You're receiving this email because...yeah I know

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Just a quick thought for the day. One common practice is to put a permission reminder at the top of your marketing emails. "You are receiving this email because you signed up for it at the blah.com website."

There are many who say that's a way to establish trust and recognition. I can see arguments before and against it, but that's not my point.

Question: how many times do you need to put that message in front of people?

Would it not make sense to show that permission reminder initially and then quietly remove it once someone has opened your emails X times? It takes up vital space in preview panes etc, yet the proposed benefits are surely only relevant when mailing new subscribers, not established readers?

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Check the extensive comments for much new insight on this topic.

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[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
Permalink | May 04, 2007 | 5 comment(s)
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5 Comments:

My thought is, leave it in, because the point of it is to nudge a recipient to remember whenever they may forget that they opted-in. There's no data that shows a drop off in forgetfulness after the first few emails, and it seems likely that a consumer could be on your list for months, even having opened a few emails, then on a subsequent campaign and forget.

Overall, as a practice, I don't know for sure that it helps a ton. But I figure if one is going to do it, it should be done in every email send.
By Blogger Al Iverson, on 04 May, 2007  
 

Thanks Al, fair point. I wonder if anyone has done any tests on the impact of a permission reminder. My feeling would be its value depends on how (in)consistent your messages are. The folk at MindComet pick up the thread here.
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 04 May, 2007  
 

One of our users sent an email newsletter to his customer list, and didn't include his company's postal mailing address.

Sure, he had hyperlinks in the footer to about 50 offices they run around the globe, but no postal mailing address.

A big email firewall company caught that one email (from one complaint), and blacklisted us for violating CAN-SPAM.

I was talking with the blacklist administrator on the phone, and he acknowledged that the user made a simple (albeit stupid and avoidable) mistake. He was understanding, but not very forgiving.

He told me that he'd de-list us, so long as the user got his act together in 30 days.

If they should receive more complaints after that, then they'd escalate the situation to the "next level." That "next level" would basically require that the sender always include that "You're receiving this because..." text in it.

We had a big conference call with several people in that company about CAN-SPAM, and what kind of things they need to include in their emails.

What's sad is that we already put that "permission reminder text" into all our email templates automatically. When you setup a list in our system, we ask you to complete the sentence: "You are receiving this email because..." Then it gets added into your email templates (along with your postal mailing address).

But some of our customers are overriding the permission reminder (purely for aesthetic reasons, it seems). That's unfortunate, because it can prevent spam complaints, or at least explain to a blacklist administrator that the sender has a legitimate relationship with the receiver.

I hate to say this, but when you write an email campaign, you're not just writing it for your recipient. You have to write it as if a blacklist administrator is reading over your shoulder (because trust me, they are).

You need to include everything you can to prove you're legit, or to explain your relationship, just in case. It doesn't hurt to leave it in.
By Anonymous Ben, on 04 May, 2007  
 

I tend to agree more with the MindComet comments...if you have to repeatedly include a reminder at the top of your email of why someone has subscribed, then you probably have some combination of the following issues: poor permission and opt-in process; a bad or non-existent welcome message/confirmation process; a weak brand; confusing From Name/Address; spammy subject lines; poor content and inconsistent value; your first message came weeks after when the user subscribed; inconsistent or infrequent distribution....

I recently received an email newsletter from a well-known marketing industry publisher - I didn't recognize the From Name and assumed it was spam and almost deleted it. I then viewed it in the preview pane and recognized the brand of the publisher and then remembered that I had changed my preferences a week earlier and added this additional newsletter to my preferences. Where this publisher went wrong is that they did not send me a welcome message, nor did they adequately brand the newsletter so that I would have recognized the publisher brand name - that I would have recognized.

I do recommend that you include in your email admin footer a merge field that includes the email address the subscriber used and if possible the date or reason they opted in...."On May 4, 2007 you opted in to receive this newsletter when you downloaded our Lead Generation white paper."

But bottom line, if you do the right things, particularly during the opt-in and welcome/initial period - a subscriber should not need the annoying reminder. Personally, when I see most of those reminders it generally makes me think it is an unsolicited email.
By Blogger Loren, on 05 May, 2007  
 

Its easy to include the message in another location - the footer. It makes a lot of sense to include the reminder of why they're receiving it at the same time that you're telling them all of the other "housekeeping" information - like how to update their preferences, and what your privacy policy is.
By Anonymous Brandi, on 09 May, 2007  
 

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