Customers want personalized options. And email preference centers are key to providing your customers with options and it’s important to let them personalize the type of content they receive.

A preference center allows your readers to subscribe only to the content they want to receive. If your emails only include an unsubscribe link, you are potentially reducing the impact and audience size for your email marketing.

Your preference center should allow customers to opt in or opt out of receiving informational, product or company emails. You can also offer content at both the business line (personal, business, insurance, investments) and at the product level (checking, loans, credit cards, online banking) for further customization.

3 Best Practices When Building or Updating Your Preference Center

1. Leverage your content strategy

Your preference center options should closely align with your email content marketing strategy. Begin by evaluating the mix of content for your emails. We recommend a 60/30/10 split.

• 60% of emails focus on financial education and wellness
• 30% of emails focus on the features and benefits of your products and services
• 10% of emails focus on community involvement, events and company information

2. Increase content relevancy for increased engagement

As your customers opt into different communications, your organization will have an opportunity to evolve your content and preference center strategy. If more customers are opting in to receive communications about digital banking services, you can create additional emails related to those topics. Are they opting out of receiving emails about insurance? Consider reducing the number of communications about that topic. Leverage the insights from your preference center to inform your strategic content marketing decisions.

3. Manage the frequency of communications

Oftentimes, the reason customers unsubscribe from emails is due to the frequency of communications. Make sure your preference center allows customer to select the frequency of communications, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. If you see that many customers want to receive fewer communications, it may be a sign that you are sending too many emails. Use these insights to further refine your email marketing strategy.

Final Thoughts:

• Make your preferences links easy to find in your communications.
• Adhere to CAN-SPAM requirements and provide the ability to unsubscribe from all communications.
• Inform customers on how quickly their new preferences will be in effect.
• Remind customers that they will continue to receive required transaction, servicing and legal communications.

We realize your list of priorities and “must-do’s” changes frequently. We would be glad to help you develop a structured game plan for orchestrating your email communication strategy. Contact us to get started.