When you set up your AWeber account, you’ll be asked to choose from one of three lists – those who have subscribed to your content, those who have liked your page, and those who are untapped potential customers. Soon after, you’ll receive a welcome email with a link to a quick guide that will walk you through the steps to start building your audience on the platform. One of the first things you’ll want to do is to re-evaluate this decision, particularly if you’re just getting started.
The lists in your AWeber dashboard represent your email subscribers. While it’s great that you’ve got a steady stream of engagements coming in, if you want to grow your business, you need to start thinking about ways to engage with your audience between interactions. The problem is that when you’re in the middle of a campaign and need a quick snapshot of what’s working and what needs to be changed, you’re thrown out of the game with no opportunity to go back and try something new. Before you know it, a day has gone by and you’ve missed out on multiple sales opportunities just because you couldn’t keep up.
With each list a different, but critical piece of the puzzle, it’s essential that you find a way to integrate them all into one. Fortunately, AWeber gives you the ability to re-subscribe customers between lists.
How to Re-subscribe with Automation in AWeber
From the outset, it’s important to note that this feature is only available to customers who have purchased a hosted POP3 email account from AWeber. If you’ve opted for the free trial version of the platform, you’ll be able to re-subscribe within the same email list, but you won’t have the ability to move subscribers between lists. In this article, we’ll show you how to re-subscribe with automation in AWeber and how to best take advantage of this functionality.
To get started, visit your AWeber dashboard and click on the settings gear icon in the upper right corner. From here, you’ll see your current email settings and an option to change them. Under the delivery subsection of your settings, you’ll see a grayed out checkbox that says “Re-subscribe this list.”
When you re-subscribe to an email list, you’re essentially telling the marketplace that you no longer want to receive emails from the company that you’ve subscribed to. So, by selecting this option, you’re giving the platform permission to cancel all your current subscriptions and re-subscribe you to different lists as needed.
However, before you completely dismiss this as a one-time event and send out a mass email to all your subscribers, you should actually read the email that’s sent to you. This mail will contain important information about what you’re subscribing to and why you’ve decided to unsubscribe in the first place. Also, keep in mind that if your account is in good standing, AWeber may very well try to retain your business by offering special deals and discounts. You don’t want to miss out on these types of promotions!
AWeber’s Take on Re-subscription
While it’s great that you can re-subscribe whenever you like, the fact is that not everyone wants to be on every mailing list. Some customers may have subscribed to your content because they wanted to receive a weekly email but have since forgotten about you and would prefer not to get any more emails from your company. In these cases, it’s best if you allow subscribers to re-subscribe when they want to as long as you don’t abuse this feature and send out mass emails without their permission.
To best retain your customers and make the most of this re-subscription feature, you should implement a formal re-subscription process that follows a certain pattern, such as sending out an email with a link to a simple form that asks for permission to re-subscribe.
With your contact information already filled in, all they have to do is hit the “Submit” button to give you permission to re-subscribe to different lists.
Customizing Your Re-subscription Link
When you send out this email, it will have a link to a simple form that you can use to re-subscribe to your lists. One important thing to note is that the link will only work if you’ve got the domain name of the company you’re re-subscribing with correct. Even if you type in the right domain name, you may encounter a page that says “This link was not found. Please try again with another link.” Don’t worry, just keep trying different links until you find the one that correctly redirects you to the re-subscription form.
If you’ve got a separate account for each list, you can use the domain name as a sort of placeholder and then fill in the actual email address as needed. This will make it easier for people to find the right list when they click the link in your email.
For example, if you’ve got a sales list and a marketing list, you could use bit.ly/aweber-re-subscribe as a link and then in the sales list, you could enter something like @sales.aweber.com and the marketing list could be @marketing.aweber.com. When people click the link and submit the form, they will be automatically subscribed to the corresponding list.
Why Should You Care About Re-subscription?
People who’ve been through a re-subscription process know exactly what we’re talking about when we say that it’s good to have multiple contact points and ways to communicate with your audience. By having an email list that you can re-subscribe to, you’re giving your business the opportunity to present itself to your audience in a way that may not have occurred otherwise.
For example, take a look at Backpacker Travel and how they used the re-subscription feature to revive a dormant account. The business had built up a following of students, faculty, and staff of a university in Southeast Asia as well as in Canada. To keep in touch with this audience, Backpacker created a blog and started a Facebook page for the business. Between the two, the account holder could reach out to their audience multiple times a day, but without having to set up individual email campaigns for each list.
In creating a separate account and listing for each type of engagement (e.g., blog post, podcast, etc.), you’re offering your audience the opportunity to find you in multiple places, see your updates, and be reminded of your organization whenever they log into their email.
When you have a large enough audience, you can use the re-subscription feature to grow your email list and engage with your audience however you see fit. Just make sure that you don’t send out spammy messages without their consent. Customers will hate it when they get an email that they didn’t sign up for and will never opt-in to another mailer’s list.