Building Trust With Your Followers

Respecting your current and potential subscribers is important in building trust through your email marketing campaign. How you collect email addresses and what you do with them will show your subscribers what level of respect you have for them. For most individuals, an email address is private and is shared with email marketers with a certain level of trust. Individuals trust those that show the most respect for their privacy. Here are some tips to help you give the highest level of respect to your current and potential subscriber base.

1. Set High Permission Standards

Never try to trick someone into opting in for certain things. You need to get clear permission to send out everything you want through your email marketing campaign. This means that you should never pre-check opt-in boxes or trick subscribers with muddy wording (i.e., "Do not select this option if you do not want to receive…"). Before people sign up you should also provide clear information on what exactly they are signing up for. Let them know what type of emails they will be receiving and how often they should expect them. Lastly, require all new subscribers to confirm their decision to opt in through a second action. This could be done by instructing them to click on a confirmation link located in your welcome email.

2. Be Transparent About Your Privacy Policies

Many email marketers intentionally publish privacy policies in long legal terms knowing that no one is likely to read them. Others publish them in small print or make it difficult to find. To show the level of respect you give to your subscribers you need to make it simple for them to find and understand exactly how you intend to use their data. This means writing your privacy policies in simple language and making it easily accessible. If you trust and respect their privacy, and if you really are trustworthy, you shouldn't have anything to hide.

3. Respect Permission to the Highest Degree

People have certain expectations when they submit their email to marketers. They certainly don't expect to receive marketing messages from strangers, or other things they did not explicitly sign up for. This means you should never sell or rent your list to third parties, even if you feel their emails won't be traced back to you. You shouldn't even try to use your list to promote other parts of your business. Give your subscribers exactly what you told them to expect and they will recognize you as trustworthy.

You need to show subscribers exactly why they should trust you; and a huge part of that trust lies in the amount of respect you give to their privacy. Never try to trick them into opting in for anything they don't expect or fully understand, and value the trust they show you as they give you their email addresses.