Email Best Practices: Setting Expectations 

What Are 'Expectations'?

Expectations are closely related to permission in that permission is only granted for what the client EXPECTS to receive from you.  That makes good sense, because if someone signs up to learn about basket-weaving but then you send 'get-rich-quick' info, they're gonna click 'this is spam'. Right?

But of course, the situation is even more nuanced than that.

For example, has someone given you permission to email your monthly newsletter when they've given you their email address to download a whitepaper or to watch a video? A purist would say that unless your opt-in form clearly said 'Sign up to watch my video AND get my monthly newsletter' that they certainly have not given permission.

You might argue, "Hey, if I wasn't going to follow up I wouldn't have asked for their email in the first place! They KNOW I'm going to follow up. It's the Internet people!"

But all of that is beside the point.  The point is: will they complain?

And if you bombard people with sales copy when they just wanted to read your whitepaper, they will complain.

And if you send them daily autoresponder emails with every affiliate pitch under the sun after they watched your video, they will complain.

Setting accurate expectations at the point of data capture is critical to maintaining a healthy relationship with your list.

"But wait!" you argue, "people send me crap I didn't ask for all the time! That's just how email IS!"

Yes. And...

a) how do you like it?

b) why do you think everyone's complaining about crap delivery rates all the time?

What Do I Need to Do?

You need to be clear in your sign-up process about what people are going to get when they give you their contact information.

• Just because someone called to get a price quote and gave you their email address to deliver it DOESN'T mean you can add them to your marketing list.
• Just because someone dropped their card into your fishbowl to win an iPod, doesn't mean you can bombard them with sales pitches.
• Just because someone bought something from your webstore doesn't mean you can add them to your newsletter list!

If you're offering a bribe in exchange for contact info (free whitepaper, video, whatever) and you want to add them to your newsetter list, you have to make it clear that you're going to add them or else make the newsletter part optional.

You can add checkbox forms that ASK if they'd like to be added to your newsetter (default = UNchecked! Don't get sassy with me.  If you have OfficeAutopilot, you can do this easily with Active Response rules.)

FAQs

Some questions we've heard...

"Everyone else just puts me on their marketing list whenever I give them my email address! Why do I have to explain it when no one else does?"

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