One of the biggest worries we hear when working with clients on email marketing is the dreaded unsubscribe.
It can be discouraging getting notified that someone has unsubscribed from your email list. But the majority of the time, the reasons for unsubscribing have nothing to do with your business at all.
Here are five reasons why people may be hitting unsubscribe and how to fix them!1. The Consumer Never Signed Up (or didn’t realize that they did)
One of the top reasons why people unsubscribe from your email list is often because they didn’t realize that they were subscribed in the first place. This can often be due to poor list building tactics, such as automatically adding people to your email list after purchasing something from your business, or having consumers fill out a form where consumers don’t realize this results in getting added to a checklist.
People hate unsolicited mail, so there’s a simple solution to get around this: Make sure that your consumers know they are subscribing to an email list.
When asking for consumers’ email addresses, make sure to add an opt in check box to get the individual’s permission to add them to your email list. Once you have added them to your email list, make sure to include in your emails to them how they got onto this email list.
Using platforms like MailChimp makes this process super simple, allowing you to create segmentations based on where people signed up for your list and add this information to the newsletter. By making the process of joining your email list extremely clear to your audience, it will help to prevent quick unsubscribes.
2. There’s Issues With The Design of Your Email
Two common issues with the layout of your emails are newsletters looking cluttered or unprofessional, or the email not being able to open. Let’s discuss both in more detail.First, if an email blast looks messy and unorganized, people may unsubscribe thinking that it’s a spam email. Make sure that your email looks professional and appeals to your company brand. You can even add your brand colours and fonts to help be more recognizable.
As well, make sure to proofread the email to avoid any typos or grammar problems. Another solution to this is to send yourself a test email, which can be done in a variety of email blast platforms. Doing this will allow you to see exactly what’s going out to your email list before it’s sent, so that you can avoid looking unprofessional.
The other issue with the design is the email not being able to open, or not be able to be properly viewed. To solve this issue, try to avoid creating image heavy emails, as some devices (specifically mobile) will struggle to download these images.
Make sure to look at your test email on multiple devices and through multiple email and internet services. For example, when sending a test email to yourself, make sure to check it on your cellphone, laptop, Google Chrome, and Safari, in order to see how it opens on each of these platforms. This will allow you to make sure that your emails all render correctly and download fast enough for your audience to want to read them.
3. You Are Emailing Your List Too Frequently
If you are contacting your email list every day (or multiple times a day), it’s likely the reason for unsubscribing. Consumers don’t want to have their emails bombarded with your content, which ultimately gets in the way of the stuff they really want to see.
This brings up the concept of quality over quantity. One email that is of great quality and value to the consumer is better than five emails that are not. If you aren’t already, consider sending newsletters weekly, biweekly, or even monthly to your audience. This way consumers will look forward to your emails and be more open to reading them.
4. You Are Constantly Trying to Sell Them Something
Don’t get us wrong, it’s important to be salesy online. But, it’s also important to create value every email you send.
All digital marketing platforms, whether that’s social media or email, are an exchange of value. In exchange for a consumer giving you their email, they are expected to receive value from your business to their inbox every time you contact them.
While promotions are great, it’s important to create other forms of value for your subscribers. Consider including educational content in your emails such as discussing ideas related to your niche, or providing them with links to a recent blog or podcast you created. Also consider creating inspirational and entertaining content that will make your consumers excited to read your emails.
Adding non-promotional content to a few of the emails you send will allow you to build a better connection with your list, which will then make them interested in purchasing from you when you do send those sales-related emails.
5. The Content is No Longer Relevant to Them
People change, and that isn’t your problem. As people grow, we gain new interests and become uninterested in other things. A lack of interest to your niche therefore results in an unsubscribe.
This will likely have nothing to do with your business, and instead will just be because your newsletter no longer serves the purpose to them that it once did. To avoid this, consider using your other platforms to learn more about your audience’s current needs and interests. By listening to your audience, it will help you create more content that will better resonate with them, which will keep them on your email list.
By going through this list, we’re absolutely positive that you’ll be able to figure out the reason for your mass unsubscribes.
For more assistance in developing your email list and creating successful email campaigns, get in touch with us today.
Until next time,
Team SCG
