Double Opt-In Email for Better Engagement and Deliverability
One of the most important things for your business is to have a list of customers and prospects that read and reply to your emails. Double opt-In for email improves engagement, helping you to build a loyal following of customers and prospects.
We’ve just implemented a system of double opt-in email address verification for our email list; take a look at how you can do it too.
How Does it Work?
The first step is asking a visitor to type their email address into a form or a subscription box. We use the form below:
(we’d be grateful if you took a few seconds to sign-up. After all, you’re here already, right?)
The user will then be sent an email with a link to click on. The email link will send them to a thank you page back on your website. This is great, as whoever goes through that simple process is telling you that they really want to receive your emails.
What Happens Once Someone Subscribes?
Once a visitor as decided to subscribe to your list, the best thing you can do is make sure you send the right message to your new subscriber. After signing up to a new email list and clicking on the link to confirm, wouldn’t you be confused if you landed on the page shown below?
A confirmation page complete with your picture and a nice message is the perfect way to welcome a new subscriber. But did you spot the problem with the welcome landing page?
Yes, that’s right, the title is “I’m sorry to see you go!” Not what you would expect when you’ve just signed up to a new email list. This landing page would be great for someone that had unsubscribed from your list.
Implementing Double Opt-In
Mistakes happen all the time and are easy to make in the early stages of creating your double opt-in email marketing list.
The best way to avoid making the kind of mistake shown above is to make checks at several stages. Check before making it live by writing what you would like users to see in a text document. Re-read and spell check the text several times to make sure. Copy and paste from your text document to your landing pages and emails so you know you’re using the exact text you approved.
Once this is done, you can make the system live. Once your opt-in emails and landing pages are live, go through the sign-up process as if you were a user to make sure everything works well.
Everything should now be working well, but you’re not quite ready to make your sign-up public. Get a friend to sign up to your list and look out for any mistakes you may have missed. Preferably someone who doesn’t work in marketing but has a sharp eye. This way, you’ll get a good idea of how an average user will experience your sign-up process.
Check Your Process
Finally, it is a good idea to check the process periodically while it’s running. Perhaps once every three months or every 100 sign-ups? Whatever it may be, make sure you don’t waste time checking it too often. Check often enough so that if something stops working, you’ll know as soon as possible.
- Plan the content in a word processing document
- Test the opt-in process yourself
- Get a friend to test the opt-in process
- Check the process at periodically while it’s running
With good planning and a strong process, you’re ready to implement double opt-in for you email list! Let us know how you get on in the comments below or on Twitter @MoreThanVenice
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