

In the bad old days of email, we made the un-subscribe process the very opposite of usability best practice: 

• The opt-out link was hard to find - not quite ”white text on a white background”, but not far off!
• The landing page demanded a 20 character alpha-numeric password that had cunningly been asked for at sign-up.
• The un-subscribe would take 10 days to come into effect, during which time the recipient would be spammed to within an inch of their life. 

Then in 2003 it all changed (for the better, I may add).  In Europe the “Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations” ensured that every marketing message carried a “free and simple mechanism” by which people could un-subscribe, and in the USA the “Can Spam” act did pretty much the same thing.  The bar was raised a few inches and the less reputable email marketers who had been blasting away at their base had nowhere to hide.

Fast forward to 2009 and we are seeing some really creative, and wholly appropriate, approaches to un-subscribe management.  The first thing to stress is that we have moved on from a binary world of “opt in or out for everything” to a place where people can “tune” their relationship with an organisation.  If you’re not doing this through “permission centres” then you’re missing a trick to engage at an appropriate level with potential and existing customers.  But of more interest is “what happens when they smack the un-subscribe link”?

Legally, under a 2009 amendment to the “Can Spam” laws in the USA, you must not force people to log into a system in order to un-subscribe:  The link should take them to a landing page where they should be able to opt-out of the email programme.  Nothing wrong with that, you may say.  Indeed Seth Godin in Permission Marketing written 10 years ago suggested that you should let people unsubscribe easily...I would add the phrase “with grace and dignity”.  But how far can we raise the emotional temperature?  What can we say to people to make them change their mind?  And how do we get our great ideas past the stuffy old legal team covered with dust in the basement?!

Un-subscribing is a critical moment in a long-term relationship.  Left in the hands of the legal team it will end up as a dull, rude, clinical process with only one outcome – they’ll un-subscribe.  But legally, the game is not lost.  We can take them to a landing page that simply asks them “are you sure?”.  We want to remind them of how it all began, the good times we’ve had together and the wonderful future we can enjoy together if only they don’t click that “confirm” button...”

So, here’s a little exercise for you...

Firstly, do you know the value of an email address for your organisation?  If not, add up the money you generate from campaigns, look at the cost savings of not having to mail/phone people, and calculate the incremental revenue you can get from all email campaigns over a 2 year period.  If you’re an e-commerce company, the figure may well be near 200 (Dollars, Pounds, Euros...they’re all worth the same these days anyway!)

Secondly, look at the current un-subscribe rate from click to “gone”.  What if you could halve that un-heathily high conversion rate?  How much revenue would that save/make over 2 years?

Thirdly, think about how you could make people change their mind.  Do you re-sell the benefits of a hard-won email relationship?  Can you bribe them, or can you make them feel guilty?. 

Here are 2 landing pages that I’m sure will reduce the number of “un-successful outcomes” (un-subscribes).  The first is a lovely BtoC example in keeping with the brand personality of a photo-sharing site that makes you think “how could I be so mean?”.  The second is  a BtoB example where you’re being “bribed” to stay registered in exchange for an “exponential gift” that needs me to use a racy Password (ICY-HOT, if you please) to get $97 worth of value.  Saddest of all things is...I fell for it!

Easy to set up.  Easy to test.  Easy to deliver some really big wins in your email strategy.  This is one of the few times in digital marketing where we can judge success by the number of people who DON’T do something!  

 Here is a great "are you sure" landing page in keeping with a digital photography client.  Maybe it could build on the "think of all the wonderful stuff you're missing" but as an emotional response, we don't weant to upset the baby! (Many thanks to Avinash Kaushik for spotting that one)

This is a really in-your-face challenge to un-subscribing.  It may sound a bit cheezy and even desperate, but I fell for it!  You'll need tune the tone of voice to suit your own organisation, but keep the passion for maintaining an email dialogue.