Our Blog

I hadn't flown Southwest for a long time. As this was the best choice for scheduling from Indy to Seattle, I boarded the two-leg 6-hour flight. 

As the beverage and snack service came by, I grabbed a bag of peanuts and noticed the call to action, "Find out about our next BIG Sale with click 'n save emails. Text your email to 83793." (See Photo)

Delivra staff routinely get asked how to build an opt-in email list. Our answer, simply put, is to ask for them at every customer touch point. Southwest Airlines is not a client, but they have certainly got the message.

Of course, I texted my email and received the following acknowledgement,

Thanks for signing up for 
SWA Click 'n Save. You'll
never miss another deal in 
your inbox!

Want to try text to subscribe to acquire email addresses for your organization? Contact the email marketing experts at Delivra and we'll show you how. 

Extra thought: Read the book Lead with LUV written by Ken Blanchard and SWA president Colleen Barrett. In it, you will discover more secrets of success. 

Delivra is sponsoring All About eMail Live! - a one-day event for email marketers. This intensive workshop will allow you to join your peers and collaborate with an all-star lineup of industry leaders who will discuss the hottest email marketing trends, including best practices and strategies, acquisition, data management, email and social, rendering, and more. 

It's being held at: 

New York Marriott 

http://live.emarketingandcommerce.com/agenda/

I'm moderating a roundtable at 1:30pm entitled: 2012 Email Marketing Best Practices. 

We will be discussing the top trends and best practies for 2012 such as: data integration, relevant list building, content, content, content, mobile (design and messaging), testing and analysis and much more!

Look me up if you plan to attend...

More than two-thirds of business leaders (68%) say they plan to integrate social media with their email marketing efforts in 2012 - Marketingprofs.com study released on December 12, 2011

Most companies utilize email marketing and social media in their marketing campaigns, but separately and consequently miss out on the huge benefits of integrating the two. While email gives you an intimate level of contact with your customers, social media is a public forum. Anyone who has something to say can join the stream of conversation in social media. It shares conversations and builds relationships. Email marketing can take these conversations to the next level. 

Integrating social media with email marketing can help you reach out to new customers and prospects. As more people share your email, you also get a chance to connect with new propsects who are interested in you. Once you know who your key influencers are, you can send dedicated email campaigns to them. 

What's the first step? Start by including social icons to your email campaigns. By adding these icons you make it easy for your customers to share your email content with their 'friends'. Another way is by sharing your emails with your social network. This way you can reach a wider audience, while sending email makes you reach only the limited number of people in your list. You can ask customers to share your email within their network. 

When you keep changing the way you connect with your audience it makes them stop and take notice. You can use social media to engage in conversations and pique the interest of your potential customers. Now invite them to your website where they can learn more about you and your products. By leveraging the power of social media you can extend the reach of your email campaigns. 

Sources: 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-ways-to-integrate-email-and-social-media-marketing/

http://www.esoftload.info/marrying-email-marketing-to-social-networking

http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/get-more-customers/pbsmartadvice/social-media-and-email-marketing-improving-roi/

Recently, I had to call the pharmacy to make sure they had been able to refill a prescription for me. The lady was very nice and said it was ready. In addition, she asked if I would be interested in signing up to receive a text message when my prescriptions were ready in the future. 

Of course!

How convenient to be able to get a text message when my prescriptions are ready for pick-up. CVS also allows you to sign up to receive emails to better manage your prescriptions, receive health information, and receive special offers throughout the store. And that's just one example! They're taking advantage of several different types of marketing channels to make their program more efficient for customers. Many email marketing firms are encouraging their clients to expand into other channels to increase their reach to audiences. 

Only working in one channel right now? Pairing with an email marketing agency, like Delivra, can help you implement other programs in addition to your email campaigns. It might make sense to set up an SMS program (outbound test messages) as a way to communicate with you audience. Or they might be able to help set up a text to subscribe program as well. Text to subscribe refers to having people text you their email address to join your email marketing list. It's a great way to build your email list without much effort on your part. 

For the best email marketing results, incorporate it with other channels, whether that's mobile marketing, social media marketing, blogging, or all of them!

I'm looking forward to receiving my first update from CVS via text and email (now that's I'm signed up for it). Want to learn more about managing your email marketing and incorporating some additional channels? Reach out the email marketing consultants at Delivra today! 

I attended the eMarketing Association Conference last week in Providence, RI and was excited to see such a strong turnout. Not only was it great to see some familiar faces, but I was able to catch the impressive keynote Clara Shih, Author of The Facebook Era and CEO and Founder of Hearsay Social. 

The subject matter was divided into three tracks: social marketing, search marketing and email marketing. The format was two days of intensive workships headed by panels of industry experts. 

No surprise that I was on the email panels. But, I was surprised the questions from attendees were mostly for basic issues that never seem to go away. How do I build an email list? How do I improve click-through rates on email? How often should I send marketing emails? 

The takeaway for me was that behavioral marketing is the single best way to lift results. That means tracking engagement activity and using those metrics to intelligently send relevant messaging. What's so exciting about this is it's doable with a little help from your email partner. 
 

When you receive an email, do you ever ask yourself, "Why the heck are they sending this to me?"

Well, the reason you received non-pertinent material is because the sender isn't segmenting their list.  However, you'll be glad marketers are seeing the light.  

According to eMarketer.com, 64% of marketers polled said their top priority is to maximize the value of their marketing by improving email segmentation.  As you look at email list building, take into consideration the demographics of your recipients.  You can use Delivra's advanced email segmentation capabilities to target your specific audience.

This will allow you to take into consideration higher engagement (opens, clicks, forwards, social shares, etc...) as well as better retention of your members. After all, if you don't like receiving worthless stuff, what makes you think your recipients would? 

The American Le Mans Series is a Delivra client. A friend and I recently attended their road race in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. She commented, "No one asked us if we wanted to sign up for their email list. Shouldn't there be some visibility here?" I make a mental note to discuss that at a later date with ALMS. 

This week, we met with Chris McMurry and team, ALMS marketing agency. They laid out two strategies, one which was to increase the fan base. Consequentially, they were planning to pass out 3x5 cards at entrance gates for attendees to sign up for their email list. 

Seizing the moment, we suggested testing our text-2-subscribe tool. It allows someone with a mobile device to sign up for email announcements directly. This email list building tool eliminates websites and manual data entry thereby providing a more convenient and possibly a more accurate way to subscribe. 

ALMS will test both methods (card and text) at their October race in California. I'll get back to you all with the results. 

Successful emailing!

Many of you have heard from email experts and resources that having a quality list is essential in order to get the most from your email marketing program.

What exactly does a quality list mean?

Here are a couple of ways (from A to D) to define a quality list:

1. Acquire Subscribers. There are a number of ways to obtain email addresses, including: text-to-subscribe. For other best practices in acquiring subscribers, check out this Successful Strategies for Building Your List whitepaper.

2. Be Proactive. Regularly ask your subscribers to update their preferences. Updated preferences assure you are sending the most relevant messages to your subscribers and they are receiving the information they desire.

3. Clean Your List. On a regular basis, take the time to manage your list. Cleaning your list means to regularly take a look at those subscribers who are no longer engaging with your mailings.

4. Don't Purchase. Don't purchase a list of email addresses just to increase your list size.  Instead, use best practices to organically grow your list and email people who are interested in receiving your message.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

This is a short outline of some items that should be on the top of your mind when starting an email campaign.

List. Once you have an email marketing plan in place, start building your list. Building a quality list is essential for an email marketing campaign and is the foundation of your email marketing program.

Awesome Content. Create content that is focused and relevant to your target audience. Include links, landing pages and images to create a well-organized, easy to read and comprehensible content.  Many readers skim through emails and don't read everything all the way through.  Keep this in mind when creating your content.

Use every opportunity to connect. Include social sharing links in your emails encouraging subscribers to forward the information in your emails to others in their social networks. Social sharing links can increase the exposure of your content with little effort on your part.  Note: include opportunities on your social sites for users to sign up for your emails.

Never stop testing. Test, test, test.  Always send a test of your email before pressing the final send button.  It is so important to test your emails to make sure they appear correctly in the different email providers, they are void of spelling and grammatical errors, and all the links work. (There are a NUMBER of items to check in a test email, these are only a few.)

Have and USE reporting. After sending a mailing, take the time to thoroughly look through the tracking and reporting. For instance, check open rates, clickthroughs, unsubscribes, and spam complaints.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

I recently received a notification from one of my User Groups on LinkedIn that another member wanted to know what should be "an acceptable rate of opt-outs".

Another group member provided the following statistic,  "Studies done in the past have consistently shown a ~30% per year churn rate (unsubscribes, bounces and complaints) which is 2-3% a month."

While this may be an acceptable industry statistic, I asked: why be happy with what is statistically acceptable?

I pointed out that if you are seeing a high opt-out rate, it would be best to look at things like segmentation, relevancy, frequency of emails, content and even subject lines. As we say all the time, you should really TEST to find out what email is going to get you the most engaged recipient. For instance, you can A/B test subject lines to see if that improves open rates. Or, test content blocks within the email to see what message resonates better with the audience. The combination of tests you can do to improve your campaigns are nearly limitless.

At Delivra, we help our customers build relevant email campaigns every day. If you can't keep your list healthy and growing, you are not going to be satisfied with your email marketing efforts.

David Turpin | Account Executive

I have been whipping out successful email campaigns for Lushin & Associates for the past 3 years. Personally, a successful email campaign is one that can directly relate to growing the bottom line. Below are 4 rules I learned and recommend being a part of every email campaign. 

1. Build the list. If you want your campaign to be successful focus on growing the list. To really grow your audience you need more than a signup form on your website. Work the signup into everything you do. If you have any kind of form on your website add a signup check box. Salespeople should be asking to add people. Make sure your email is easy to share so that your audience can promote. 

2. Content is King. If you want people to stay engaged, participate and share, you have to produce regular content. If you cannot produce relevant, fresh content on an email schedule that you set for yourself you do not deserve an active audience. Define your voice style and expertise and start cranking them out. 

3. Don't design your own emails. Your emails are an extension of your business and your website. If you can't translate your website into your email don't do it. You are hurting the results. Email marketing providers have design gurus that can do this for you, take advantage of them. I revamp the look of Lushin emails every six months to keep them fresh and appealing to the audience. 

4. Send traffic back to your website. You're stifling your efforts if you do not entice the audience with the title and snippet of content in your email and then direct them back to your website. Your website is what converts your audience to leads - not your email. 

Incorporating these rules into your email marketing plan will ensure your list will grow, your audience will be happy, your website will get a boost in traffic and your online lead conversions will increase. 

Guest blogger | Simon Andrews

Simon Andrews is the Marketing Associate for Lushin & Associates, Inc. an Indianapolis-based sales performance company. Check them out online at www.lushin.com.

I recently met with a company that we work with to strategize content and how best to implement their email marketing plans.  The first question I heard from the CEO was, "how do we produce the amount of content you are laying out in the plan?"  I stopped for a minute to try to understand their concerns.  We talked a bit more and he explained how he didn't  have a ton of time and no one on staff had time to squeeze it in either.  For many, this might have been a stopping point to any marketing efforts.  However, I believe there is content in what you do everyday and you just have to think about it differently and not be afraid to repurpose from time to time.  Think about it, I bet as I list these items out you are nodding your head to at least a few.  Let's begin.....ready, set, go:

1. Brochures or Catalogs: If you have pre-existing collateral, don't be afraid to reuse bits and pieces of it in your ongoing communications.  Chances are, your audience might never have even seen it before.  And for those that have, it becomes a nice refresher.
2. Website, Articles, or Blog: Have any of these?  I would bet you have at least one if not more.  Take that content and use pieces to fill out email content in newsletters or to add in with a new call to action.
3. Customer Stories: We all love stories and customers love to hear how others worked with you.  Customer stories give a great frame of reference, but also provide a certain level of creditability.  Don't have a story?  Contact a customer that would be willing to share.  You'd be surprised who might take you up on the offer.
4. Headlines, Industry News, or Company Position: This is a big resource to never forget.  Companies often forget they are the only tie between their customer and the industry.  It may be old news to you, but your audience and customers are likely hungry for more of that information.  Or they might want to hear your take on it.
5. Tips & tools: Ever have a quick list of things you recommend or share with clients?  Share those with your audience and they will consider it a great resource.

Didn't take long did it?  Content is often right under our noses.  Content that can be used for email marketing, website, social media, or even blogging.  Just remember the golden rule of repurposing...

Always give credit where credit is due and always link when you can to additional content or the source.  The author will appreciate it and your audience will too!

Now it's time to get busy filling in your calendar of email activity, go forth and find that email content and send, send, send my friends!  Need more ideas on email marketing, contact us at info@delivra.com or at 317-915-9400.

Carissa Newton | Marketing

Content is an imperative part of a marketing strategy - this isn't a foreign idea, right?

There really is always something new to learn.

Writing great content isn't a new topic, but it has been brought back into focus and given even greater attention.  I've been to a couple of conferences that have had people discussing that content is, in fact, still significant and most marketers need to get back to working on great content instead of getting distracted by all of the latest widgets.

According to Junta42, "Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."

Recently, Delivra incorporated two new mailings for our clients.  The goal was to have them sign up for only the mailings they were interested in receiving.  The emails offer content that is valuable to those readers and will improve their own email marketing efforts.  Even here within Delivra we had people shaking their heads at our strategy, as if we were going to be providing too much content.  Funny thing is....we have seen the converse effect.  More people in our member lists are signing up for MORE content rather than less!  They want a resource they can turn to.

It's not just about creating content that is informative to your readers, but it's also doing it without selling them something every chance you get.  It's more about content that makes your subscribers more intelligent about a topic, it makes them stop what they are doing because they are interested in continuing to read more. It helps to build a relationship with your reader by enhancing their knowledge base and by being a resource that they know they can trust.

Along with other marketers, we have to constantly remember not to talk at our customers, but to try and provide them with information that they need and content that is valuable to them.

Is there information that you need from us and would like to see? Leave a comment and we'll get back to you!

Here are some additional resources for you to learn more about content marketing.

Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing

Content Marketing Today

Cost Effective Content Marketing

Content Rules

2011 Trends: Content Marketing is Critical

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Email marketing, although barely a decade old, is an established tool for marketers and it plays an important role. How can you improve performance? Here are a few ideas for your 2011 email marketing objectives list.

1. Integrate your email marketing with emerging marketing channels like social media. At the very least this tactic extends your email reach to recipients' friends and followers.

2. Insist that your email marketing efforts produce a ROI. I like to say that a good open rate cannot be deposited in the bank.

3. If your monthly email marketing budget is less than your monthly cell phone bill, you're not doing email marketing. You're starving the marketing channel with the best chance of measurable results.

4. Sending highly relevant content to your target audiences is a key to success. The more relevant your email campaigns, the more  content is required. Developing quality content costs money. Budget for it.

5. Understand email deliverability. A reported successful delivery may not be an inbox delivery. Work with your provider to know the difference. A reported successful delivery to a recipient who has not opened for over six months is not successful. Work with your provider to fix the problem.

6. Building your recipient list is on every new year's resolution. This year, Delivra will have a new tactic - text/SMS to subscribe. Check back for more on this exciting development early in 2011.

7. Have an email marketing strategy. Without it you're just sprinkling the lawn on a windy day (so to speak).

8. Throw out opens and clicks as primary metrics. Instead, focus on post click activity and conversions. Use automated remarketing efforts to make a real difference.

9. Last, don't go it alone. An experienced agency or email service provider can get you started on the road to success.

Best wishes for a happy new year and successful 2011!

Neil Berman | President & CEO

There are several ways to grow your list  that we've talked about on the Delivra blog before in posts such as:

Growing Your Email List

5 Ways to Build Your Email List Organically

Today, I'd like to focus on just one of the ways to grow your email list and that is signup forms. A signup form is a place that a person can type their email address into a form and signup to receive your emails. I'm going to highlight a couple of tips about signup forms below.

1. Location, Location, Location!

You need to add your signup form in places that people will see it and have the opportunity to signup. So where are some places that you can add a signup form where people are likely to see it?

• If nothing else, make sure that you have a signup form on your website - that way when consumers or potential clients are looking for information about your product and service they can signup to receive your emails.  Many email marketing service providers, including Delivra, provide a widget for you to create this signup.  You can then take that code and drop it right on your website, landing page, blog or social pages.  By doing this, your new opt-ins can go straight into your email list with very little work on your end.

• You can also add a signup form to your blog placed beside your blog feed for readers to signup to receive additional information through your emails or to receive blog posts by email.  Something you may want to consider is a floating signup form. Opinions vary on how effective using these forms is - some find it captures the readers attention and others just find it annoying.

2. Keep It Simple

As the above examples show, initially just ask for an email address.  Then once a person chooses to enter their email address and subscribes, maybe your signup form will expand into a preference center. In the preference center, it is appropriate to ask for further information, such as what specific emails they would like to receive from you or further details that you can use for segmenting mailings. Still - be sure not to ask too many questions. You don't want to overwhelm a new subscriber.

3. Examples

Most people love to see an example of what they are about to get and emails are no different.  Coming soon - we'll be offering 2 new emails to our clients to receive, but before sending we want to make sure that we are asking people to update their preferences and let us know what they want to receive. Okay - besides the fact that I just added a shameless plug - I am using this as an example! In the preference center, we've provided our clients with examples of the emails we are sending. If you'd like to see it, click here. (Feel free to sign up for the newsletter at the same time you're checking it out!)

For more information on sign up forms, check out this past blog post: Why won't they sign up?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

We've just announced the creation of the Back to School:  Email Style whitepaper series and Email Marketing Master certification program!  The certification is a free six-part program designed to build knowledge of email marketing best practices among both novice and seasoned email marketers.

The program consists of a series of six best practice white papers followed by a quiz. Those who pass the quiz will be awarded an Email Marketing Master certificate. The program is available to anyone who wants to brush up on skills or learn best practices in email marketing.

Marketers will receive a new white paper every month when they sign up for the program. Topics will include how to plan campaigns, managing and growing lists, design tips, campaign optimization, results tracking and advance campaign tips, such as using segmentation, dynamic content, surveys and video.

For more information about the Email Marketing Master program, read the press release here.

Sign up for the Email Marketing Master Program today!

I recently read an article on iMedia Connection: The unique benefits of 5 marketing platforms by Gordon Plutsky. (To read the entire article, click here.) He started out by explaining that marketers now have so many methods of communicating with customers. Then he asked, "If advertising is out, what is the most effective way to reach customers and create more sales opportunities?"

He goes on to explain that to find the answer, you must "focus on your target audience" and by creating a strategy that includes "using several media platforms" and "matching the content to the strengths and unique benefits of each platform." It's difficult to remember with all the different platforms and tools available to focus on your target audience. Yes, using more than one platform can be effective, but NO, you don't have to have a part in EVERYTHING. Enough of that - let's move on.

Plutsky ends the article by taking a look at the strengths and weaknesses of five popular marketing media reinforcing the fact that more than one media platform should be used when trying to reach your audience.

Let me start by saying - I was glad to see email! I agree with Plutsky that email is not dead. It is still an effective way to communciate with your customers, especially when used with other platforms.  Email, like the other marketing channels mentioned, has weaknesses, but when used well, it's a way to reach prospects, customers, and re-engage customers cost - effectively.  In fact, watch the video below to see what I mean.

Delivra chooses to use email as one of the ways we reach out to our own community. Gordon Plutsky mentions, "There is typically not enough (convincing) information in a single email to attract a new customer to complete the transaction."

Agreed, in a single email there probably isn't enough opportunity to attract and turn a prospect into a client; however, Delivra has set up a drip marketing campaign (and can help you set one up too), a series of emails that go out at different times with different content to a list of prospects. The series of emails includes information about how Delivra can help them improve their email marketing efforts, educate them on our application, and start communications with them to be able to build that foundation into a relationship. It's a process that we're planning on putting more efforts into because we think it works so well. (For further information on drip marketing, contact Delivra.)

Although we send emails to prospects, customers, and to re-engage clients, we also employ other marketing platforms as suggested by Plutsky. We have our website branded with Delivra that acts as our central spot, offers further information about our industry and includes educational content about the application for our clients.  We also are involved on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to form a more personal relationship with clients, partners, prospects, and others.

Overall, a great article by Plutsky and a reminder to focus on your target audience when planning a strategy for the best ways to reach your target audience.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Building a quality email list for your company is one of the biggest concerns when starting and continuing email marketing.  It is important to know when and how to ask people to join your mailing list, so you are not sending people unwanted emails.  Recently,  I stumbled upon an article that presents clear tips to help people grow their email lists organically.

Click here to read 9 ways to build your email list. It is a great resource to start expanding and engaging new users in your email marketing campaign.  By improving your email list, you will see a much greater impact on the success of your campaign.

For further information on growing your email marketing list, take a look at these past Delivra blog posts:

Growing your list: three simple changes that can make a big difference

Snail mail, a way to grow your list?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

I often hear from marketers asking  how to protect various aspects of their recipient lists(s) from others in their organization who are looking to do something they know isn't right.  The questions normally come on the acquisition end ("They're convinced buying a list is a good idea, what should I say?") but sometimes, it goes the other direction, and the marketer is dealing with higher-ups who think it is a good idea to sell their list to a third party.

These requests for help are full of exasperation as the marketer can't seem to overcome the "but they'll pay us a lot of money" argument that they're getting from the other side.

One such conversation recently came from a marketer that has been running a very successful, yet small mailing list of dedicated subscribers.  His superiors had been approached by someone wanting to market their list.  He knew this was a bad idea.  He knew that it was a betrayal of the trust he had worked to build. He knew it could have repercussions, but didn't know specifically how.

Every time he objected to the idea, it was met with a "but this is like free money" response.  The executives gung-ho about it had been approached by a third party interested in marketing to their audience.  They saw it as an opportunity to take an asset of theirs (their list of email addresses) and turn it into a revenue source.

"So, this company wants you to send out ads for them?" I asked.

"No, they would buy the list and send the mailings out themselves." was the reply.

And that instantly put a bad taste in my mouth.  At that point, I asked some questions about how the list was grown, what expectations were set at the time of opt-in, what this third party is sending, what's to keep them from selling them to others...

"Yeah," he said "I've gone over all of that with them. It's directly in conflict with what our subscribers agreed to when they signed up.  We told them we'd only be sending updates about our products and services, but the executives aren't concerned with that.  They say that this  third party will make sure no one would know the addresses came from us."

I've heard that before and I'd sure like to see the guarantee that goes along with that statement.  As we talked, I mentioned the possibility of subscribers who have created unique addresses.  Suddenly, he perked up.  "You mean someone might have an address that they only use to receive emails from us?" You betcha.  And if they suddenly start receiving email at that address from others, they're not going to be very pleased with you.  In the recipients eyes, either you sold them out, or you didn't secure the information they gave you. Either way, you ruin your relationship with them and potentially generate some really bad publicity for your company.

I'd like to think that people will do the right thing regardless of whether they think they'll get caught, but sometimes they can get distracted.  I was glad I was able to help this marketer make the case not to sell and he was glad to know someone had his back.

Kris Dougherty | Director of Operations

Marketers thrive on information about customers and prospects. It's one of the reasons email is such a powerful marketing channel--the ability to see in real-time exactly which recipients are interacting with your content, and how (opening/clicking/sharing), and to what effect (page hits/conversions).

However, the marketer's desire to collect as much data as possible, when applied to signing up new email subscribers, can have unintended consequences. Aggressive collection of personal information and preferences can backfire. Here are a couple of ways we've seen it go wrong, along with suggestions for avoiding these pitfalls:

1. Asking for too much personal information. Many consumers are concerned about privacy in the digital age, and there is widespread disagreement about how much privacy one should be expected to give up in exchange for the benefits of new technology. Identity theft is a rampant problem, and even reputable brands have been victims of hackers, or otherwise found to have mismanaged personal data provided by their customers.Given these circumstances, it's natural for customers not to want to share any more information than is strictly necessary. Therefore, don't scare them off by requiring them to provide more than is needed to deliver the emails they're signing up for. If your program truly requires responses in seventeen different form fields, then set expectations clearly about how you will and won't use those responses.On the other hand, if you don't expect to use all that information, why overwhelm the user by asking for it? They may decide that subscribing to your email is more trouble than it's worth. Consider asking for minimal information up front, to lower the barriers to subscribing. Then, after building some trust with the subscriber (by sending relevant content that doesn't abuse the opt-in permission you were given), follow up with a request for more details to serve the subscriber better, and give some incentive for them to cooperate.
2. Asking for preferences, but not honoring them. Related to #1 above, subscribers tend to assume that information requested on the signup form is somehow needed to deliver the messages they're subscribing to. If you ask for their preferences about the kind of content they're interested in, it's reasonable for them to think that you intend to honor those preferences.Consider a profile form for a fictional video game retailer that lists all of their product lines with checkboxes next to them. Suppose that a subscriber checks only the boxes indicating interest in "Sony Playstation" and 'Xbox 360", but doesn't tick the box for "Nintendo Wii." If you've recorded these choices, and yet persist in sending the "Wii New Release Deal of the Week" email to your entire mailing list--without regard for subscriber preferences--then the subscriber of our example has reason to feel that you're sending them unsolicited email. And when users feel they're getting more than what they signed up for, unsubscribes and spam complaints are likely to result.

   The rule of thumb here is simple. In the context of an email signup form, don't ask what subscribers want, if you have no intention of delivering it. If you seek preference information for other reasons, like trying to decide how to allocate your marketing budget, then consider sending out a survey instead. But definitely do ask my preferences if your aim is to send me the most relevant and engaging emails possible.

Chris Broshears | Product Development