I regularly make purchases with Amazon and have – ridiculously considering the industry I work in – never signed up to their newsletters. Being quite a loyal Amazon customer I thought it was about time I signed up to receive offers from the mighty retailer. So, I went onto Amazon.co.uk to show my support but surprisingly I wasn’t able to find where I could subscribe to their newsletter as easy as I’d anticipated.
That got me thinking about how easy it is to subscribe to newsletters and whether the top UK retailers who we all respect and aspire to be as good as, are getting it right themselves? According to Hitwise and IMRG the top 5 UK retailers are Amazon UK, Argos, Play.com, Tesco and Marks and Spencer, so I thought I would check out their newsletter subscription process and see how easy it really is to sign up.
Here are my results:
1) Amazon
- No newsletter sign up via home page
- After much searching I was able to access this via ‘My Account’ (top right hand corner as shown with orange box above) , then in the ‘settings’ section I had to select ‘Email Subscriptions’. Next up I had to sign in with my email address and password, and following this I had to ‘update your communication preferences’. Finally I was asked to choose which of their 5 email preference choice I wanted to receive (I am losing the will to live at this point) but bizarrely had to unclick these options rather than actually select them. And only at that point (a good half hour after I started the process of signing up to their newsletter) I had a notification telling me that my preferences would be confirmed via email. Phew!
- The email confirming my subscription to ‘new products’ and ‘special offers’ then as promised promptly arrived in my inbox
2) Argos
Results:
- Newsletter sign up in obvious place on homepage above the fold as seen here (orange box)
- Simple sign up process with a few mandatory fields (title, name, surname, email, address, postcode, preferred email format, verification code)
- Once information submitted, notification informed me that they were pleased I’d signed up and I’d soon receive my first email
- First email dropped immediately into my inbox informing me of all the benefits of signing up to their newsletter including offers, exclusive competitions, hot tips etc.
3) Play.com
- Like Amazon, there’s no way of signing up to their newsletter on the home page
- I couldn’t find any links to ‘newletter’ or ‘email newsletter’ in their search box to no avail (apart from suggesting a couple of email marketing books I could buy!)
- I thought that it could be the same process as Amazon so I clicked on ‘My Account’. I was asked to register as a new customer and ‘create account’. I submitted my email address and my password and was taken to a page where I was then asked to submit my credit or debit card details. As I wasn’t purchasing anything I was loathe to this so abandoned my registration at this stage after much huffing and puffing at my desk
- I know Play.com do send a newsletter but do you have to be an existing customer to receive it? Does anyone know? Answers on a postcard please!
4) Tesco
Results:
- Tesco have a clean, uncluttered home page which requires no scrolling so even though the newsletter sign-up prompt is quite small and understated, it’s clearly found under ‘other useful links’ above the fold on the home page as shown above
- Once ‘sign-up for emails’ is clicked on and I’ve entered and confirmed my email address, it takes me to a simple page asking me for my title and my surname. I can then select out of 12 further ‘preferences’ including baby and toddler club, wine, etc (or none at all) and submit.
- No confirmation email has been received yet but apart from that it was a straight-forward and on the whole satisfying process
Results:
- Like Tesco, M&S’s home page is clean and uncluttered and again, despite being a small text-only link found at the bottom under ‘customer services’ the ‘Email Newsletter’ link was quickly located and selected as shown by the orange box above
- Once I was asked to enter my email address, I’m taken to a page asking for my title, gender and preferences (womenswear, home and furniture etc) and then my details are submitted
- A thank you for subscribing email drops immediately into my inbox informing me of the benefits of my subscription and a prompt to start shopping
So having subscribed to our favourite e-retailers I’ve discovered that the newsletter sign-up processes are rich and varied, and not wholly satisfactory in the case of Amazon and Play.com. No one can deny that these two retailers do a fantastic job touting their wares, but I just wish for my sake (and theirs!) that the newsletter subscription process was made a little more user-friendly, after all, if I can’t do it easily (and I’m in the industry), then how can ‘Joe Public’ be expected to?
Three out of the 5 UK top retailers are getting it right, but it should be 5 out of 5. So in summary you should do the following:
- Ensure the newsletter subscription process is in an obvious place on your home page
- Make the process easy and fast
- Send each and every new recipient confirmation of the subscription (double opt-in is considered best practice but not law)
- Send a welcome email to your new subscribers with attractive and relevant offers
- Make the unsubscription process as easy as you can
Good luck!