Do Others’ Poor Email Practices Hurt You?

If I heard it once as a kid, I heard it a hundred times: "You’re known by the company you keep."

Lately I wonder if as email marketers, and as companies with a web presence, we don’t give enough thought to this, and how it affects how our subscribers perceive us (and how they treat our messages).

The online actions of other businesses, who may not have any association with you, can give you — can give all of us — a bad name.

It’s up to us to make sure that your visitors and subscribers know how you differ from the “bad apples” — because otherwise, you may suffer the consequences of someone else’s poor email marketing practices.

But Why? That’s Not Fair! I Haven’t Done Anything Wrong!

Remember, we’re talking about "the company you keep," not necessarily what you’re doing yourself.

Many web users are suspicious and mistrusting, as Mark Brownlow points out.

According to the study he cites, users believe that a majority of companies will share their email address with others. (Unfortunately, some companies still do this, which in my view is an abhorrent practice, no matter how it’s framed or disclosed.)

Combine this with the fear of many (69%) that they’ll be the victim of an email scam, and the fact that half of those don’t know how to identify a potentially dangerous email, and the fact that they’re often told not to trust unsubscribe links, and what do you get?

A situation where the average user may be afraid to share his/her email address because he/she is afraid of getting spam from you — and from other people.

The Goal: Prove That You’re Different. But How?

Most of your visitors don’t know you from Adam. They’ve found you from an online search, or a link from another website, and carry few or no preconceptions about your email practices.

What visitors do know is that you’re a business, with a website, who wants their email address. And what do they believe happens when they give a business their email address?

So to earn their subscription, you have to differentiate yourself from the “bad apples” out there.

A few ways to do so:

Each of these can potentially reduce your visitors’ fear of giving you their email addresses.

Other Ideas?

While you know your own permission and privacy practices (or, to put it another way, your “email ethics”), your potential subscribers do not. Better to assume you’re not trusted, and go about earning that trust by informing subscribers about both yourself and your business, than to simply hope you are trusted by default.

What other ways can you think of to earn subscriber trust?

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Director of Education Marketing at AWeber. Justin Premick on Google

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20 Comments

  1. Harjit Irani

    This is another revised lesson and it is worth the price. Your subscribers are your propery and don’t share it with anyone else. Internet business is all trust. It may take time to build a llist. Don’t sell your list for short time gain. Business ethics is very important.

    5/28/2008 4:41 pm
  2. Bob Johnson

    Succinct, to the point, and very helpful.
    Thank you!

    5/28/2008 4:48 pm
  3. Diana Fontanez

    Justin. All that was needed to be said, was said in your post. :)

    * Don’t share email addresses
    * A visible privacy policy
    * Build trust
    * And set expectations

    Thanks

    5/28/2008 5:42 pm
  4. Rob Wendes

    Remind them that you will put an unsubscribe link at the end of every email that you send them.

    O.k. I know that unsubscibe is not to be trusted, but at least you are saying up font that you will give them a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

    Yuo could remind them that you are using a reputable autoresponder service, to whom they can send complaints if you don’t comply with these conditions.

    5/29/2008 2:04 am
  5. KC

    The video idea is good…

    Perhaps some testimonials of satisfied subscribers (who received value from your emails) can be included as well?

    5/29/2008 2:19 am
  6. E

    I think creating a short video to associate a face with the website is a great idea! I will be incorporating this into all my blogs now. Thanks for the tip.

    5/29/2008 7:49 am
  7. robert watkins

    I agree with you, completely. It may be a good idea to set up a video about all that.

    I will when my course from W,I ,S. gets here, and i learn how to do it.

    5/29/2008 8:25 am
  8. Justin Premick

    Harjit,

    I don’t know that I’d refer to my subscribers as my property – they’re people, not possessions, and it’s also useful to think of the permission they’ve given us to email them as something we have on loan, rather than something we own (after all, the subscriber controls that permission and can revoke it at any time).

    But you’re absolutely right about not selling your list (and really, your business) out for a short term gain.

    Rob,

    I agree – just because people don’t trust MOST unsubscribe links, doesn’t mean that they can’t trust YOURS. It’s all about building that trust. When a subscriber trusts you, they’ll trust your unsubscribe link.

    One way you might build trust in your unsubscribe process is to include text near your signup form/in your emails that says something along the lines of "(don’t trust unsubscribe links?) if you prefer, you can email me at __________ anytime to unsubscribe."

    This creates an extra couple seconds of work for you when someone takes you up on it, but it’s quite easy to manually unsubscribe someone, and the additional trust/confidence that someone gains from seeing that option may make them more likely to (a) use the unsubscribe link instead, or (b) simply not unsubscribe in the first place.

    KC,

    Great idea – you could definitely include testimonials in a video (it could be as simple as you sitting at a desk reading and then showing emails you’ve received from happy subscribers).

    5/29/2008 8:57 am | Follow me on Twitter
  9. Doug Barger

    I like your idea about adding the video.

    That gets more interaction involved with more of their senses:

    seeing and hearing.

    We’re more likely to remember the video we saw than the millions of websites we’ve seen over the years.

    Then when they receive the email, it’s like,

    "Oh cool, from that guy in the video."

    Of course, as always, each new strategy needs to be tested for optimal results.

    5/29/2008 11:38 am
  10. Aaron Abber

    One way I have found to build trust is to send each of my prospective subscribers a live monkey. Sure it’s expensive, but who doesn’t want a monkey?

    5/29/2008 4:51 pm
  11. Randy

    I do think that the practice of spamming as opposed to using opt-in lists that were generated by your customers is detrimental to the email marketing industry. It makes it more difficult for the legitimate marketers to conduct business. Sad. I don’t see an end to this practice anytime soon.

    5/29/2008 10:08 pm
  12. Aaron Abber

    Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Most people who have clogged inboxes have them because they OPTED IN TO TOO MANY LISTS.

    Technically, that’s not spam.

    There are exceptions, like web business owners who put their email address on every page of their website and end up getting it scraped by real spammers, but that’s not the norm.

    The title of this post puts it in perspective: "Poor email practices" are the problem–and to some extent most of us are guilty of it in one way or another. At least once in a while.

    @Justin & Rob,

    I haven’t seen a study or any stats on subscribers not trusting unsub links. I remember their being some press on how "spammers use that to know you have a valid address" some years ago, but I didn’t think it was really a common belief.

    Where do you get that?

    I place a small warning at the end of my emails above the unsub link that probably counters that anyway–and using it dropped my unsub rate to less than 1% per mailing. If anybody wants to see it you can…

    join my mailing list

    Just kidding. Wait, no, I’m not.

    Plus you get a free monkey.

    5/30/2008 8:37 am
  13. Justin Premick

    Aaron,

    Check out this article from the NY Times (it’s from the previous post I link to above) – it’s not a study per se, but an example of how this thinking is still very much in the mainstream.

    5/30/2008 1:04 pm | Follow me on Twitter
  14. Codrut Turcanu

    Justin, you put up very useful information.

    If one is sharing his/her subscribers’ information then it’s like breach of privacy. And one cannot build a business on unethical practices.

    5/30/2008 2:39 pm
  15. Mark Mason

    Aaron;

    I am on your list, and I agree that your UNSUB message is very effective. In fact — I stole it. Sorry about that. I’ll respect your decision not to publish the UNSUB message here.

    HOWEVER, I am still waiting for my monkey.

    6/1/2008 10:39 pm
  16. Aaron Abber

    @Mark,

    Thanks for the encouragement. Monkeys are on back order right now. I’ll FedEx you one as soon as they come in.

    6/2/2008 9:48 am
  17. Chris

    Nice try, but some of the tips seem rather naive.

    If people don’t trust you, why would they trust your privacy policy? (I’m sure many of the people who sell addresses claim they don’t.)

    Why would they believe that you won’t give out their info, just because you say that?

    If they don’t trust your unsubscribe link, why would they trust you to remove them manually? (Hint: most of us are trying to use more automation, not less.)

    It seems pretty illogical to say people don’t trust you, then list tips which assume people trust you.

    6/3/2008 4:26 pm
  18. Justin Premick

    Chris,

    In my view, mistrust by a visitor about your email ethics comes from the difficulty that visitor has in separating your company from the rest of the "bad apples" out there who do spam, who do use unsubscribe links as a means of validating addresses, who do share/sell information, and so on), and in their resulting uncertainty about what you will or will not do with their information if they provide it to you.

    What I propose above is to provide visitors with information that can assist them in differentiating your company and your email ethics.

    In other words, we don’t assume people trust us, but rather we assume they don’t trust us, because they don’t know us, and we attempt to overcome that mistrust by educating them and helping them get to know us – much in the same way we attempt in our email campaigns to overcome subscriber objections to purchasing our products/services (also often done via education).

    As you point out, it’s possible that some visitors will not believe what you say in your privacy policy.

    However, I view that as a marketing challenge – split-test different "privacy text" around your form, for example, or try adding in the video as suggested above. See how your opt-in rate changes in the presence or absence of that content.

    6/4/2008 8:46 am | Follow me on Twitter
  19. Aaron Abber

    @Chris,

    You are also making an assumption: That people act logically.

    There are hundreds of minor factors a first-time visitor sucks up in the first moments they visit your site. Does the site look professional? Is the page well written? Is the information valuable to me? Are there testimonials? Do I recognize in testimonials names of people on the site who I already trust?

    Things like videos also increase the "empathy factor" as people see your face and hear your voice they see you as a real human, not simply a flat name on a site. (Note to self: Find good looking actor to make a video claiming to be me on my site.)

    A site that has a detailed privacy policy actually increases their trust. Logically that makes no sense–a scammer site could just as easily put up a detailed privacy policy–but this seems to not occur to most visitors.

    And I agree with Justin: Try a split test. See how your subscribe and confirm rates are affected by various strategies.

    6/4/2008 9:38 am

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