As a search and online marketer one of the ways I keep up to date with the latest marketing techniques through a range of respected email newsletters and RSS feeds. One of which I subscribe to is a US publication called MediaPost. Traditionally they are a print publisher with some free online publications.

MediaPost is one company that respects a person’s inbox space. Their objective is to grow and retain quality subscribers rather than quantity. Sending communications to “active” subscribers is a smart approach as it builds brand more effectively, increases conversions and click rates and reduces overall send costs.

An active subscriber is one who opens and reads a sender’s email or RSS communication on a regular basis. Companies who send to subscribers who do not open their communications are effectively wasting their marketing spend.

The concept of giving “permission” to receive communications is an interesting prospect. One can not assume if permission is granted it is valid forever and a day. Permission does eventually expire if the content of such marketing communications is not meeting the needs of the subscriber.

There are also different levels of permission. Of course you will open and read communications from people you know or have a relationship with. Next in the priority “read now” queue are communications from companies that have good brand value and are providing information that you are highly interested in. However, those communications that focus on “selling” to the sender or the information is not really pushing their hot buttons any longer, are unlikely to be opened and may lead to unsubscriptions.

Good communications are those that hold the subscribers interest and creates anticipation of when the next one will arrive. These particular emails or RSS feeds are memorable leaving the subscriber wanting more.

Sometimes a person’s interest in a particular topic may have a short life span. You may plan a holiday to Australia and subscribe to a Travel Australia newsletter to be in the know of the best events to attend while you are there and even the best driving routes for your motorhome tour. Once your holiday has been and gone and you are sitting back in your office, you don’t necessarily want to keep receiving these communications because it is no longer relevant. Uh-oh… these communications are now venturing into the territory of spam.

Yes, the subscribe button is right at the bottom of most email communications, but who really wants to spend the time removing themselves from mailing lists? It is just as easy to hit the “spam” button in the email program, delete it or simply just ignore it. So the sender keeps on sending.

MediaPost has got it right. They gave me the option to sign-up to their newsletters for one year and upon the anniversary they asked if I wanted to renew my subscription. This gave me time to reflect – do I really want to keep receiving this? If I didn’t, the newsletters would simply stop. I didn’t need to do anything.

The benefits of such an approach is:

• It gives the subscriber a heads up to re-evaluate whether they still want the communication
• If the subscription is continued, it renews the subscriber’s interest in opening and reading the publications on a more regular basis
• If the subscription is not continued, it helps reduce overall send costs by the publisher (all those cents do add up when you have large lists!)
• The copy can help position the value of the communication. In MediaPost’s case, they state “Your subscription is still free”. Does this mean at some point in the future they will start charging for this content? This subtly conveys that the content is actually worth something and it is bargain right now by getting it for free.

It is important for marketers to respect their subscribers’ inbox by providing them options to select their content preferences, the frequency of how often they receive it and the length of time they are subscribed. Evaluating an email program’s performance based on the number of subscribers and unsubscribers alone is email marketing 101. Advanced digital communications requires more effort by the marketer to foster and understand the active subscriber which ultimately delivers increased results.