Graduates have thrown their caps, classmates have signed each other’s yearbooks, final exams have been tossed in the trash. There’s no doubt about it, summer is in full swing!
Still, as much as we love not being in school, we can’t help but miss those yearbook awards. You know, the superlatives they gave out to the best of the best in your graduating class. “Best Smile,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Most Likely to Become a Wacky Scientist and Either Cure All Known Disease or Singlehandedly Cause Our Extinction.”
We love those awards. In fact, we love them so much, we’ve decided to hand out a few of them ourselves. Read on to see just a few of the necessary components of a winning email program. And the winners are…
Most Trustworthy: Data Security
It’s no surprise that Data Security won our Most Trustworthy award this year. The millions — billions, even — that business spend marketing their brand could all be undone with a single security breach. It’s just common sense that brands should do all that they can to keep their data from being compromised at any step of the process.
With so much personal information passing through the internet, brands must make sure they take precautions to secure data. That includes email addresses, especially if you participate in affiliate email marketing. Data breaches seem to make the news almost weekly, and businesses are smart to choose vendors that have proper security and business continuity guidelines in place. As a proud member of the Online Trust Alliance, UnsubCentral honors its commitment to data security.
Best Dressed: Brand Protection
It was a close contest, but Data Security just lost out to Brand Protection for this year’s Best Dressed award. After all, it’s not enough to merely secure the data. Brand Protection goes one step further to provide the best customer experience. How does UnsubCentral help brands maintain their spotless reputation?
For one, UnsubCentral’s preference center allows companies to manage end user requests for type and frequency of communications, ensuring you don’t run afoul of CAN-SPAM requirements. Our super scrubbing services keep your affiliate email lists in good shape, preventing customers from receiving multiple messages with the same offer. Finally, list suppression management keeps your active customer list from getting acquisition emails. Lookin’ good!
Most Extroverted: Audience Development
Our Most Extroverted award goes to Audience Development. Static newsletter signup boxes in the footer are a thing of the past. Optimized Audience Development widgets reach out to everyone in your audience, encouraging email signups and opening up new channels of communication with even the biggest wallflowers.
Brands using tools like desktop sliders, interactive quizzes/polls, lightboxes, takeover widgets, mobile sticky footers, and one-tap subscribe signups have doubled and tripled the size of their email list. The fact that these users are more engaged and have a better open and click rate as well as increased time on site didn’t hurt either.
Most Efficient: Email Automation
And our last award goes to…Automation! As budgets get stretched more and more, businesses are finding creative ways to save money. One of the best ways to do so is by automating the most time-consuming tasks. Whether it is using UnsubCentral to synchronize your email suppression lists, or an RSS feed or web fetch to pull content directly into your email, automation can take the tedium out of your day.
Plus, in addition to freeing you up for more productive projects, you don’t have to worry about manual errors or your automation tool calling in sick. If only we had a Perfect Attendance award to hand out too!
Thanks for sticking around to meet the Who’s Who of secure email marketing! Don’t forget to sign our yearbook!
