Getting Customers to Opt Out of Opting Out
3. Honor opt-outs as quickly as possible. “Delays in honoring opt-out requests increasingly look like failures to consumers, causing them to hit the ‘report spam’ button in frustration,” White says. “Thankfully, more than 86 percent of retailers honored opt-outs within three days. However, at the other end of the spectrum, 4 percent were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by either failing to honor opt-outs or taking longer than 10 business days to do so.”
White added that unsubscribe practices should be tested monthly and after any major template changes to ensure compliance and to avoid spam complaints that hurt your deliverability.
4. Give departing subscribers a chance to interact with you via other traditional and digital channels. “Just because someone is opting out of your e-mail program doesn’t mean that they no longer wish to communicate with you or shop your brand,” White says. “They may be perfectly happy communicating via another channel like direct mail, RSS feeds, forums and social networks. However, only two retailers in our study — Dell and TigerDirect — made any mention of their other channels. That’s a missed opportunity to engage customers.”
Melissa Campanelli is the editor-in-chief of FS sister publication eM+C. This story originally appeared in the March/April issue of eM+C.
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- Melissa Campanelli
Melissa Campanelli is Editor-in-Chief of Total Retail. She is an industry veteran, having covered all aspects of retail, tech, digital, e-commerce, and marketing over the past 20 years. Melissa is also the co-founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle.
