Utilizing a Preference Center

Utilizing a Preference Center with your marketing communications can be a great way to learn more about your recipients and tailor your communications to their interests. We are all inundated with communications on a daily basis, so it is important to target content to the right person so that you can capture their interest and keep them engaged. If someone gets too many messages or messages that don’t interest them, then they may be led to unsubscribe. Rather than opting out of all communications, giving the reader the option to choose the communications that do interest them through a preference center can be a great way to keep them from opting out altogether. Here are some tips to crafting an effective preference center:

• Make sure your preference options encompass the types of communications you send regularly. For example, weekly/monthly updates or newsletters, event invitations, product updates, etc.
• Don’t give too many choices. Stick to your main categories or group similar types of communications together. If there are too many choices it can lead someone to opt out of everything rather than read through the entire list of options.
• Give the choices clear descriptions versus using a branded name. For example, our customer newsletter is called “The Cube”, but if we simply listed the choice as “The Cube” someone may not know that it is a newsletter. A better option would be to have it listed as “Customer Newsletter” or something similar.

Preference centers can be a great way to keep your recipients subscribed and give them the flexibility to decide what types of communications they want to receive, but the most important part is to make sure you are honoring the choices you give them!