Research continues to prove that targeted email campaigns deliver better open and click rates. List signup is THE point to gather the information to segment your address books into focus groups. Do you offer an easy sign-up, subscribe, or opt-in to your newsletters at your web and social sites?  If your answer is yes, you are half-way there! Lets’ discuss some best practices to create a preference center for your subscribers.

5 Ways to Slice & Dice Subscribers

Collecting basic information that distinguishes one customer from another will provide you with personalities instead of… well… email addresses. Here are five tips to help you gather information at signup.

• Use drop downs, radio buttons or check boxes to help categorize subscribers within your business. Here are some groundwork recommendations:
  • Product preferences
  • Demographics (age, sex, seniority, and/or purchasing power)
  • Location (city, state, region, or country)
• Propose the different campaigns you plan to regularly distribute and allow new subscribers to pick and choose from your list. Something like:
  • Promotions and e-Commerce
  • Coupons and Discounts
  • News and Information
  • Press Releases
  • Webinars
• If you’re sending daily, weekly and monthly campaigns to B2C, allow subscribers to elect how often they want to be contacted.
• Email addresses you’re collecting at signup may match up with customers in your POS (point of sale) or CRM (customer relationship management) software. Associate the two points of data to assess where a customer falls within your sales cycle:
  • Lead
  • New customer
  • Loyal customer
  • Very important customer
  • In-store versus web-store customer
  • Active versus inactive customer
• If your business is sales or service driven, merging your campaign address book with the names and contact information of your sales or service representatives can provide the right amount of personalization at the right time. Personalized mailings achieve 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates than non-personalized mailings, according to a recent study.

Managing Unsubscribers Through a Preference Center

CAN/SPAM requires that all email marketers provide a way for subscribers to opt-out or unsubscribe.

Consider creating a preference center for subscribers with the option to simply opt-out of all your campaigns and then add a method for subscribers to alternately change the frequency and type of communications they are currently receiving from you. This method can turn a potential hasta la vista baby to hasta mañana!

Here’s a sample two-tier preference center that gives your subscribers a distinct way to opt-out or update existing campaign preferences.

If you’re rethinking ways to manage your subscribers, give your OpenMoves team a holler!

P.S. If you did not add an email  subscription form to your Facebook  account here’s how to set it up.