People unsubscribe from your emails for many reasons. While a few are normal, massive losses each month is a problem. Email marketing is about building a relationship, not blasting promotions to your customers. Our guide below will help you understand why people unsubscribe and how to prevent it.
Common Reasons People Unsubscribe
Unsubscribes are inevitable and stem from a multitude of causes. While unavoidable, best practice is to reduce as many reasons for people to unsubscribe as possible. Let’s explore some common reasons individuals may unsubscribe from your newsletter below.
You're Emailing Too Often (or Not Often Enough)
Email frequency is a major factor in maintaining subscriber interest. Daily emails can feel spammy and unnecessary. Meanwhile, infrequent emails make individuals forget who you are and feel like they aren’t getting value out of your newsletters. The key is to send consistent emails users can expect rather than be surprised or annoyed by.
The Content Isn’t Relevant
Another reason individuals unsubscribe is that your content does not hold any benefit or relevancy. Generic emails that don’t speak to customers needs or interest often get ignored and result in unsubscribes. Poor targeting also leads to individuals ignoring or tuning out your newsletters, resulting in poor brand recognition.
It Feels Like You're Always Selling
Email marketing is meant to help build loyalty and relationships with your customers, not sell as much as possible. If your emails feel like you’re always selling, users will not feel a connection to that. Balance is key here. Value first, then attempt to sell. Always try to either educate, entertain, or inspire your audience before attempting to sell.
Your Emails Don’t Look Good or Work Well
In the present day, many individuals read emails on their phone rather than their computer. While your graphics and structure may look great on your laptop, that doesn’t always translate to mobile devices. You have to make sure your emails are adaptable and look good on mobile formatting or you risk frustrating your subscribers. Broken links, typos, and poorly formatted graphics can all erode trust over time. First impressions count in the inbox, so make sure your emails look as professional as your business.
They Never Signed Up (or Forgot They Did)
A reason we recommend never buying an email list is because users who see foreign messages in their inbox are likely to report them as spam, potentially blocking you from sending emails forever on that platform. This is why you need to be clear about opting-in and not putting customers onto mailing lists without consent. Additionally, a welcome series of emails can help remind users what they signed up for and what to expect.
How to Reduce Unsubscribes
Now that we know why people unsubscribe, we’ll need to understand how to prevent said causes from occurring. Below, we’ll explain some steps you can take to reduce unsubscribes to the best of your ability.
Set Expectations from the Start
Set expectations for your newsletter. This can be done with a welcome email or series of messages. This should include what kind of content subscribers will get, and how often they can expect to receive emails from you. Surprise first time newsletters without a welcome notice often lead to unsubscribes.
Send the Right Content to the Right People
If you aren’t segmenting your list, you are missing out on great opportunities to optimize. Segment by location, behavior, or interest to get the right content to the right people. Personalization shows your care and generates loyalty with customers. An example of this is giving new customers into emails, and repeat buyers get loyalty perks. This can be segmented automatically on your mailing platform.
Provide Value in Every Email
Always provide value in your emails so that users feel like they are getting something out of being subscribed. Include tips, guides, and educational content—not just promotions. Keep your content helpful, not salesy, and users will stay longer.
Regularly Clean Your List
Make sure to regularly clean your list by removing inactive subscribers who haven’t opened your newsletter in several months. This makes your engagement metrics more accurate and maintains your reputation with inboxes like Gmail and Outlook. Utilize a sunset flow as well to re-engage subscribers and remove inactive ones. Read our blog on the topic here!
Don’t Take It Personally
Remember, don’t take inactivity personally. Even the biggest of brands see unsubscribes and change in interests is a natural part of marketing everyone has to account for. If you make sure to focus on quality, not quantity with your newsletters (i.e. moving from a weekly to a monthly release schedule), people will stay for longer and build more loyalty with your brand. Your goal should always be to form a healthy, engaged list, not a massive, inactive one.
Keep People, Keep Growing
When you keep people on your list, it keeps growing. Maintaining a greater opt-in rate than opt-out is the key to maintaining growth. A few small tweaks as mentioned above can make a huge difference when it comes to achieving this task.
Need help maintaining your subscriber list with high quality content? Contact Rise Marketing Group for a free consultation today!
