Preference centers allow recipients of mails to control what is sent to them. It usually comes as a form which offers the email recipient choices between sets of content. Another feature they offer is the ability of recipients to determine the frequency at which they receive mails.
With a preference center, information about recipients of mails can be updated reflecting current name, employer, location, etc. You will need to build one to be able to send your subscribers information about your business that’s more customized to their areas of interest. You can read more here.
You now see why it is called preference. It is simply a place for making preferences. Using a preference center is the best option when there are many reasons for sending out mails to an individual.
If you’re sending company updates, newsletters, sales, events, etc., you are able to give them opportunity to choose the exact things they want to receive. Having options would likely keep them from completely opting out of your mailing list.
Considerations to Make
When building your preference center, you will be considering what options you intend to make available to those receiving your mails. Are you just giving them opportunity to decide the frequency at which they receive mails? Will you just be providing opportunity to choose content? Or will their options cover both time and content? Depending on your decision, these are some details about the options available to you:
- Time Considerations –this does not just provide the option to determine how often the mails should come, but also if they want temporal breaks.
- Content Considerations –this provide the option to select the content of the mails. When such choices are made, they help you know the exact interests of the individuals. With this knowledge, you can improve a person’s engagement with you by focusing on their interests.
- The Hybrid –this is the most advanced and the most recommended. For loyalty programs desirous of best practices, this is the best option. It factors in the needs of both content and time. Go for this as long as you have no problem with managing so much information that comes with greater capacity for personalization.
Building Your Center
The next thing after deciding what type of preference center you are building is to build the center’s page. Some things you should consider while doing this are as listed below; you can also visit here for more technical details https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016576952-Creating-a-Custom-Subscriber-Preferences-Form.
- Place every enquiry on one page. Do not have your customers moving from page to page to indicate their preferences. So avoid linking pages or keeping information not clearly spelt out.
- Go for brevity. Keep text short and to the point.
- Make identifying and validating information easy by having your subscriber’s complete mail always attached.
- Attach an unsubscribe button. This is often required by law that deals with spam.
- Make sure your design is mobile-friendly, a lot of people will access your site with mobile phones.
Choosing Where to Place It
The next thing would be to place your preference center in a place where its potential would be maximized. Your consideration here would be accessibility. If engagement with you begins with registration, it is important then to have your preference center right after registration.
This presents you from the onset as one concerned about their specific needs and willing to meet them. Some good and strategic placement options would be places such as “My Account” sections of websites, email footers or welcome series.
Secondly, attaching your center to your mails will provide your subscribers opportunity to make adjustments whenever they decide to. While doing this, make sure you use only one link to both preference center and unsubscribe button.
The unsubscribe button should be in the center’s page. By doing this, you will be reducing the number of people unsubscribing from your mailing list. Do not forget to regularly check for inactive subscribers. Probably, giving them opportunity to update preferences could lead to a reengagement.
In Conclusion
The chief factors responsible for folks unsubscribing from mailing lists are too frequent mails, or repetitive and boring contents. Thankfully, these can be fixed by properly setting up and managing a preference center. This fix is instrumental to keeping members of your mailing list attached for as long as possible.
