What to Do When Permission Goes Away

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:

• Using website search phrases to buy key phrases on SEM networks. Putting the brand back in front of users when they are looking for something they need is always helpful.
• Leveraging banners where we typically go after new customers to showcase loyalty-based offers and reminders. These don’t convert the new customers as well, but they certainly reach people who are familiar with our brand and need a reminder to buy, without building inbox excess.
• Creating PR events (in the general market, or even through social efforts) that remind the user of the reasons they fell in love with our company in the first place. You will see this go live soon, so stay tuned.

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.