By Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations

If you ever happen to meet me in real life, I'm a twenty-something male, 6'2" tall, 180 pounds of pure muscle, with a full head of curly dark hair.

Alas, if we ever do meet or you see my photo, you'll find out the only part of that description that is accurate is the fact that I'm male. I would fail to live up to your expectations.

So it is with email. If you don't live up to subscribers' expectations, they might end up making false assumptions based on their experiences with other Web sites, email campaigns and newsletters.

Set Expectations Early and Throughout the Email Relationship
It's important to let subscribers know exactly what they can expect from you even before they opt in to your program. Then, meet or exceed those expectations throughout the relationship. This creates engaged subscribers who will anticipate your messages and act on them.

If you fail to meet expectations at crucial touch points during the relationship, your subscribers can become passive or opt out altogether. These are some of those touch points:

• Before and during opt-in. Describe your email program content, goals and value at the point where you invite them to opt in. Expand the description on the opt-in page.
• The privacy policy. State what you will do with the information provided, in plain language.
• Confirmation email/thank-you page. Include your name, email program/newsletter name, confirmation instructions for double opt-in or restating subscription particulars for single opt-in, sent immediately after opt-in.
• Welcome program. The best way to set and manage expectations is with this series of emails sent immediately after confirmation. Restate what the subscriber signed up for, invite them back to your Web site, provide contact info, link to your privacy policy and link to past content.
• Email design/format. Subscribers want to be able to find your information quickly in the message.
• Preference center. This allows subscribers to change their relationship mid-stream and keep it useful or relevant. They expect to do it easily without having to jump through hoops or hunt through your site to find the instructions.
• Unsubscribe procedure. A simple procedure without requiring confirmation or more than one or two clicks sets the expectation that you will honor the unsubscribe and can maintain or improve your relationship.  

Key Tenets of Managing Expectations
These basic principles apply throughout the subscriber relationship: 

• Be transparent. Tell subscribers exactly what will happen when, what they have to do to meet their own objectives (subscribing, changing preferences, unsubscribing), what you will do with their data and what you will not do.
• Be clear, concise and simple. Email inboxes can be overwhelming to users. Don't make their lives more difficult. Copy, instructions and policies should be written in plain language, and every action should be intuitive and easy. Give your brand or company a prominent place in the inbox so readers recognize it immediately.
• Give options and alternatives. Your subscribers come in different shapes, sizes, ages and interests. They expect you to provide them content and value in ways that meet their individual needs. Offer multiple communication channels, different frequencies, customizable interests and a choice of formats (HTML, text or mobile-friendly). Then, honor their choices.
• Under-promise, over-deliver. If in your sign-up process you promote "Special Email-Only Offers," be sure to deliver on that promise. But then, surprise subscribers occasionally with an added bonus, one-time offer, etc.
• If you ask, they will expect. When a company asks my birth date, I assume either I will receive some sort of birthday promotion or that the content I receive will targeted to me based on my age. Don't ask for data that you don't plan to use to add value to the relationship.
• Monitor and solicit feedback. No matter how great your program is, you won't live up to some subscribers' expectations. Survey inactive subscribers early in the email relationship to uncover dissatisfaction. Also, monitor opt-in form conversion rates, unsubscribe rates and other areas to uncover potential problems.

Common Expectations
While we are all different, the following are typical things your subscribers expect from you and where they have likely been disappointed before:

• Privacy/Permission. You won't share their email addresses or data with other companies unless you state that up front and get their express permission to do so.
• Brand. Your brand will be visible immediately in the inbox so subscribers can recognize it.
• Other communications. Unless they agreed to let you share their name with third parties or other groups within your company, they don't expect to receive email from them.
• Content. If they signed up for best practices and trend newsletter, they don't expect to get aggressive sales-oriented messages and could mark those as spam.
• Frequency. Subscribers to a newsletter called "The Daily Deal" can expect a daily message. Those who signed up for "The Weekly Digest" will likely consider more frequent messages spam.
• Format. Today most people expect to receive an HTML email (even if they don't know what that means), though some prefer text for their mobile phone or other reasons.  They will also expect that you give them the choice of formats or let them know the format if you don't.
• Subscription management. Savvy email consumers expect to subscribe, unsubscribe, change addresses or preferences, contact company reps or offer feedback without searching your Web site. Put all this information in an administrative area in each email.
• Relevance and personalization. You explain why you ask for sensitive information such as a birth date, postal address or household income.