An enquiry is not a subscription

The line that matters

Somebody filling in your contact form wants an answer to their question. That is all they have asked for.

Adding them to a monthly newsletter uses their details for something they did not request. It is the complaint that arrives most often and the one that is entirely avoidable.

If you want them on a list, ask. A single sentence at the end of your reply does it, and the people who say yes are worth more than the ones who never chose.

The cost of getting it wrong is larger than a complaint. Somebody who did not ask to hear from you marks the message as spam, and that single action teaches a mail provider something about your domain.

What a signup box should say

Three things. What they will get, how often, and how to stop. In that order, next to the button, in plain words.

Monthly note about local permit changes, roughly twelve a year, leave any time. That is a better offer than sign up for updates, and it sets an expectation you can meet.

A pre-ticked box is not a choice. It is the pattern regulators describe as deceptive design and it produces a list nobody wanted to be on.

• What they will actually receive
• Roughly how often
• How to stop, in plain words
• Who runs the list, if it is not you
• Nothing pre-ticked
• No requirement to subscribe in order to get something else

Keeping a record

Note when somebody joined, and where from. Most list tools do it automatically if the form is connected properly.

It matters the day somebody says they never signed up. A date and a source settles it in seconds, either way.

It also lets you clear out addresses that have never opened anything, which improves the chance your mail reaches the people who do want it.

Why buying a list is worse than useless

The addresses did not agree to hear from you, so a share of them will mark your message as spam. Mail providers watch that, and they learn from it.

What they learn is about your sending domain. Once that reputation drops, your ordinary business mail starts landing in junk folders too.

So the damage is not a wasted campaign. It is your quotes and invoices arriving in spam for months afterwards.

The damage lands on your ordinary correspondence rather than on the campaign. Quotes and invoices start arriving in junk folders weeks later, and tracing that back to the cause is difficult.

Leaving has to be easy

One clear link, working, in every message. Not a login, not a preference maze, not a reply-and-ask.

Somebody who cannot leave marks the message as spam instead, which does the same reputational damage as a bought list.

Process unsubscribes quickly. A person who leaves cleanly may still come back as a customer. A person who had to fight will not.

Process the request quickly too. A person who leaves cleanly may still buy from you; a person who had to send three emails tells other people about it.

Where the website fits

The signup lives on your pages, so the wording next to the button is a website decision even though the list lives elsewhere.

Be clear which company runs the list, because their systems now hold your subscribers. That belongs in your privacy policy by name.

No email address should be printed on your public pages. It attracts harvesting, and the form protects the inbox that matters.

A simple standard to hold

Only people who asked. Only what you said you would send. Always easy to leave. Records kept.

That produces a smaller list that actually reads you, and it keeps your domain in good standing for everything else you send.

Nothing here is legal advice, and rules on commercial email differ by where your readers are. The standard above is sensible under all of them.

It also keeps the website honest, because the wording next to the button is a page decision even when the list lives elsewhere. See honest claims for the same test applied to everything else you write.