Permission marketing experts Rosemary Smith and Jenny Moseley take a closer look at multi-channel unsubscribes.

News from the UK DMA that email unsubscribe rates doubled last year to more than two per cent per campaign is no surprise. Recession drove many marketers to the e-channel and a fair amount of badly targeted ‘spray and pray’ campaigns ensued. UK legislation (along with the rest of Europe and US Can Spam rules) requires that marketing email messages contain opportunities to opt out and recipients are not shy to use them. 

Switched-on email marketers have realised that the unsubscribe process can be refined to provide real choice to the consumer – empowering them to express selective preferences about what they do (and don’t) want to receive. This is real customer service and real permission marketing.

But what of the other channels? 

Mentioning unsubscribes to direct mailers or telemarketers usually results in raised hackles. Why do we need unsubscribes in every message, they argue, when consumers can sign up for Mailing and Telephone Preference Services? True, but capturing specific consumer preferences – rather than blanket suppression requests – will surely be a real driver of marketing ROI in the future. 

In answer to the UK Government’s environmental agenda, a few tentative steps are being taken towards the inclusion of specific unsubscribe messages in postal communications. Royal Mail has been testing brand unsubscribe messages on mailings for the last few months; the system allows the recipient a simple way of opting-out of messages from that brand and gives them a choice of whether they want out for good or just for a limited period of time. Reportedly, consumer response is positive and opt-out rates are lower than one per cent.

This is voluntary, of course . . . well, for the time being, at least. A number of European countries require that the source of a rented name is carried on cold mailings, but mandating specific unsubscribe messages or information about preference services on every contact is another matter.

In Italy – where privacy laws are as slippery as spaghetti – details are emerging of just such a mandate for telemarketing. Last year, after five long years of opt-in, the Italian Parliament made telemarketing opt-out subject to a Do Not Call list being created. However, telemarketers using directory data have now discovered that they may be required to offer sign-up to the DNC in every call. The directory industry will doubtless fight this but they must know that frustrated consumers will inevitably find their own way to the DNC suppression file just as they have in the UK and USA.

In the interests of maintaining good relations with consumers and regulators, now just might be the time to let people have their say.

Rosemary Smith and Jenny Moseley are co-directors of Opt-4. Visit their website: www.opt-4.co.uk