SolveYourProblem
Article Series: Opt In Email
What Are Opt-in Email Leads?
Opt-in leads drive your business forward
without them your business will slowly churn bringing in
bits and pieces of business or become stagnant and die. It
is always a good idea to call your acquaintances, friends,
and family they are a good start but they cannot hold your
business together. The leads you acquire through permission
based opt-in is what will propel you forward in the Internet
marketing business. What are the different types of opt-in
techniques?
Opt-In
– Consumers actively sign up for your services. The
downside to opt-in is that many third parties can also
add others to the list. When this happens, you may not know
if you have a list of consumers who are truly interested
in your product and/or services.
Confirmed
Opt-In – This is also known as, “Closed-loop opt-in” and
is an effective means to having a list of consumers
who want to be there. As soon as a name is added to your
list, an email is generated to inform the subscriber they
have been added and allows them the option to unsubscribe
immediately. This form of verification has become standard
in the Internet marketing business.
Double
Opt-In – The consumer must add himself/herself to the list
and then confirm a second time through an email
that they want to be on your list. Anyone who is added without
permission can, in this step, unsubscribe. The added protection
is that if they do nothing, their name is not be added to
the list. The benefit is that they will not receive any more
email they do not wish to receive. You will not be wasting
valuable time marketing to someone who is not interested.
By definition email sent to prospects without their consent
is considered “unsolicited bulk mailings” and is against
all Internet Service Providers (ISP) Terms of Service. This
is when consumers have no knowledge that their names and
email addresses were placed on a list and did not give their
permission. These types of lists have a very low success
rate and the complaints are enormous. When a consumer chooses
to opt-out, they expect their name removed and that they
will not receive any more correspondence from the service
provider. They do not expect their name added to another
list and continue to be solicited. When a consumer spends
their time, actively stopping an action they never wanted
in the first place they would not be interested in the product
marketed. They will not buy simply from being annoyed and
the suffering they have experienced in trying to stop the
unsolicited emails. They may even like the product and it
would not matter. This type of email marketing technique
is illegal (and unethical).
When you are sending out your email marketing campaign,
you want to remain focused on what your target audience needs.
You want to convince them that they need your products and/or
services. You want to grab their attention. You do not want
to put them to sleep with a long, boring email. You do not
want to send a generic message to thousands of prospects.
As you are looking for your leads, you want those who will
eventually be long-term customers that make you a profit.
The use of opt-in can weed out those potential leads that
are not interested in your products they are only looking
for something free and will leave you as fast as they joined.
When you are able to have a select list of leads, you will
not be spending the majority of your time weeding out uninterested
targets.
Maintaining
your opt-in leads is crucial to success you
do not want hundreds of email addresses that are incorrect
or continue to send information to those individuals who
have opted-out. Nor do you want your Internet Marketing list
overflowing with email addresses that are no longer useful
for you. Look at a few ways to keep your opt-in lead list
clean thereby increasing your potential for profit.
Customers will be more apt at accepting your emails if you
have treated them with respect by asking them first and the
information you are imparting to them is relevant to their
needs and you are not sending several emails during the day
that they become overloaded and want to simply get rid of
your annoying emails.
# # # # #
