E-Commerce Link: Preferential Treatment

Preference centers play a pivotal role in the e-mail process

July 2008 By Regina Brady

singlepage

Preference centers are an important part of any good e-mail program. In fact, I believe they’re a must-have component. Building good preference centers starts with the registration process and the information collected when individuals sign up for communications. Then, their power really comes into play with ongoing e-mails. Typically, the e-mail footer contains a link to the recipient’s personal preference center where one can modify or update his personal information and preferences.

Why They Are Important
As a marketer, you want to maintain relationships with your e-mail list, and one critical aspect is the individual’s ability to update an e-mail address. Keep in mind that 20 percent to 25 percent of your list will change their e-mail addresses annually. Without a preference center, the only option for someone with a change of e-mail address is to unsubscribe and sign up again. That’s a hassle, and few are dedicated enough to do this. Additionally, without an easy way to update e-mail addresses, you lose all their promotional and clickthrough history.

You have the ability to save those who may opt out. Many times I click on an opt-out link either out of curiosity or thinking it will take me to a preference center and that I’ll be presented with the option of choosing how often I’ll receive e-mails. Often I am immediately unsubscribed, which is not my original intention. Then I have to go through the cycle of signing up again. While it should be easy for someone to opt out, it should be thought of as a process. In my experience, you may be able to save up to one-third of those who click an opt-out link by bringing them to a preference center, particularly when presented with a choice to change how often they want to receive e-mails.

Even better, allow customers to tell you specifically what types of e-mails they’re interested in. For example, an apparel marketer might ask if the recipient is interested in men’s, women’s, girl’s or boy’s clothing, and if she is interested in sales notices. That allows the marketer to think about tailoring offers and content to the recipient’s interests.

You can also have your recipients give additional information about themselves or cross-market additional e-mail programs you may have in place.

The Survey Says …
Here are the results of an informal analysis of some of my favorite e-newsletters and what they do. I examined more than 40 e-mailers, including retailers, catalogers, nonprofits and B-to-B marketers.

• Approximately two-thirds have a preference center.

• Of those who do have a preference center, two-thirds allow people to easily change their e-mail addresses and, in some cases, update ZIP code or mailing address information.

• More than 40 percent of marketers with a preference center allow people to opt out in the preference center, even though most also have a separate opt-out link in their e-mail footers.

• One-third also cross-market other types of e-mail programs in the preference center.

• Thirty percent allow recipients to select categories of interest and/or the ability to update profile information.

• Only 25 percent give customers the ability to tailor the frequency of communications.

It wasn’t always easy to realize that the marketer had a preference center in place. In some cases, the type in the footer was tiny and grayed out with the information appearing in a long sentence, such as: “If you wish to receive fewer e-mails or unsubscribe from all future e-mails, please click here or go to the following Web address …” This type of messaging takes effort to locate. I much prefer either separate links like “Update My Profile” or “Manage My E-mail Preferences.”

I also ran into a few problems. I clicked on the “Change My E-mail Address” link for one retailer and was brought to the page where I could update my frequency preferences, but I couldn’t change my address. With one well-known B-to-B marketer, the link to change my preferences resulted in an alert in my browser that there was a problem with the Web site’s security certificate. So, the moral of this particular story is that you should periodically check your links. They were probably set up quite some time ago, and things change on the site. And for a few, I had to enter my e-mail address and a password to get to my profile. Of course, for most of these sites, I’d forgotten my password and had to request that it be e-mailed to me.

Hewlett-Packard had my all-time favorite preference center. It was well-organized and well-thought out. I updated and customized my preferences, and after I submitted the changes, I was presented with a screen that contained recommendations on other HP programs that might be of interest to me. There was one main recommendation followed by four additional newsletters. And next to each was a link to quickly view a sample.

Make It Easy to Stay
Today, the customer has control of the marketing relationship. Preference centers allow you to create a closer dialog with your e-mail recipients by empowering them with self-service tools. Happy customers who receive e-mails based on their choices are much more likely to stay with you for the long term, and to buy your products or services.

Regina Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a direct and e-mail marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.

• MORE ON
• ONLINE MARKETING