How important is email privacy to your business? A new email privacy
survey conducted by Relemail reveals it may be far more important than
you expected. The survey presents some startling statistics about how
email subscribers view privacy. Let's take a closer look at these
statistics and reveal what it means for you and your organization.
The first statistic revealed by the study is that 96 percent of
email subscribers view email privacy as important to them. This is a
huge number. It essentially means that 19 out of every 20 visitors do
care about your policy on email privacy. And as we will see in later
statistics, it does make a difference in whether they choose to
subscribe to your email newsletter
or trust your company's email distribution policies. Ninety-six percent
is a tremendous majority of the internet end user population, and the
most likely reason for this number being so high is because virtually
all internet users continue to be inundated with spam. Consequently, protecting their email address remains a high priority.
But a question remains: What kind of actions do people take based on
their prioritization of email privacy? The answer is that if they doubt
your organization's email privacy policies, or for some reason they
don't believe they can trust your organization, they will refrain from
subscribing to your email newsletter. The survey revealed that 83
percent of internet users have avoided subscribing to email newsletters
because they weren't sure the organization would protect their email
address. Eighty-three percent!
What we have, then, is a huge population of internet users who
are visiting various sites on the internet, who are seeing offers to
subscribe to email newsletters, and who are evaluating those offers in
terms of email privacy. When the evaluation seems to indicate to the
user that the company can't be trusted, or if it even raises a question
about trust, they stand a very high chance of avoiding subscribing to
that email newsletter.
Stated another way, if you are offering an email newsletter but
you are not proving that you follow email best practices -- if you're
not clearly demonstrating you can be trusted -- then people are going
to avoid subscribing to your email newsletter, and you're going to lose
potentially tens of thousands of subscribers who were very close to
signing up. After all, they were on your page, they read your offer,
but because they just didn't quite feel the level of trust they wanted,
they decided not to subscribe.
At the same time, the Relemail study reveals that when people see evidence of reinforced email privacy practices, they are far more likely to subscribe.
In the survey, the question was asked: "Are you more likely to
subscribe to an email newsletter if its email privacy has been
independently certified by an authoritative organization?" -- and
nearly 3 out of 4 people said yes. A full 72 percent said they're more
likely to subscribe under these conditions. So not only do we see 83
percent avoiding subscribing because of a lack of trust, we also see 72 percent saying they would be more likely to subscribe if the newsletter's email privacy practices were certified.
Email sender certification is gaining importance
The picture we're starting to see is the enormous value of obtaining
independent certification of your email practices. Most companies are
spending several dollars per visitor to bring them to their website and
put them in front of an email newsletter signup offer. But then,
because the company's email newsletter is not certified, the end user
isn't sure that they can trust it. The user leaves the page without
subscribing, and the money the company spent getting that person there
is simply wasted.
In other words, certification of an email subscription offer goes
hand in hand with spending money on search engines to bring visitors to
your site. If you're spending $100, $1,000 or $10,000 a month to bring
visitors to your site, but you're not getting your email newsletter
certified, then you're potentially throwing away a huge portion of
those visitors. That may explain why, if you look at your log files
today, you're getting lots of traffic but not many subscription
signups. Lots of people are seeing your offer, but they aren't handing
over their email addresses and giving you permission to engage them in
an email marketing conversation. This study helps explain why that's happening (and how you can improve your subscription results).
Why do email subscribers and internet users have such strong beliefs
about email privacy? According to the Relemail study, it's because 87
percent have received spam that they believe resulted from a company
selling their email address out the back door. We all get spam, but the
question that's relevant in this case is: Where does the spam come
from? Whether or not it is true, most internet users believe that spam
comes from handing over their email address by signing up for an email
newsletter. They start receiving spam, and, correct or not, they
believe it came from that subscription. What companies need to do is
resolve that distrust to avoid any incorrect perception that your
organization might be selling emails out the backdoor. And the way to
do that, of course, is to be independently audited and certified by a
company like Relemail.
Here's another important statistic revealed by the Relemail
study: when a company self-claims to respect end user email privacy and
not sell their email addresses, a whopping 78 percent of internet users don't believe the claim.
In other words, simply stating on your website "Yes, we protect your
privacy, we don't sell your email address ..." is not enough. End users
are savvy to the idea that even unscrupulous businesses are going to
say the very same thing.
Simply making this statement this on your website is not enough
to convince intelligent internet users. They automatically suspect
everyone because they've been burned before. So 78 percent carry around
the belief that they can't trust these self-serving statements by
companies. This is why independent certification has now become so
important for gaining the trust of readers -- only an independent,
unbiased third party certification service can accurately convey that
your organization follows email best practices and won't spam end
users. It's the only way to gain that level of trust with end users.
Once you gain trust, by the way, you are far more likely to earn
business from those end users. Another statistic revealed in the
Relemail study is that a full 91
percent of end users are more likely to give their business to an
organization that follows ethical email practices and respects their
privacy. Not only are you going to see fewer people leaving your
site and avoiding subscribing, not only are you going to see an
increase in the number of people who subscribe right on the spot, but
you're also going to see more business from those people. If your email
certification has been independently audited and verified by an outside
organization, the trust is solid and end users are going to act on that
by subscribing with greater frequency and by increasing their
interaction with your organization.
That's sort of like a reward policy. People like to reward
companies who act ethically and who truly respect their privacy. So if
you can prove that you do, you're going to be rewarded with more
business. People love to give business to companies that are honest and
do things right, and this 91 percent statistic demonstrates that quite
well.
Email privacy is no longer optionalIn all, what we're
seeing with the Relemail survey is that the importance of email privacy
is higher than it has ever been in the online community. We're seeing
that internet users are skeptical of the privacy claims of companies,
and that they will avoid subscribing to email newsletters if they don't
trust that company, or if they have some reason to suspect that their
email privacy won't be observed. We also see that people are far more
likely to subscribe when privacy practices have been independently
certified, and once they do subscribe they are far more likely to give
that organization more business, because they trust that organization
and they're happy to do business with an organization that acts
ethically.
What does all of this mean for you as a company? It means you need
to take a serious look at getting your email practices certified by an
email sender certification company (Relemail or otherwise). At
Relemail, certification is a flat annual fee of $395 and it means
Relemail will come in and audit your email newsletter. The service will
monitor your newsletter for 15 compliance items, including how you
handle subscribe requests, how you handle unsubscribe requests and the
nature and content of your outbound emails. You will be issued
certification if you meet all 15 points. Once you have been certified,
you can display the Relemail logo on your website right underneath your
email subscription form, so that end users can click a link and
independently verify that your email practices have been certified and
meet the highest ethical standards that have ever been proposed for
email marketing.
Speaking of best practices, I'm obligated to mention that I am
the founder of Relemail. I created it out of frustration in seeing the
email community fail to come up with realistic anti-spam solutions even
after years of negotiation and bickering among the top ISPs. The
Relemail service has been designed to enhance trust between responsible
email senders and their email recipients.
What Relemail certification means to you as an organization is
that you're going to get more subscriptions even when you don't have
any additional traffic. You're going to get a higher percentage of
signups, those people are going to stay with your email newsletter
longer, they are a lot less likely to accuse you of spamming them, and,
if these statistics hold out, they are also going to give you more
business because they trust your company.
There are additional benefits to being certified that go beyond
customer trust. You’ll also find that it's easier to defend yourself
against unscrupulous spam complaints. You can go to your ISP or
bandwidth provider, show them the Relemail certification, and prove
that your organization has been audited for these 15 points and found
to be in full compliance. This should also provide an easier time when
requesting white listing status with organizations like AOL.
Although there is no formal arrangement with AOL to recognize Relemail
certification, having this certification status certainly helps support
your contention that you are an honest email marketing firm.
In all, there are a number of important benefits to being email sender
certified, which is why companies who are engaged in email marketing
should look closely at these services.
Don't take my word on everything I've said here; do your own
research. Check out Relemail, read up on the study or survey your own
users and find out what they think about email privacy. No matter how
you look at it, I am sure you will find evidence to support the same
conclusions I've reached here. These are: that email privacy is now at
the top of the list of concerns for internet users, that businesses and
organizations are losing potential subscribers due to distrust, and
that if companies would take the step to get independently certified,
they would not only see an increase in subscription rates, they would
see much higher loyalty from those subscribers as they continue to
evolve their business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships.
About the author:
Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a
passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored
more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews
on natural health topics, reaching millions of readers with information
that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world.
Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get
paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams
launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com
that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs.
He's also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded
a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center,
a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling,
nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. Known by his callsign, the
'Health Ranger,' Adams |