With all the effort that goes into getting an email into a subscribed inbox, and more importantly, getting it opened, the last thing an email marketer wants is for someone to unsubscribe! Although unsubscribes may seem like a personal rejection, they really aren’t such a bad thing for your business. In fact, Unsubscribes can actually make your email deliverability stronger, and hence contribute to growing a healthy online customer base.
Quality vs. Quantity
It really comes down to having the right kind of subscribers. Let’s face it! Your mailing list comprises of two types of people – potential customers and others who are just there. The primary objective for sending out mails is obviously to generate sales. If your subscriber is not interested in your content or is just not the right target, it is actually better for them to opt out so you can focus on providing targeted content to your engaged subscribers.
So, ‘small is beautiful’ is actually true for email marketing. It is better to have a small, healthy list of engaged subscribers than a large list of inactive subscribers. Eliminating uninterested subscribers will not only enhance your inbox deliverability but also help effectively measure your open rate.
Unsubscribe option required by law
By law, every marketing email has to have a visible, functional unsubscribe mechanism to allow anyone to unsubscribe from your list. It is crucial that it be easy to unsubscribe because the other alternative is to report the email as spam and that has even larger repercussions on your email deliverability rate and your reputation. Email deliverability rate can be further enhanced by subscribing to feedback loops that can help clean your list.
Beat the unsubscribe with the opt-down approach
One of the main reasons people unsubscribe is lack of content relevancy and information overload. Providing subscribers an opt-down as an alternative to potential unsubscribes is an option worth considering. The basic opt-down allows subscribers to change their email frequency or category, thus giving you an opportunity to retain subscribers on their own terms.
Keeping an eye on your unsubscribes
There are many reasons as to why people unsubscribe, but mostly it has to do with issues from the sender. Uninteresting content, poor formatting and congested inboxes are some of the top reasons for unsubscribes. Taking the time to monitor and review, may help you rework these factors that could control further opt-outs.
This is why you need to measure the attrition-rate. Attrition or churn rate is the percentage of subscribers that leave your list in a given period. The churn rate consists of a transparent churn (voluntary unsubscribes) and an opaque churn (emails not being seen). The attrition rate, especially from voluntary churn, allows you to re-evaluate your customer engagement campaign.
And lastly, remember that often unsubscribes don’t mean goodbye. Just because someone has unsubscribed from your list, doesn’t mean they are disinterested in your business. They may still prefer to remain connected via social media like Facebook or through that occasional tweet. Don’t let opt-outs dishearten you; learning from your past mistakes and concentrating efforts to re-engage and grow your list will help you run your email campaigns more efficiently.
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