The problem

Members often end up receiving a variety of different types of emails from an organisation, such as a newsletter, webinar alerts and upcoming events. Recently, one of my clients wanted a way for members to specify which types of emails they received.

So if someone was interested in the main newsletter, but not upcoming events, they could opt out of the events emails and remain opted into the newsletter emails.

The solution

There were two parts to making this happen

  1. A preference link in each email they receive
  2. A preference centre in the membership site

Preference link in emails

For the preference link in each email they receive, I created a landing page in their email platform (Pardot) that gave options for different types of emails. The options for them are newsletter, events, and awards. The link to that landing page is added to the template, which is automatically tied to the subscriber’s record.

This means that when they receive an email, they can use the preference centre link if they want to tailor the content they receive.

Preference centre in the membership site

The preference centre in the membership site is a trickier thing to do. The membership site doesn’t know which email preferences the contact has, let alone any way to allow them to specify which option they want. To make this happen, I used the API of the email platform to create a connection between the website and the platform. From there, I was able to create a preference centre on the site with the different options. Because there is a connection, it gets the options they have opted in for, and allows them to specific which types of emails they’d like to receive.

With this in place, they don’t need to hunt through their emails for a link to the preference landing page. The preference centre is available to them every time they log in to the site. This gives them full control over the emails they receive and makes them much more likely to remain happy subscribers.

Systems integrated

  • Drupal
  • Pardot

Need something like this?

If you want something like this for your membership business, we’d love to talk to see if we are a good fit. Just fill in this form with a few details, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

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