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I recently talked about the poor impression that a would-be vendor has given us with his blatant disregard for our opt-out preferences. But that’s just half the story because sometimes "opt-out" just means "this doesn’t quite suit my needs right now" and if you can capture what those needs are, or find some other way to communicate that serves your audience’s needs better, opt-out doesn’t have to mean "goodbye."

Stefan Pollard shares some great ideas in a posting at ClickZ for handling opt-out more elegantly. My favorites from his list are: reduce clicks to opt out, monitor your "reply-to" address, get feedback on why your recipient is opting-out, and make it easy for them to get a format that is more useful to them.

I recently cut back on the number of news lists I was subscribed to. Every single one of them was opted-out of with regret. It wasn’t that I didn’t find value in them; I simply didn’t have time to read them all any more. I would have been so much happier if I had been able to give the organizations that feedback or if I had been able to change my subscription from an email newsletter to RSS. Instead of turning my back and walking away, leaving them wondering where I had gone, I could have told them how much I appreciated them and perhaps gotten myself onto a more appropriate mailing list.

Your opt-out process can also be an opportunity - if you handle it correctly. Read more in the article.