What constitutes "opt-in"?

I've been curious lately about what actually constitutes an opt-in. 

As marketers, the fact is that email has become the dominant and preferred communication vehicle (in the B2B space) and we are interested in reaching those folks who are interested in what we have to say -- not in bugging folks who have no interest in our message or offerings.  But isn't there an awful lot of hoopla over "opt-in", "double opt-in/confirmed opt-in"? 

Think about the junk mail that ends up in our physical mailboxes at home; the majority of that paper ends up in the garbage -- and there is NO way to opt-out of receiving it, mostly because the U.S. Postal Service offers blanketing by zip code. I tried to return a Lands End Kids catalog to my mailman (because the person doesn't live at my address), who looked at it and pointed out the "or current resident" portion of the address label.  She wouldn't take it back. We don't like it, but we're just resigned to it.  Have you ever seen an exhibit about what a single year's contribution of waste that is to our landfills and recycling plants?  It's ENORMOUS!  The Minnesota State Fair had such an exhibit last year -- and it's amazing that we haven't become more up in arms about that!  What if folks who wanted to send things to our physical address had to have us on a list?  What if we could choose whether we received all that junk or not?  What a savings to our landfills! 

And how do you feel about junk calls on the telephone?  As I was writing this, my office phone rang, and I happened to be the person who picked it up.  There is no response to my, "Good Afternoon, Einsof" greeting.  But about three seconds after that, I hear, "Hello?  Is this Einsof? Sorry, it's hard for me to hear you... Can I please speak to the person in charge of customer service?".  I respond, "I am the person in charge of customer service."  The person launches into her spiel, something she's reading to me over the phone and begins taking a survey.  She asked me what were my biggest customer service challenges, and gave me some options.  I told her that those were not on my mind at the moment. However, the fact that I received an unsolicited call that put me on hold, and then came on and proceeded to ask me about customer service, is not a company that I want to hear anything about, or be helpful to.  I asked to be put on their do not call list, thanked her, and hung up.  How about opt-in lists for any telephone calls that get made? 

I belong to a professional organization, and I asked them how can I work with them to engage those members who are in the target market for our products.  Their response was that I could not email them but I could send them mail through the postal system. 

Given that these are all B2B companies, and given that studies show the preferred method of communication is through email (not phone, not mail), not to mention the landfill issue, what is the restrictive email environment about?

I know, it's a silly question -- look at all the junk email you already get every day.  I'm right there with you.  But believe it or not, it still remains my single, preferred, method of communication.  If I don't want any more of what you send me, I unsubscribe.  Easy.  Businesses respect that.  The "spam" that I get offers me no way to unsubscribe, and continues to come through with Viagra offers, software offers, and that guy from Nigeria that has $10 mil to launder in the U.S., and will I help.  Luckily, the vast majority of those go directly into my spam box, which I scan periodically and clean out, but it's manageable.

So that brings me back to my original question, "what constitutes an "opt-in"?

When you are visiting a website and you choose to provide your email so you'll get their newsletter, or have access to a whitepaper you are interested in, doesn't that constitute giving your permission?  There are those that say, yes.  And there are those that say, no.  The ones that say no, say it needs to be a 'confirmed' or 'double opt-in' -- meaning that once you provide your email address (and other information) and say you want to receive it by submitting your information, now that site needs to send you an email, and have you click a link confirming that you actually meant to complete that form and provide your consent to receive the newsletter. 

To me, that's annoying.  Didn't you hear me the first time?  It's like calling your credit card company, providing your account information, last 4 digits of your SSN, your PIN, and then when you get through to a human being, they ask you for all that information all over again, including your last name, your first name, and your mothers maiden name.  Sure, we put up with it because it's our finances they are protecting.  But why do we want to put that in place with email?

I did a search on "confirmed opt in" and that brought me to the Wiki on the subject.  Its definitions are about listservs -- the traditional mailing lists where you send an email to subscribe to the list.  This is very different from the web-based sign-ups that folks go through today. 

The wiki makes these arguments against "unconfirmed" opt-in:

• "This can cause e-mail from the mailing list to be considered spam because simple typos of the email address can cause the email to be sent to someone else." OK -- how about just including a "confirm your email address" field.  So they have to type it twice.  A lot of website sign-ups make you do this.  Would that suffice to solve this and act as a "confirmed" opt-in?
• "Malicious subscriptions are also possible, as are subscriptions that are due to spammers forging email addresses that are sent to the e-mail address used to subscribe to the mailing list."  But this argument just doesn't really apply to most business email and sign-up forms in use today.  This concern harkens back to the days when Listserv was the way you put together a mailing list.  When was the last time someone maliciously added your email to a newsletter sign up?

Shouldn't we update the way we look at and approach the web-based sign-up and forms used in the web 2.0 world?  Isn't all of this stress over opt-in a little bit much?  Responsible businesses that are sending email communications have unsubscribe capabilities -- not all of them are CAN-SPAM compliant in the sense that they require you to complete a form, sometimes a long one, to actually get off a list -- but if I don't want to receive any further emails - I can take care of it, and voila, they no longer get sent to me. 

Let's take a look at just a couple of common business practices that companies are using for demand generation, and growing their lead list:

• Co-Sponsor a white paper/research report with a leading analyst organization.  It costs right around $20K to do this, and the white paper goes out to their mailing list, which is great.  And then whoever comes in from that mailing and downloads the whitepaper, is on the list of folks that we get to follow up with, and that means by email, phone, or direct mail.  We get all the information.  And in exchange, people get to download the whitepaper.
• Publish a white paper with Tech Target or Knowledgestorm.  Our white paper gets featured on their website and sent to their mailing list.  Again, same story as above, those who download it, we get the list -- that was the agreement when we paid them to publicize the whitepaper.
• Sponsor or Host a Webinar with a thought leader in your area of expertise.  Doing so garners you all the information on the folks who sign up to attend the webinar.  They get access to the thought leader, and you get their information.  Again, not a bad swap.

Are these opt-ins?  There are those who say, "no".  They would not be considered a "confirmed "opt-in"  - hence if you email them, that would be considered 'spam'.  I disagree.  I do not think that sending them an email would constitute spamming them'. They've willingly exchanged their information for the analyst report, your whitepaper, or to attend the webinar, and if you send them an email, they can unsubscribe -- a definite communication, right?  But so far, without much argument or disagreement, you can call them, which is what happened to me lately - the rep said, "I see that you requested information about our products." and I said, "well, I downloaded a whitepaper on best practices, but I didn't request any further information."  She said, "are you in the market for an email solution?"  I said, "Not at this time."  She said, "will you be soon?"  At that point, I thanked her for the call, and told her all I wanted was the white paper. 

What would have been easier, going through that call?  or just unsubscribing if they sent me an email follow up that I wasn't interested in? 

I think businesses are grappling with and more interested in figuring out a target of interest and attempting to provide relevant information to that target, and then improving their ability to be relevant as they see how people respond and what they show interest in. 

I'm clearly on the side of email being a much more manageable and less intrusive medium than receiving phone calls, having a ton of voicemail messages that I have to sift through one at a time and delete.  Email is just easier to manage.  From an email, I can go through at my leisure, and unsubscribe from those that I don't want to hear from.  With voicemail, I can't say, "please put me on your do not call list."  And who likes going through their household or office mail and tossing 95% of it into the garbage?  The B2B community has weighed in on that one, and direct mail spending by B2B organizations has shrunk dramatically, as these organizations move to much more effective online marketing tactics.

So what do you think?  What constitutes an 'opt-in'?