3 Strategies to Earn Consumer Trust in Email Marketing

As internet usage becomes widespread and indispensable for day-to-day activities, the biggest fear today that’s engaging all consumers is the fear of indiscriminate use of personal data by companies that provide services and collect personal information from consumers.

Even if the company providing the services is honest and truthful and protects consumer data, data breaches have become more frequent and many companies are facing increased risk of their data being compromised due to these hacker attacks. 

These stories, one would think, would dissuade consumers from sharing their personal information with brands. But it is observed that consumers today demand more personalised marketing information and this personalisation requires more personal data.

There are more than 4 billion email users globally and this is growing as more and more younger adults start using the internet. For email marketing to be effective, it must be customised. With the demographics tilting towards younger adults, many of the young consumers interact with emails only if it is customised to their preferences. Hence companies have to design personalised campaigns by walking a fine line between earning consumers’ trust and at the same time ensuring that their personal information is kept safe.

Make your policies clear.

Most consumers may not be aware of what the companies use their data for. Companies must take the initiative to inform consumers how they will use the data and what the consumers have agreed to when they opted-in.

Having a privacy policy declared prominently when consumers opt in would help boost sign-up rates. This would help the company be perceived as a transparent organisation and build faith in what they do. 

Consider a double opt-in setup on the mailing list. A double opt-in requires that the consumer verifies and confirms his acceptance of the terms and willingness to share data during the registration process. this helps reduce the spam accounts on the email list and allows segmenting of consumers based on their interests.

Optimise for consumers.

The best way to cultivate trust is to ensure that you optimise emails to speak out to humans and not send emails that seem robotic. Use proper language, read it out aloud to understand how it sounds and ensure it is conversational.

The goal is to use language that evokes an emotional response with personalised subject lines. pay particular attention to colour schemes that you see in emails with blue being considered trustworthy and professional and orange and yellow being vibrant and a festive ambience.

Finally, ensure that the emails are accessible to people with diverse abilities and preferences. Relevant images can help recipients understand the message quickly and easily and always use an alt-text with images. 

Create, test, learn.

Created automated email workflows to help your team members build customised email campaigns. Welcome emails and birthday emails are easy to set up and are opened the most. Optimising these categories helps you gain expertise to understand and learn from your audience. 

Use A/B testing to test, measure, learn and fine-tune your email campaigns. Use A/B testing not only for headers but also for to CTAs, designs, and layouts to see how the recipients react to it and gain insights.

Emails are still the preferred way to send and receive brand communications. But with privacy conversations taking centre stage, marketers need to reassure their customers that they can trust them. Use the above strategies in your email marketing initiatives to gain the trust of your consumers and offer them targeted products as per their preferences.

3 Strategies to Earn Consumer Trust in Email Marketing
by Christine Alemany 
HBR 2022/11