Your email list is your Golden Egg. Keeping it healthy and current is critical, as is removing those who have sent unsubscribe requests. Unsubscribe requests, unfortunately, are a part of the email marketing business, and you are required by law to respect unsubscribe requests.
A healthy unsubscribe rate should be 8% of your subscribers or less. If you find your unsubscribe rate is higher than that, try these 9 tricks to reduce unsubscribe rates:
1. Offer them Customized Emails with Optional Email Frequency
Most unsubscribers do so because they are sick of having their inboxes flooded with uninteresting emails, sent at too often a frequency. So, within every email blast you send give them the option to switch to a specific product-based list. Also give them the option to change the frequency that they receive your emails. After all, they might still be interested in your products, just not ready to move on in the sales cycle at that moment.
Put the email customization options right above your unsubscribe button so that they know they have the option t customize the receiving of your emails before they remove themselves from the list.
2. Segment your List Properly
Without proper geographic/product-based/lead-nurturing segmentation you could very well be alienating your list by sending them information unrelated to them specifically. Proper email list segmentation ensures that only relevant information is sent to subscribers, which keeps them engaged with your content and continues to nurture them through the sales cycle. If you don’t have the tools in place to keep track of your email lists’ interests then consider implementing a lead-nurturing tool or CRM tool.
3. Send Only Targeted Emails
If you already have tip #1 in place then you have the software in place to segment your list. In addition to sending them information based on their geographic location or within a specific product vertical, segment your list to include where they are in your sales cycle. For example, group the lead who have downloaded a certain whitepaper together and send them an email with a pre-setup product demo.
4. Frequently Test Email Frequency Rates
Before your users get to the frustration point where they unsubscribe (despite the options you added as per #1), send test emails out asking your public how often they prefer to receive your emails. Your email list recipients will appreciate you asking them, and will be less-likely to unsubscribe in the near future.
5. Offer them an Alternate Subscription Method
Many people with overcrowded inboxes unsubscribe simply in an effort to clean-up their inbox. Give these people an alternate method to follow your company updates like via RSS, SMS, blog subscription or by following your social media accounts.
6. Manage Expectations by Setting a Schedule
By setting a specific email-sending schedule, ex. every Tuesday afternoon, your clients can integrate your email blast as part of their schedule. Setting a schedule gives them realistic expectations, which means when they receive your email at 3pm on a Tuesday they won’t delete it instinctually (as well all do in our daily inbox management).
7. Offer them Truly Email-Exclusive Offers
Offering your recipients deals that are only available in your emails (but REALLY only available to email subscribers) gives them an important reason to remain a subscriber. Be warned though, faking exclusivity is the quickest way to lose a subscriber so keep your social media marketing and email marketing ‘exclusive deals’ separate.
Apart from the above, the absolute best advice we can give you to lower your email-list unsubscribe rates is to listen to your mother. She likely always told you to treat people the way you would want to be treated. You don’t want to be spammed 3 times a week or be sent unrelated emails. You would however like customization options and to have specific expectations set.
For more tips on email marketing, like killer CTAs and subject lines people will actually open, click here.
Robin Wilding is a professionally trained Canadian journalist striving to bring journalistic-era intergity to online media. She has a second degree in Political Science--with a focus on International Relations and the developing world. Currently Robin is a contributor to several technology publications, including Brajeshwar.com, SocialTechnologyReview.com, HostingIndustryWatch.com, AnimationCareerReview.com and CompareBusinessProducts.com. She also works for several web developers; and does ghost writing for several high level executives within the technology sector. Robin's work is showcased in her portfolio: http://shownd.com/robinwilding
