One of the last elements I see email marketers focus on is developing a user preference center. Here, we allow the subscriber to give us info about what they want. Big picture; if a subscriber can tell us what they want, when they want it, and how they want it — we are on the road to having a much happier list of recipients. Preference management is important, and as the commercial email world gets more flooded, subscribers have more brands trying to get their attention, and people’s lives get busier – allowing your recipients to change their preferences will become increasingly important.
Aside from making our subscribers happier, having preference data is extremely helpful for marketers. It allows us to provide timely, relevant, and personalized communications to our lists. If we know a subscriber wants emails only 1 time per month, we have our frequency question answered. If we know our subscriber is interested in tips for grooming dogs vs. tips for making home-made dog food; we can provide much more targeted content. You get the point.
When building your preference center, there are of course several options you can give your subscribers. Here are a few ideas:
1. Unsubscribe
2. Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly etc. (depending on what content you are providing)
3. Device: phone/computer
4. Desired Format: html vs. plain text
5. Content: make options available for the different categories of content you offer.
6. Personalization Updates: if you don’t already have the data, you can ask for Name, Birthday, Zip Code, and info that is relevant for your company. A previous post on segmentation provides some other ideas.
The options you provide need to make sense for your business, products, and subscribers. An important note: don’t offer options that you can’t follow through with. For example: if you don’t have the resources to provide a different format for mobile devices, don’t make that option available to your subscriber. Same goes for frequency and other preference options.
- Forest Bronzan
