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Is there an "Email Admin Center" in your future?
What EmailLabs is calling the "Email Admin Center" is the area of an email that includes various administrative functions (links) and information that are recurring in all of your messages. This administrative area may include things such as an unsubscribe link, profile update link, contact information, privacy information or link, send to a friend function and much more.
If you have been paying attention lately to the email newsletters you receive, you may have noticed the growing inclusion of this information. A random review of newsletters and alerts I receive uncovered some of the following names for this admin concept, including:
- Utilities
- Preference Settings
- Housekeeping
- Newsletter Tools
- Your Account
- About This Email
No matter what you call it, (we like the Admin Center because of its broader definition) we believe this admin concept is becoming a standard practice in permission emails. And while not all marketers put this information in a footer, most email recipients now expect to find this information located at the end of the email. This location obviously makes people scroll to the end of their emails, but having a standard location across all emails is ultimately better for the entire industry.
Adoption and Benefits
What's driving the adoption of the admin center concept and why should you add this functionality to your emails – if you haven't already?
- CAN-SPAM Act: The passage of the CAN-SPAM Act requires, among other things, that commercial emails contain a working unsubscribe function (reply to or link) and a postal mailing address. As a result, companies that previously did not have a centralized admin area, are now consolidating this and other information in a single location.
- Retention: Email address churn is a huge challenge for all email marketers. To make it easy for subscribers to change their email address, experienced marketers include a link to a "profile update" page on their Web site. The update form also enables subscribers to change preferences (HTML versus Text, frequency) and add or update demographic information.
- Permission Best Practices: There is an emerging acceptance of the need to follow permission best practices, such as providing simple and clear privacy and email policies. The admin center enables to marketers to present all of this information (or links to it) in a single easy to find location within the email.
- Trust: While CAN-SPAM sets a baseline minimum for email marketing practices, sophisticated email marketers understand that building and supporting trust, not just legal compliance, is critical to success.
- Subscriber Acceptance: As more and more companies adopt the email admin to their emails, consumers become increasingly familiar with the concept and will come to expect its appearance and functionality in all commercial emails they receive.
What Should Be Included in an Admin Center?
What you should include in your admin center can depend on the email technology you are using, what information you have collected on recipients, your permission practices and the type of email messages you are sending. Below are examples of what you might consider including (view an example of one at the end of this newsletter):
The Minimum – Required by the CAN-SPAM Act
- Unsubscribe language – either reply to address or clickable link that takes subscriber to a Web page with an unsubscribe form.
- Postal mailing address
Recommended or Desirable – Permission Best Practices
- Update Profile or Preferences link (links to profile page on your Web site)
- Change email address
- Change format preference – HTML or Text
- Link to Privacy and/or Email Policy
- Additionally consider one sentence description of email policy within the email.
- Email address of recipient – "You subscribed to this newsletter using the following email address johnsmith@company.com"
- Join date – Display the date when a recipient joined the mailing list.
- Explanation of why recipient is receiving email – "You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive our newsletter when registering for our ecommerce white paper."
- Feedback and contact information – phone number and email address.
Company name
Marketing and Viewing Functions/Information
- Whitelist/Buddy list information – "This email was sent using the domain 'company.com.' Please use this domain name when configuring email or spam filters."
- View as a Web page – link to a Web version of the email (for recipients that may have HTML compatibility problems or who receive text versions)
- Send to a Friend – Embedded form or link to Web site form that enables recipient to send the email message to others.
- Subscribe link – Enables those who receive the email from someone else to easily subscribe themselves.
- Benefits statement/Purpose of email – Explanation of the purpose/objective of the email message. This helps manage recipient expectations and reinforces your value proposition.
- Frequency/Delivery dates – "The Name of Newsletter is published twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
Miscellaneous/Information Specific to Message Types
- Copyright information
- Link to User Agreement
- Newsletter publisher specific:
- ISSN number
- Advertising information
- Reprint information/permission
- Subscribe to other newsletters
- Retailer Specific:
- Exchanges/Returns
- Shipping Information
Whether you deploy a few or many of the above items in your admin center, it is important that you at least begin the process. Customers and subscribers are taking greater control over their information relationships – and expect email marketers to live up to their end of the relationship. As the adoption of the email admin concept increases, those companies that ignore this trend risk seeing a decline in subscribers and customers, trust in their brand and revenue.
Note: EmailLabs has recently added a feature to our application that easily enables the deployment of an email admin center. In fact, see an example at the end of this newsletter. If you'd like a demo to see how this feature works, don't hesitate to contact one of our sales reps at 888-465-9747 or visit www.emaillabs.com and request a demo.
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