Wine Email Marketing: Double Check with Double Opt-In

This is one of a series of posts on wine email marketing:

• Responsive Lists are Better
• Double Check with Double Opt-In
• Paranoid ISPs
• Personalize, Everything
• Content is King (again), some Suggested Topics

In the previous post we looked at how a small responsive list could be much more valuable than a large unresponsive list. In this email we’re going to focus on one important point in boosting the quality of your list,

the Double Opt-in Process

This is where a subscriber is sent an email asking them to click on a link to confirm that they have subscribed. When they do this the link notifies your email system that the person has opted in twice (“double”) and is therefore a valid email subscriber.

If you do nothing else, force your subscribers to double opt-in to your emails. Subscribers who do this,

• are found to be more responsive
• cannot say to the authorities they did not opt-in as you have proof that they did
• cannot be subscribed by someone else
• confirms that email address is correct

All the big email marketing service providers (e.g. aweber, mailchimp, iContact, Vertical Response) have this process.

I agree that it puts a barrier in front of a potential subscriber. But email has had such a checkered history of delivering spam that it is worth their inconvenience.

What opt-in process do you have?