With the help of sophisticated marketing automation tools, marketers are using the habits & behaviors of their customers, and turning them into robust segmentation. Marketing automation engines like Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, and ExactTarget (to name a few), can now send a targeted email based on a lead’s digital persona, location, company, CRM data, or buying patterns. When leveraged properly, this is an incredibly powerful asset to a business—assuring the right message gets to the right person, at the right time. However, despite all this large machinery working for us in the cloud, we may be missing one of the simplest ways of targeting customers; asking them what they want they want to hear. 

By implementing a subscription center for preference management, you allow your customers to ‘raise their hand’ and choose how they want to be contacted, the frequency of your messages, and what type of content they want to receive from your business. If this is not a part of your current functionality, a subscription center should be in your immediate roadmap. Here is an example of a subscription center:

If you are currently using a marketing automation tool, it’s likely that you have an opt-out option already. However, giving the choice of opting in or opting out is just the beginning. Allowing the user to select the communications they are interested in receiving, as opposed to a binary choice of ‘everything’ or ‘nothing,’ exposes users to only the most appropriate content. In a world where spam often fills your inbox, ensuring your marketing materials are targeted and relevant protects brand sentiment and helps build customer loyalty. 

How to get started?

• Follow CAN-SPAM Act
  
  First, familiarize yourself with the CAN-SPAM Act and follow its guidelines. Any company partaking in email marketing has a legal responsibility to do so. Keep these rules in mind as you begin planning your marketing automation efforts. 
• Start simple
  
  If you don’t have a solid process for tracking unsubscribes, it’s paramount to establish this before moving forward. Once this is set up, add a link allowing the user to unsubscribe or go to a preference center at the bottom of every communication. This is available in most tools out of the box. 
• Think strategically
  
  What can you offer as differentiated preferences? What is capable and scalable in your marketing automation tool, and in your CRM? How many tracks or lead nurture programs are you willing to create? 
• Roll out in phases
  
  At this point, we have a process following the CAN-SPAM Act. Now begin to roll out new features and iterate on your preferences. You can give users ability to choose types of communications, change their email address or even introduce progressive profiling. 
• Use proactive segmentation
  
  Send out communications, asking users to update their preferences and use those preferences when segmenting for all communications. 
• Optimize ease of use/user interface
  
  Don’t forget to think about the UI and ease of use for your customers. A bad user experience will keep users from completing their preferences, and may lead to a complete unsubscription. 

Benefits

The implementation of a preference center will have benefits for both your company and your users. Users will receive better targeted messaging, whilst marketers will have better data to segment with, and can actively ask their customers for more data in the preference center. You will also see the benefit of lower unsubscribes as users alter the type of communication instead of turning off all communications—improving email retention and maintaining a happy customer base. 

See how Bluewolf can improve your marketing efforts by downloading our free guide, the Three Pillars of Modern Digital Marketing.