The topic of opt in vs. opt out has come up recently and I wanted to get a quick poll on which strategy your organization uses online
Through account creation, or account management, do your patrons have to opt out of receiving eNews or do they have to actively select to receive eNews from you?
We currently have patrons opting in to receive eNews and it has cut down on the number of bouncebank and ignored emails considerably, but member organizations want to explore the possibility of pre-checking the opt in box for eNews.
Pros and Cons?
Becci Brace - TN PAC
Hi Becci.
The size of your list doesn't matter. It's the interest level of the people on that list that counts. Your member organizations should respect that. That's the opposite of my original inclination. Eight years ago, I was one who supported the auto opt-in [pre-populated check box] at our institution.
I hope you are able to leave your system with your current settings.
Because we use the auto opt-in as new accounts are created, we "prune" our list twice a year, sending an eCard that requires a response to remain on the roster. We're pruning this month and expect to remove about 30k addresses.
As E.F. Schumacher said "small is beautiful." [And we should probably consider changing our approach.]
We do things a little differently at the Science Museum.
In our online ticketing, membership, donation and class registration modules, we have an area for email subscriptions. By default, there is a checkbox to receive emails from us. But it's a double opt-in process. So by default the box is checked, signing them up for our email list. Our system sends their email address a confirmation link which must be clicked before the Mail Purpose is actually checked in Tessitura.
Our web development firm created an nice admin tool for me to easily toggle between opt-in vs. opt-out if I want to test it some day, or switch completely.
Eric MuellerWebmaster & Social Media GuyScience Museum of Minnesota
Email: emueller@smm.orgPhone: (651) 221-9455