Dear Emma,
With the recently added Opt-In Confirmation feature, what about people who are already in my audience and signed up eons ago? Are they - how shall I put this - sod out of luck?
Sincerely,
Cleverly Avoiding Curse Words in Cleveland
Dear Clever,
Yes, cheers on keeping it clean up there. Well done, old chap. And no, your current subscribers aren't sod out of luck. That's because you can confirm someone's subscription to your email list at any time. Use it to verify new people, renew your existing subscriptions or just freshen things up every year or two. And it's a good practice to implement, since confirmed members are more likely to receive and respond to your emails.
With that in mind, here are three ways to put the opt-in confirmation feature to work:
Invite new subscribers to confirm their signup.
This is the easy one. By making sure your confirmation email asks each new subscriber to click a confirmation link, it's your way of making sure a) he or she is getting your emails, and b) he or she - and not his or her prankster friend Rolf - is indeed the person who signed up.
You can see who has (and hasn't) confirmed at any time by viewing your audience groups and sorting by the opt-in confirmed column, which includes a check mark for anyone who has confirmed.
Invite people to renew their subscription after moving to Emma.
Starting with a new service like, well, Emma (or MonkeyBlaster4000, also a fine offering) is a great time to ask people to renew their subscription, particularly if your previous service lacked bounce handling or response tracking. After importing your list to Emma, consider including a confirmation link in your first few campaigns to tell people about your exciting new campaign format and ask them to confirm their place on your list. Be sure to include the link in several consecutive campaigns (to give recipients several chances to act) and then target the remaining non-responders with a last-chance-to-confirm campaign.
You can add the opt-in confirmation link to any campaign using the editor's personalization menu. You'll drop it in just like you would first name or company.
Invite people to renew their place in your list once a year.
Once in a while - annually, for example - it's not a bad idea to ask your recipients to help you keep your list clean by confirming their desire to remain on it. You don't have to interrupt your routine to do it either. Instead, just incorporate a quick confirm-it prompt at the top of your regular newsletters, updates and promotions. Once again, be sure to give your recipients multiple chances to confirm, and at some point take the time to target non-responders with a last-chance notice that makes them feel really guilty for not having confirmed by now. Seriously, what's their problem?
You can find (and send to) the Unconfirmeds, which are like the Undead but with better clothes, any time using Emma's search & segment feature.
I hope this helps, my Clever friend! And of course, if this A has spurred yet another cleanly worded Q, by all means, send them our way.
Cheers,
Emma
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
©2012 Emma, Inc., all rights reserved