It doesn’t hurt to ask.
You’ll never know if you don’t ask.
Ask and you shall receive.
What do all of these phrases have in common? (Hint: The answer is in bold and is the image at the upper right). They all have the word “ask” in them. Awesome.
Now, how does this relate to email marketing? If you want to ramp up your email marketing program, and begin the journey to the perfect email, one of the very first steps is to ask consumers for their permission. Marketers are generally pretty good about asking for email addresses on their website - subscription landing pages and during the pre/post checkout process.
Some marketers will take it a step further by asking for email addresses on the phone and in the store (brick and mortar).
The key is really in the ask. Where do you ask? How do you ask? How often do you ask? What data do you ask for? Ask. Ask. Ask. What data do you require? There is no easy answer for this. As I’ve said before, it depends (an answer that everyone loves). However, these are all essential questions that you need to be asking your marketing team. Setting proper expectations before, during, and after the ask is also crucial, but that is another post.
This past weekend, I sat down at a table at Cafe Carolina with recently purchased coffee in hand. I pulled out my Macbook and logged into their (free) WiFi. Immediately after agreeing to their terms of service, I was redirected to a subscription landing page where they asked me to join their eClub (click image below to enlarge).
I could dedicate this post to a critique of the copy, the look/feel, the required vs optional data fields, the (lack of) sample email, the (lack of) expectations around frequency, the limited amount of choice I have as a subscriber, etc. However, instead I’d like to focus on the ask.
Cafe Carolina asked if I’d like to join their eClub. They even shared some “member benefits.” But most importantly, they asked. What was unique about this ask is that it came to me at a logical time. I was about to use their (free) WiFi for the next 3 hours. They leveraged this knowledge to time the ask perfectly.
I joined.
Where are you asking for permission? Are you utilizing every possible opportunity to capture an email address? Are you tracking these sources differently and targeting your messaging based on opt-in location?
DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
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