Opting-in an Old Subscriber List

In order to use your list in FlutterMail, you must ensure that all addresses on that list have opted in, or have chosen to receive email from you. If you have a list that is not an opt-in list (to see more about what is and isn’t an opt-in list see some examples), or a list that hasn’t been emailed in a year or more, you will need to get the recipient’s permission before contacting them regularly. To do this, you’ll need to send them an opt-in confirmation email.

Sending a confirmation email can be tricky, and we recommend going so far as to completely drop this list of old subscribers and start over. When you send an email to people whose address you already have to ask their permission to contact them, you run the risk of annoying them since they may not have expected to be contacted by you, and therefore risk causing them to report your email as spam. It’s also likely that only a small number of people from the list you’re trying to opt-in will choose to do so, especially if your list is more than a year old.

While this might be frustrating to hear, it’s always best to utilize best practices when it comes to email marketing. If you still decide to try to opt-in an old list after considering the many possible consequences, please do so before using FlutterMail.

Opting In Old Addresses

If you would like to try to retain old addresses for use in FlutterMail, you need to contact each person on your list and ask their permission. This request cannot be sent using FlutterMail. Instead, you can contact each email address individually from your own email client or use a different application or service to send this request email. In order to protect our delivery rates for all of our clients and reduce abuse complaints, this request cannot be sent using our system.

Be sure to follow these guidelines when asking people to opt-in to your email newsletter:

Notify the recipient that you are starting an email newsletter or campaign, and provide a link to your online subscription form. Only subscribers who follow the link and complete the form will be considered opted-in. See our Subscriber Fields knowledge base article to learn more about building these forms.
Incentives to encourage subscription could be a good way to gain back subscribers, but be careful. Words like “Free!” or “Act now!” in the subject line can be off-putting, and can make your email sound more like an unsolicited marketing email than an effort to gain their interest.
DO NOT send an email to the list stating they are already subscribed, and calling them to action if they wish to unsubscribe. This does not count as opting in subscribers. It’s not safe to assume that anyone who didn’t click “unsubscribe” in the email has decided to opt-in.
DO NOT email this list more than once trying to get them to opt-in. Only those who followed through and filled out your subscription form should be contacted again in the future. The rest of the list should be discarded.

This process might drastically reduce the size of your list, but following these steps is necessary in order to comply with FlutterMail’s terms of service. In addition, those who do stay with you after this process are people who have a vested interest in your product or service and are more likely to have a positive impact on your future campaigns. Having people on your list who are genuinely interested in your company keep delivery rates high, bounce and abuse rates low, and ensure more effective marketing campaigns overall.

Related posts:
1. How to reduce a high bounce rate
2. How do I opt-in subscribers I have collected offline?