day email opt-outs – Good intentions or a bad response? //

Father’s Day will soon be celebrated in the U.K. as well as the U.S. on June 18. Father’s Day is fast approaching. Even if my fathers were not in my life I would be aware of the date by the emails that are coming in.

These emails don’t only contain gift guides and reminders of dates. My inbox is filled with emails asking me to unsubscribe if I find the Father’s Day emails upsetting.

Ace Puzzles has provided an example:

The limited-term opt out has become a standard part of the email workflow for many brands. Email marketers have also been arguing about its value.

Does the email about a holiday or an event show that your brand cares for its customers? Does it do what you intended to avoid? Remind them of a holiday or an event that they would rather avoid.

Customers like the idea of being able to opt out of receiving emails about holidays or events?

Yes, on the surface. Capterra has released five key findings of a study on 2022 consumers:

• 81% of respondents said they would purchase from brands who send opt-out holiday emails.
• 68% of respondents believe that brands should prioritize the well-being of consumers over sales, especially during winter holidays.
• 39% of respondents said that they opt out almost always or always.
• Consumers are “personally sensitive” about holiday and event marketing emails. 32% believe that other people will be more triggered by them, while 7% say they make them sad.
• Men and Generation Z are more likely than women to opt out of a brand’s offer.

Guess what the most popular opt-out events in history are. Mother’s Day? No. Father’s Day? Uh-uh. It’s Valentine’s Day and Back to School. Mother’s Day/Father’s Day is a close second, but it’s in a group that also includes Thanksgiving Day and winter holidays.

Empathy is shown by holiday opt-outs

I applaud brands for taking the time and effort to assess how their emails impact their customers. This could be done by reevaluating frequency, reviewing what types of campaigns they use, or utilizing the information they gain about their customers from analytics and testing.

We learned an important lesson from the COVID-19 Pandemic – brands who reached out to customers with empathy and support in difficult circumstances were often rewarded for their efforts. Some brands returned to their normal business practices, but others used the lessons learned to revamp their email program and take a customer-centric approach.

We all know, as marketers and humans, that some holidays can be more difficult than others. It can be painful to receive a flood of Valentine’s Day email messages after a breakup. Receiving a Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or other holiday email before or after death can be brutal.

In 2019, the trend started in the U.K. when the florist Bloom & Wild sent a straightforward email with the subject “Wanting to opt out from Mother’s Day Emails? This company allows customers to opt-out of Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, and Easter emails.

Other brands have also taken up the cause. Arena Flowers, an U.K. competitor allows its customers to opt-out of two potentially trigger emails at the same time: Valentine’s Day as well as Mother’s Day which is closely followed in the U.K.

The holiday opt-out also gives customers more voice in what they receive. I am all for it. Giving your customers more control over the emails they receive in their inbox makes them feel more connected to your brand. It also reduces the likelihood that they will unsubscribe or report them as spam.

So far, so good. Why don’t I encourage brands to opt out of holidays or events? There are other ways to identify your customers’ emotions without adding more work for the email team or excluding them from your campaigns.

Holiday opt-outs can have unintended consequences.

Consider these factors before creating your first opt-out holiday email campaign.

1. The actions of consumers don’t match their opt-out preferences

The 2023 Consumer Email tracker, published by the Data & Marketing Association UK and Deployteq recently, found that options such as short-term options or changing your preferences were ranked lower than “Just unsubscribe”.

Dig deep: 5 tips to improve your unsubscribe system before the holidays

2. Doing more harm than good is not always the best option

You’re doing the right thing by implementing a holiday opt out program. You must look beyond the interactions you have with your customers. Consider the inbox experience of your customers and other brands that are sending opt-out requests at the same time, especially around holidays such as Mother’s Day.

Your email may add to the flood! Imagine the mental effort a customer would have to do to opt out from all of those emails. Not to mention any added stress that customers might feel if they find these emails distressing. You may lose a customer if they choose to unsubscribe.

3. The problem is not solved by a preference center

In many of the emails that I examined in the eDatasource database (SparkPost), customers are directed to a preferences center if you want to opt-out of holiday or event emails. Most preference centers can be difficult to use. You ask that they take time from their busy schedules to refuse your emails. When they are on their phones, having to tap a bunch of small boxes can be frustrating.

A holiday that triggers this year, such as Valentine’s Day following a breakup, might not be a problem the next year. Expect them to update their preferences? The problem with preference centres is that they are not user-friendly.

How does this translate into real life? Do they actually do what they say or not?

The goal was to communicate with empathy, and let the subscribers take control. Results? The results?

4. You introduce a negative element to the relationship with your subscribers

Even if you have the best of intentions, offering to opt out from holidays or events – even as innocuous as Back to School – can create a negative atmosphere. If you’re doing it correctly, your customers will only need to opt out once.

During the opt-out period, your messaging platform should automatically send out default campaigns or restart campaigns following the event. You’re still disrupting the message flow.

5. Your email workflow is enhanced by a holiday opt-out

You must structure your program first in your email platform, depending on the number of holidays that you want to include. You can program your email platform to pause campaigns and restart them, but will you need to do this manually? Can you tag or segment your opt-outs to ensure that they only receive default campaigns?

Will you send default campaigns or simply turn off the lights during the opt-out window? Who will design, test, plan, troubleshoot, and analyze these campaigns?

6. Consider regional holidays and differences in audience

Rewind to Father’s Day. Technically, all the opt-outs I get from brands in the U.S. and U.K. are irrelevant for me since my father lives Australia. Father’s Day is celebrated on the first of September and not the third of June.

Mother’s Day varies in other countries by several months. Mother’s Day in the U.K. is a moving holiday, as it’s observed on the fourth Sunday before Easter. The Lenten calendar may vary from year to year by several weeks. Mother’s Day is always celebrated on the second Sunday in May, both in the U.S.

You might be able get away with just one message if your customers are primarily located in a country, or if their holidays coincide with others. If you are a global brand you’ll need to segment your customers by country in order to avoid being irrelevant. Are you able to identify these segments of the population?

Follow these steps to create an effective holiday opt-out email

You may think that your plan is simple, but it requires a great deal of research before you can write the opt-out offer.

Start with a strategy and a goal

It’s not a solution. It’s not a solution. It is a tactic that you use in order to implement a strategy which will help you reach your goal.

You may want to keep more customers. To achieve this goal, you can remove friction in the relationship with your customers. Avoid creating negative energy and let customers opt out from holidays that cause stress. Once you have identified these three factors you can then determine if an opt-out programme would be beneficial.

Before you opt out, analyze your customers’ email activities.

Around holidays, you may see lower rates of click-through and open-ups and a higher rate of unsubscribers.

• Can you measure the read rates, delete unopened rates and any other metrics to determine if customers are ignoring holiday or event emails that they receive?
• Unsubscribes and activity rates tend to decrease around certain holidays or events, but not at other times. Is this consistent from year to year or is it seasonal?

What could be the impact on sales or conversions?

This approach is perfect for your finance team who hates the idea of holdout or testing groups due to a possible loss in sales. (Not!)

Let’s return to the 39% who said they would not receive holiday messages. If you have a list of 1 million subscribers, but only half open or respond to your emails, then at least 195,000 will miss your most timely campaigns. Your revenue losses may be higher if you do not substitute default campaigns.

First, ask your customers

You can add a one-or-two-question survey to an email campaign as usual or send it to a random group of subscribers. You could also poll your social media followers or your customer community for their opinions (knowing the views of a self selected group may not reflect those of your subscribers).

Add an opt-out for holidays or events to your onboarding/welcome program

Your most interested and active customers are usually your new ones. Take advantage of this interest by sending them a simple email that allows them to choose what future events and holidays they want to opt out from.

It’s also a good idea because it doesn’t coincide with the influx of opt-out email for a particular holiday or event, and will not add to subscriber’s frustration at that time.

Stand out from the crowd in your inbox

The majority of emails that I reviewed on eDatasource were negative, with subject lines such as “Wanting to opt out of Mother’s Day Emails?”. You’ll have to come up with and test different subject line styles to standout from the other brands and not aggravate your customers. Below is an example of a solution from Brooks Running.

Dig deep: Email – An early check-in before the holiday madness starts

3 emails to emulate

Sincerity is the best policy. I think that most opt-out emails sent to me or those viewed on eDatasource didn’t achieve their intended goal (sorry marketers!). A few of them did, however:

Positive thinking

Shoppe Amber Interiors Brand

Subject: Customize Your Inbox: Opt Out of Mother’s Day Emails with One Click

Why HTML0 works

In the subject line, the brand emphasizes customizing emails rather than opting out. It also includes a call to action that says “Pause Email.” This reminds the customer they are not opting to stop receiving all brand emails but will still receive other messages. The message also acts as a subtle branding hint because it is similar to other brand images.

Push notifications and SMS

Brand: Doordash

Subject line : Cancel Mother’s Day messages.

Why HTML0 works

It’s great to see brands thinking about the whole landscape of messaging in a multichannel environment. This email allows customers to opt out of email and push campaigns while ensuring they will still receive transactional or BAU emails.

Giving everyone a good reason to click

Brand : Brooks Running

Subject line Messages tailored according to your preferences

Why HTML0 works

By focusing on the goal of your email, like this one, you can encourage more customers to read, open and respond to your message. The four CTA buttons in this email are clearly labelled and easy to click on mobile screens.

This email stands out because of the fourth CTA: “I would like to shop”. You now know more about your customers that click on it than you did before. You might find that they are more motivated than other customers and can be segmented to receive VIP treatment.

Dig deep: 4 rules to improve email CTAs

Plan now, test soon

Use these tips to test and structure a program for a simple holiday opt-out. Q3 is a great time to test out your program before moving on to the holiday which may trigger the most customers.

You should not make any decisions until you’ve carefully considered your goals, the logistics of a program such as this, and the possible consequences — sales loss, objections from management, and customer reactions. Throughout it all, ask yourself “What do customers want?”

The post Holiday Email Opt-Outs: Right Intentions, Wrong Response? appeared initially on MarTech.