What to Do When Permission Goes Away
Three out-of-the-box ideas that might help you communicate with consumers who are opting out of marketing messages.
Three out-of-the-box ideas that might help you communicate with consumers who are opting out of marketing messages.
Getting a consumer to opt in to your e-mail programs is like the Holy Grail for e-mail marketing. Not only does it indicate an interest in a brand or product, but it’s also an indicator that the person who opted in wants to have a relationship with your company.
Today, as our world becomes increasingly mobile and socially-driven, we are starting to see a decrease in the standard opt-in initiatives, both from the consumer side and the business side.
More and more consumers are opting out of marketing messages on forms; choosing not to allow a service to access their data, and requesting their information be kept private.
For businesses, more and more changes are happening to streamline opt-in permission and even funnel them through aggregator services that offer single sign-on solutions or social networks.
This means that we, as marketers, need to be aware of this now and prepare our new strategies for success.
What do we do when permission as we know it goes away?
I was recently approached with this reality on an effort we have in market at my company. We found that a very high percentage of people were choosing not to opt in to our efforts when they engaged with us through a certain channel. We had to think fast and strategically to find another way to communicate with them to drive incremental purchases. Our awesome team came up with some really out-of-the-box ideas that might also help you kick-start your efforts. These included:
Now, of course all of these efforts are bookended with an option and pleas for people to opt in to the brand itself. Our goals are still high in this area, but reality is setting in.
I encourage all of you to take a few minutes to revisit your opt-in percentages over time and ask yourself if now is the time to start testing out new waters.