Melon Corporate Blog
click here to unsubscribe - the why of it all
So you spend several days working on your email campaign.
You involve your best designer and they put a terrific fresh look and feel together.
You labour through your writer’s block and after much toil nail down some compelling content.
You push send on the email campaign and pat your team and yourself on the back for a job well done.
A few days later you review the email campaign statistics and low and behold some people have unsubscribed!
How dare they! Why would they?
These are thoughts and questions that email marketers ponder on often when reviewing campaign statistics.
Hence the reason for this month’s philosophising on unsubcriptions.
The very nature of email as a permission-based environment means that recipients can opt in and opt out.
This makes email marketing a powerful medium as your recipients are a relevant and targeted group of people HOWEVER it puts the recipient in control of what they want to receive.
Having "the sword of Damocles" in the form of an unsubscribe option hanging over the marketer's head is actually a good thing.
The unsubscribe option acts as an inbuilt quality control mechanism - creating fear in the marketer that ongoing poor campaigns will result in cannibalisation of the recipient database in the form of unsubscribes.
Demystifying the unsubscribe process is not a straightforward exercise but is still worthy of some analysis.
The following are some of the main reasons why people unsubscribe as well as some ideas as to how you can address them.
- You keep hammering my inbox with hard sells ... and often.
Never forget the "what's in it for me factor". Be smart about your timings.
Consolidate your messages if you can.
- I am busy, I really never read your emails ... let us stop wasting each others time.
Everyone receives a lot of email. Despite all your best intentions some people will just never be interested in what you have to say - don't take it personally. However the more you focus on the "what's in it for me" - the less likely this will happen.
- I am interested in what you have to say, but this is my work email address.
I have no idea how to tell you to change the email address these emails get sent to - unsubscribing seems the easiest option at this stage.
Many people prefer to separate their day to day work emails from their email newsletters by having separate email address.
Provide recipients with an easy way to change their email details. Many recipients will choose to update their details rather than unsubscribe.
- To be honest, I have NO idea who you are or where you obtained my details - go away.
Don't expect people to remember you if you only email them infrequently or if your first email to them is months or years after making initial contact with them. Furthermore always tell them how and where you obtained their details. Transparency about user information is always a good thing.
- Your email is clunky, ugly, full of typos, links are broken, how can you possibly expect me to spend my time with this?
Your brochures are smart, you do great work for clients, your staff all present well, why send out an ugly and clunky email newsletter?
- Your email marketing campaign timings are sporadic and your content quality and subject matter is unpredictable - it seems as if you people don't put much thought into what you do, get me off please!
Recipients will get nervous if you are sloppy with your campaigns. They don't want their information be dealt with recklessly. High quality consistent campaigns will keep your organisation credible in your recipients' eyes.
Some other points to note:
- Don't hide your unsubscribe links.
In fact the best practise is to include your unsubscribe links at the top of your emails and in other highly visible areas of your emails.
Ironically the appearance of unsubscribe links can keep your unsubscribe rates down in the sense of creating confidence and credibility with respect to the professionalism of your campaigns.
- The show is not over until George Bush Junior leaves the Whitehouse.
On your opt out form tell the recipient why they shouldn't unsubscribe and offer them a way to update their email address.
In addition ask for feedback on your unsubscription for as to why they are unsubscribing. Proving that you are mindful of the whole process may be just enough for the recipient to change their mind.
Blog Categories
Archived Entries
August, 2008July, 2008
June, 2008
May, 2008
April, 2008
March, 2008
February, 2008
January, 2008
November, 2007
October, 2007
September, 2007
Comments - oldest entries appear first, most recent entries at the end.
And make sure your unsubscribe links work. I HATE it when I try to unsubscribe and the links are broken.
Saul.
By Saul Rapseel on 30 05 2008
Very useful info. I will forward this to our web developer who also manage our email program.
By wayne mansfield on 16 06 2008
Leave a comment:
All comments are moderated, name and email fields are mandatory, but only the name will be displayed in the comment, your email address will remain private, and will not be added to any lists. The requirement of the email address is to help ensure that the comments are being submitted by legitimate people.