Remember those “old Doublemint commercials”:http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_doublemint.htm where cute twins parade about hawking chewing-gum and talking about ‘doubling your pleasure’? These days this could apply to email opt-in choices.
There are two ways to get a person to subscribe to your email list. (Negative opt-in does not count as it’s not ethical):
# Single opt-in – A customer subscribes to your list by entering their e-mail address and/or ticking a box.
# Double opt-in – A customer subscribes to your list by ticking a sign-up box, is sent a confirmation email and they have to confirm they want to receive messages from you.
One pro of double opt-in is it prevents email addresses from being mistakenly placed on a list. It also ensures your list has more integrity. Subscribers really want to hear from you and metrics such as open-rates, click-through rates and sales are higher.
Month: May 2006
A recent “Globe and Mail article on Cyber-Safety”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060508.gtonline08/BNStory/Technology/ for children has me concerned. Seems that parents are being advised by Lianna McDonald to use the ole’ “lock down” approach to managing their children’s Internet activities.
As a psychotherapist and parenting expert, it has always been my advice to prepare children for life rather than protect them from it. When we use our adult power to control children we invite rebellion, deceit, sneaking and lying. Parents impose rigid rules in an attempt to regain control of their children when they feel they are losing control. Ironically, by trying to re-gain control in this manner, we actually loose it further!
Many parents today do have an inferior knowledge to their children when it comes to the Net. Their fear is only further fuelled by scary media articles that magnify the rare but extreme case such things as child murderers.
Perhaps better a action step for concerned parents is to share the educative process with their children. Learn together where the potential threats lie. Work collaboratively to set mutual guidelines that incorporate what you have been learning about Net safety together.
Why?
My mom is not what you’d call a geek, or even someone who is really interested in computers or the Internet.
She works for an HMO in the US and uses the computer for work-related tasks and email. She also keeps up to date on her favourite tennis players at the US Open site and forwards me funny photos of cats, but that’s about it. She does 100% of her Internet activity at work because she doesn’t have a computer at home.
I looked into getting her Internet access at home last year, but she lives in a rural area in Pennsylvania. Dial-up is still the norm and *that* is a level of technical support I don’t want to provide long-distance. It is surprising to me how many places in the States still don’t have access to broadband. According to some recent ComScore data I’ve seen, 77% of Canadians use broadband while only 53% of Americans do! (Q3 2005 data). That’s something I definitely take for granted being up here.
But, back to my mom. Her workplace has slowly been implementing security measures on their computer networks. And they have recently introduced some network sniffers to monitor for illegal downloads. Now my mom doesn’t know how to download music or movies, either legally or illegally. So imagine her surprise when her boss burst into her office one morning and announced “Network Security has found illegal files on your computer. You could be fired!!” and stormed out.