Permission is not an extra option, but a basic gadget in email marketing. Permission is a key component to gaining recipient trust, optimizing deliverability, and realizing ROI. This is practiced by all legitimate email marketers. But many aspiring email marketers, especially those with experience in print, television, radio, and direct mail, are reluctant to ask permission. They don’t realize that e-mail is different from the rest in that it is a personal medium, like a telephone. And the result of the decline of telemarketing is clear evidence of this bad practice.
Email marketing is not about sending email after email to a recipient, nor is it about the size of a list. Some get good results at first when they don’t ask permission. These types of marketers send email torrents to a list of email addresses collected at trade shows from attendees and white paper downloaders. But for most marketers, mediocre results are not the goal. When subscribers permit to send emails, you can see results such as higher response rates, better deliverability, and increased brand affinity and trust. It takes time to create a permission-based list and send appropriate messages to targeted readers. This list will get shorter day by day if it is an unsolicited list of email addresses. Simply put, permission helps you achieve better results and is the only way to build strong customer relationships through email.
Few marketers believe that their unauthorized programs are producing good results. But when they look at their open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate, they can conclude that they could improve results by at least five times if they used a permission-based approach. Permission does not only mean that the subscriber agrees to receive company emails. It can be divided into explicit consent and implied consent. Express permission is what the subscriber provides when they fill out the subscription form or check the email permission box when filling out the registration form. Implicit permission is not actively granted but is the result of other actions, such as unchecking a previously checked email permission box. This practice is unhealthy and can affect the relationship with the client. So explicit permission is acceptable. Implied permission can also be expressed as a waiver.
In 2003, the United States passed the Business Email Act, also called CAN-SPAM. This law allows you to opt-out of marketing under certain conditions. Unsubscribe emails must include a working unsubscribe link. Commercial email must be marked as promotional email unless the recipient gives affirmative consent. This law has only legal criteria and does not encourage consent or best practices. Unsubscribing from emails instantly blacklists a business. This means that most of the money and time spent sending emails is wasted. In opt-out email marketing, there is a high chance that emails are sent to non-existent addresses or addresses that block messages.
Subscription email marketing comes in two types: single and double. In Single opt-in, a subscriber is automatically added after filling out a web form or sending an email request. In a dual subscription, also known as a confirmed subscription, an automated email is sent to the subscriber immediately after a request that the subscriber must respond to in order to confirm the subscription and be added to the mailing list.
Statistics and surveys have shown the benefits of using complementary email marketing. Instead of wasting resources on people who are not interested in the company’s services or products, a small fraction of those same resources can be effectively used to reach targeted customers.