Al over at SpamResource reports that the next generation of Apple’s iOS has support for the list unsubscribe header.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time an independent email client has built in support for the List-Unsubscribe header. Microsoft and Google support it, but only in their webmail system. Hopefully other mail clients will follow suit.
When was the last time you tested your opt-out process? Did you just click the unsubscribe link to see if the page loaded? How did you confirm the email address was unsubscribed?
If you have a Gmail account, Gmail allows you to use unlimited aliases. For example, if your Gmail email address is josh@gmail.com, you can add the + symbol to your email address to create an alias. An example of an alias would be josh+test1@gmail.com. Sending an email to josh+test1@gmail.com gets delivered to the mailbox for josh@gmail.com.
On your next mailing add a Gmail alias email address like josh+unsubtest06192015@gmail.com to be included with the mailing. After sending the mailing, find the email sent to the alias address and go through the unsubscribe process. After unsubscribing, log into your ESP or mailing software to confirm that the alias email address was successfully unsubscribed. Testing the unsubscribe process ensures that the landing page for the unsubscribe is working and that your ESP is registering the unsubscribe request.
A few reminders about your unsubscribe page:
I was on IRC with a group of ESP delivery specialists last week and one of them was looking for something to blog about. I suggested a list of holiday predictions. Not that I have a huge number of holiday predictions, but I did come up with one.
During the holiday season at least one retailer will decide that they have information so important that they will ignore my opt-0ut request and add me to their holiday blast list.
So what’s your holiday email prediction?
I’m on quite a few mailing lists for companies whose main product is sending gifts: food hampers, jewelry, flowers, overpriced desk toys and so on. They tend to ramp up their volume before appropriate holidays such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day or Father’s Day and target their promotions to those particular holidays.
One recipient may have a toxic relationship with their Mother and not want to be reminded of Mother’s Day, another may have recently lost their Father and not want to revisit that distress every time they open their mail client in June, yet another may be recently divorced and really not want to see diamonds and roses in their inbox right now.
You should try and avoid sending mail that will distress your recipients. You should do that because you’re a compassionate human and you want to treat your recipients as humans. But if you need an ROI argument to justify the effort needed to do so… those recipients will associate your brand with that distress and then they’ll buy less or they’ll unsubscribe and you’ll lose their business entirely – even if they are interested in and responsive to your offers for the rest of the year.
How do you identify those recipients? Maybe just ask them. Or add an “Unsubscribe from Father’s Day promotions” link next to the “Unsubscribe” link – it’s not hard to do. Help your customers segment your list for you.