“ Good ideas executed badly will not bring you the results you’re looking for. It’s wise to keep tabs on what your subscribers are doing. If you look at your stats and see some subscribers aren’t clicking on your links or even opening your emails, it’s time to take action. We’ve talked before about how [...]

You may have wondered how to require an email subscription for access to your high-quality content, the stuff you can’t find just anywhere on the Web. After all, you spend a lot of time and energy putting it together. You brainstorm, dig around the Internet doing research and polish your message like a well-loved shoe. [...]

Staking out your online real estate can be fairly easy: you start a website, join some social media groups and before you know it, you have carved out your own little section of the Internet. But online businesses rely heavily on email marketing to keep customers thinking about them. Since they’re not driving by your [...]

Last month, we talked about the email subscribers you don’t want and how to prevent them from signing up to your list. Now, it’s time to think about how to get and keep the subscribers you DO want. To help us with this, we talked to Johhn Four from Gamer Lifestyle. He left some impressive [...]

Just two years after the launch of Social Media Examiner, founder Michael Stelzner has plenty to be proud of. He runs one of the world’s top business blogs, with an email list of more than 124,000 and growing, plus over 450,000 visitors per day. He also recently published his latest book, Launch: How to Quickly [...]

What would it be like to be on Batman’s mailing list? What would happen if the Joker stole his list? We spend a lot of time pointing out what real email marketers are doing, but we never consider our fictional superheroes. Find out how we think superheroes (and their arch enemies!) would fare in the [...]

Email marketing tactics and food have a few things in common. There’s the good, the bad, and the people that try to make the bad look good for you.

The food industry has resources like the Eat This, Not That book to guide you, but what about email marketing? With all the different tactics out there, it’s hard to know what will help you and what will hurt you.

That will be changing today with AWeber’s “Do This, Not That” approach to Email Marketing.

We’ll kick it off with some of the worst list management mistakes that could be hurting your email deliverability, and what you should be doing instead.

Send Only to Those Who Requested Your Information

What this is: You cannot did NOT request YOUR information, and you don’t even know how their email addresses were originally obtained. You’d be spamming them.

Another danger is obtaining stale or invalid email addresses. Your message may be filtered because of this, reducing your deliverability rate.

Do this instead:

• Build your list organically.
  You can put up a web form on your website so subscribers can sign up if they want to be on your mailing list. You can also include links to sign up on social media sites like Facebook. And don’t forget if you have a store to include a sign up sheet at the register!

Check out how we invite people to subscribe on Facebook:

Don’t Assume Permission- Ask For It!

What this is: Subscribers skip the confirmation message and just start getting your emails.

There are some worries that confirmed opt-in makes the sign up process harder for the subscriber. But if you don’t have confirmed opt in on, you run the risk of again getting bad email addresses on your list. You’ll also open yourself up to more spam complaints, and subscribers who aren’t as interested in your company.

Do this instead:

• Send a customized confirmation message.
  Set up a customized confirmation that explains to subscribers what’s going on. You’ll have a list of subscribers who want your information and are much less likely to complain.

Here’s what a good confirmation message looks like:

Don’t Ignore Your Complaint Rate

What this is: A complaint is recorded when a subscriber marks one of your broadcast messages as spam.

A subscriber who complains will be automatically unsubscribed from your list in AWeber, which may lead to an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. However, consistent complaints hurt your reputation and your deliverability rate will go down.

Occasional complaints may be inevitable, but that’s never an excuse to look into what you could be doing better.

Do this instead:

• Make sure you are properly setting expectations.
  Does your web form clearly state what they are signing up for? Do you have a welcome message that details your email plans? You can lower your complaint rate by ensuring subscribers know what they will be getting from you and how often you will be sending them messages.

Here’s an example of a form that sets expectations:

Don’t Push Down the Unsubscribe Link

What this is: Using space or unnecessary text to push down the unsubscribe link. This makes the unsubscribe link hard to find.

If subscribers want to leave your list, you should let them! Otherwise you will run into spam complaints which can hurt your reputation and deliverability.

It will also mean your list contains subscribers who aren’t really interested in your emails. If they’re not interested, they won’t be interacting with your emails.

Don’t fall for the idea subscribers may “accidentally unsubscribe”. It’s not going to happen. The unsubscribe link takes subscribers to a new page where they will need to actually choose the unsubscribe option. Hiding the link is just not worth the risk.

Do this instead:

• Put a link to unsubscribe at the TOP of your message.
  Including some text such as “If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please click here to unsubscribe” is a much better approach. Subscribers will appreciate that you respect their time and attention.

Here’s what it can look like:

Coming Up Next: The “Do This! (Not That)” Approach to Creating Emails

In the next part of the series, you’ll learn the worst mistakes you can make when creating and sending emails. Find out if you’re doing one of these mistakes, and what you can do to fix it!

Want Us To Tell You When The Next Email In This Series Is Online?

Fill out the form below to join our blog newsletter and we’ll drop you a line when the next part of the “Do This, Not That” series is online.

We’ll also periodically send you the other email marketing tips we publish here. The blog newsletter goes out twice per week.

Naturally, as a permission-based email marketing company, we respect your privacy.

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You hear it’s part of “best practices” in email marketing. ISPs refer to it as an “industry standard”. It can also help you avoid blocklists and increase deliverability. It’s called “confirmed opt-in”.

Using confirmed opt-in helps ensure you have real subscribers who are interested in what you’re offering. The stumbling block for most people is creating a confirmation message that gets the subscriber to confirm.

The confirmation is a crucial step in the subscriber sign up process. To help you out, we have a couple of examples that demonstrate how you can approach this.

Where the Confirmation Message Fits In

The confirmation message is sent immediately after a subscriber is added to your list. Once it’s sent, the subscriber needs to:

1. Open the message. If the subscriber doesn’t open the email, they won’t get the link to confirm. Make sure you have a customized subject line that will let your subscriber know they need to take action.

2. Click to confirm. If the subscriber doesn’t click on the confirmation link, they won’t be able to receive any more messages.

Customized Confirmation Messages You Can Learn From

Confirmation Message: Moving subscribers into a new list

If you have a list of subscribers you have already been in contact with, you will need to import them in your new list. The subscribers will need to confirm to remain on your list, so your confirmation message could look something like Science North’s:

What should I do if I’m adding a list of my current subscribers?

• Be open with your subscribers. Explain why they are getting a confirmation message, especially if they were unaware a move was going to happen. Marketing transparently will build subscribers’ trust in you.
• Emphasize that if they still want to be on your list, they will need to confirm. If they’re still a subscriber, they’re most likely still enjoying your emails. Make sure they realize they need to take action.

Confirmation Message: Subscribers coming in from web form

If subscribers are going to your site and filling out a form, your confirmation message could look something like The Bee Folks’:

What should I do for subscribers coming in through my form?

• Ensure they realize they requested this information. Make sure your from name matches what is on the site so the subscriber can easily recognize your message.
• Get their interest so they want to confirm. You can encourage them to confirm by reminding them of the incentive or content you promised them.

Another Way to Optimize the Confirmation Process

You’ve customized the confirmation message, but the sign-up process is still not as smooth as you’d like. Back up a bit, and look at what the subscriber will see before the confirmation message: your thank you page.

After the subscriber fills out the web form, they’re immediately directed to a thank you page. You can make this page a custom page with detailed instructions.

Use the thank you page to:

• add you to their address book.
• Show what the confirmation message will look like and point out what they’ll need to click. This can be done by taking a screen shot and using an image editing program like Skitch or GIMP to mark up the image.

You also have the option to use the Smart Video Thank You Page. This is an AWeber-hosted page that’s customized with your logo and plays a video with an example of how your confirmation message may look to your subscriber in their inbox.

How Do You Get People to Confirm?

What have you done to your confirmation message and sign up process to ensure subscribers know what to do and are compelled to take action?

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In the many discussions I’ve had about Confirmed Opt-In, and why it’s key for anyone doing email marketing, there’s one point I’ve found many people just don’t believe:

When you run your campaigns as single opt-in, you run the risk of people or scripts maliciously signing up other people’s email addresses to your list – meaning you’re spamming them.

Unintentionally, yes, but it’s still spamming, because that person who you’re now emailing never signed himself/herself up to your list.

For many people, the idea that someone would use their signup form to sign up someone else’s email address just makes no sense.

Well, you’re right – it doesn’t make sense.

But it happens, sometimes on a grand scale.

Spamza: How One Site Created A Lot of Spam Problems for Single Opt-In Email Campaigns

Recently, email marketers had a scare thrown into them by the website Spamza.com.

Spamza promoted itself as a site that allowed people to “spam their enemies” by entering an email address into a web form.

Spamza then took the email addresses entered and subscribed them to hundreds of email newsletters.

Yikes.

Spamza is no longer online (although they are apparently looking for new hosting), but you can see a screenshot of their homepage below (click for full-size version).

Scary Stuff – If You Run a Single Opt-In List

What if your email newsletter were one of the ones Spamza signed addresses up to?

Well, if you were running your campaign using Confirmed Opt-In, anyone added to the Spamza form would get your confirm email. The owners of those addresses would either delete that individual message or mark it as spam. And that would be the end of it.

If, on the other hand, you were using single opt-in, you’d have quite a problem on your hands.

• Your list size would be artificially inflated with uninterested subscribers – lowering your click and open rates
• Your subsequent email newsletters would get more complaints as the owners of the addresses added to your list started marking your messages as spam.
• You could show up on URL blacklists (based on links that appear in your messages) – meaning future emails with your website in them could be blocked, even if they were sent by other people (like your affiliates) or if they were transactional messages (like payment notifications or responses to customer support tickets).
• Perhaps worst of all, your target audience could label you as a spammer (which could lead them to persuade others not to do business with you, online or offline).

“Sure – But I Use Single Opt-In, And I Wasn’t Affected. That Stuff Just Won’t Happen To Me.”

I hope not – and I mean that sincerely. I don’t want to see any of that stuff listed above happen to you.

But is hoping that it won’t happen to you really a prudent way to run your business?

Anne Mitchell, founder of email accreditation firm ISIPP, had this to say:

[E]ven if it isn’t Spamza – in fact, even if it isn’t a targeted effort – people enter the wrong email addresses in web sign-up forms all the time. Sometimes it’s by accident (they typo their own email address and the result is someone else’s email address), but often it’s on purpose.

The fact is, malicious subscriptions are quite real, and if you’re not confirming subscribers, your email deliverability could be threatened by a script like Spamza’s.

More Coverage Of Spamza

1. ZDNet
2. Word To The Wise

It’s a weird, wild Internet we do business on. Better to protect yourself than to run the risk of some knucklehead taking advantage of your single opt-in signup process.

(If you’re still on the fence about confirming your subscribers, check out these common Confirmed Opt-In Myths.)

Would you spend money on pay-per-click ads (i.e. Google Adwords) and not bother to optimize your landing page content?

What about the price of your product, or incentives you use to build urgency — they affect your conversion rate, so you probably test them, right?

Now… what about your confirm rate? If you could do something to influence the percentage of people who confirm their signups to your email campaign, you would… wouldn’t you?

I recently came across an AWeber user who was frustrated with his confirm rate. As I talked with him, I realized that a lot of you may be missing the same opportunities to get more of your website visitors to confirm.

A Quick Word on Confirm Rates

Confirm rates, while they’ll never be 100% (nor should they be), can actually get quite high. It’s not at all unreasonable to shoot for a confirm rate greater than 75%.

On To The Example — Stuart and His Web 2.0 Videos

Getting subscribers to confirm is just like any other part of your marketing process — it can and should be tested/tweaked.

I was on Twitter the other day and saw a comment from AWeber user Stuart, who helps people learn to build web 2.0 applications through a series of video lessons.

He builds his list with an offer of sample videos, and he requires people to confirm to get the videos (a great idea, by the way). Still, he was wondering why his confirm rate wasn’t higher.

I got in touch with him and took a look at his signup process. Immediately, a few things he could do to get more subscribers to confirm jumped out at me.

Like many people, he simply hadn’t put enough attention into making his confirm process a good subscriber experience.

Recommendations To Stuart To Improve His Confirm Rate

Below is a link to view the email I sent Stuart, verbatim. That way, you can see exactly what types of tactics you can use to max out your own confirm rate:

Read The Suggestions

You’ll see that while many of them are relatively simple tactics, they’re exactly the sort of ideas that you may have overlooked in your own confirm process.

How Does Your Confirm Process Look Lately?

How good are your thank you page and confirm email at getting subscribers to complete their signup?

As you read that email, did you see places where you could apply those concepts to your own email marketing campaign?

What are you doing to max out your confirm rate?

Share your ideas below so we can all benefit!