No, it’s not the sexiest project. No, this isn’t going into the board deck. But the results are real. After Sponge launches a preference center, we see most users adjust their settings instead of fully unsubscribing. On average we save 63% of contacts who would have ordinarily unsubscribed from everything.
Ready to plug a few holes in your leaky lead bucket? Here is a round-up of our favorite B2B email preference centers.
>> Related: How to Build a Marketo Preference Center <<
In this post:
1. AWS: a preference center that generates leads
AWS’ preference center seemingly does the impossible: it’s a lead gen tool.
What we’re crushing on:
- I don’t know why, but it’s so rare for B2B email preference centers to let you opt in. Here, signing up for more email is front and center.
- This page doesn’t assume you’re already in the database. The full form includes a phone # field, and reps use this page to input leads (especially at events).
- It’s convenient/lovely to have one link to “Manage Preferences”.
2. Tracelink: a holistic customer preference center
After haranguing customers with 8+ emails/week ???? Tracelink corralled four teams to create one holistic customer preference center. Now customers can control email frequency and topics across the Customer Service, Community, Marketing, and Product Management teams.
What we’re crushing on:
- Distinct communication buckets for service alerts and product roadmaps
- Highly specific community groups by geo and topic
- Calling marketing’s emails “Premium Content” ????
3. Moody’s: under [peer] pressure
Moody’s preference center uses social proof so effectively. Who wouldn’t want content that a million other people value?
What we’re crushing on:
- By showing high subscription counts, the emails feel valuable and popular.
- All hail the pause! Folks usually opt to “take a breather” from the onslaught of content if you give them the choice.
4. BioCentury: granular control over your data
BioCentury’s preference center is all about transparency. Users can unsubscribe from sponsored content and fine tune what data gets stored.
What we’re crushing on:
- Options to remove emails “sent on behalf of third parties.”
- Options to cease collecting user engagement data and erase all user data. This is going to become the norm and isn’t easy to automate on the backend.
5. Xerox: 23 languages on 1 page
Feast your eyes on this Marketo preference center. Looks harmless, right? Except it translates into 23(!) other languages using a single form and a single landing page.
What we’re crushing on:
- When the user selects a new language, a script appends a URL parameter to override the dynamic content and reload the page. It also translates all of the stuff within the form into the new language too.
- It’s honestly a dream to maintain a single landing page and form.
- If somebody does “unsubscribe from all”, there’s a little script to uncheck all their other preferences. It’s the little things ::chef’s kiss::
And yes, this is a shameless plug because Sponge built this preference center for Xerox!
6. Tips for every B2B email preference center
No matter what preference center you build, retain more readers by:
- Empowering your audience to dial which comms they receive, both by topic and frequency.
- Give users offers they can’t refuse… and show what important/valuable communications they’ll miss if they unsubscribe from everything.
- Give users a change to take a break. 30- or 90-day “snoozes” go a long way.
- Let users opt-in, especially to comms like service alerts and product roadmaps.
Image via giphy.
Ready to build a smarter email preference center? Get in touch ⬇️
