6 Strategies to Reduce Email Unsubscribe
When I worked at corporate, one of the metrics that was talked about the most was unsubscribes! It’s a metric that needs to be closely monitored. Why? Well, if you send too many emails, you will have subscribers hit that unsubscribe link more that you would like. But, on the other hand, you also want to maintain a healthy list so it’s nice when your list does the cleaning for you! But the question always comes up… could we have saved some of those unsubscribes???
In all honestly, yes and no. In this blog, I will give you 6 proven strategies to reduce your email unsubscribe rates.
I want to first explain what is a considered a “good” and “bad” unsubscribe rate.
A healthy unsubscribe rate should be anything below .40%. You will see lots of articles out there with different variances. That’s ok. Once you start tracking your own email metrics, you will be able to determine what works best for your program but this gives you an idea of where you should be on average.
Anything above .40%, should be looked into a bit further. Remember, data will always tell you the story!
Not to worry! These 6 strategies will help you reduce those unsubscribe rates as much as possible.
SEGMENTATION
The way to a powerful and effective email marketing strategy is getting your message delivered to the right audience. Segmenting your list into smaller lists based on a specific piece of data can help you achieve that. I like to describe segmenting as follows: breaking your whole pie 🥧 into smaller pieces. (Pizza🍕 works too!)There are 3 ways to break down your lists…
Highly Segmented: these are smaller lists based on specific conditions that you create. You can create a highly segmented on 2 conditions or more. The more conditions (pieces of data) you add, the smaller the list will be. For example, you can use past purchase behavior for a certain age group.
Segmented: these are bigger than highly segmented but not as big as unsegmented. In this case, you can use one condition such as users who have not opened any of your emails in the past 90 days.
Unsegmented: these are the largest lists by far since these typically do not have any specific conditions associated to them. The general condition would be that they subscribed to your email list. I dare say most businesses fall into this category.
In my almost 20 years of experience, testing these types of segmentation has consistently shown that highly segmented campaigns have, on average, higher open rates, higher clicks and lower unsubscribes. Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments below or send me an email!
VALUABLE, RELEVANT CONTENT
How can you further reduce unsubscribes?? CONTENT! Not just putting a quick email together and hoping it sticks. I’m talking relevant, valuable content that speaks directly to that audience.
The Why: What action do you want people to take in this email? Are you trying to increase revenue, traffic, social awareness, etc?
The How: Once your goal is clear, what will the email need to get that goal? If you goal is to increase site traffic, what blog or content will you create or promote?
The Who: What type of person would react positively to your email? Where are they from? What have they bought? Have they opened your emails? Have they purchased from you? (Sounds like segmenting, right? 😉)
The What: What content will you create? What call to action do you want the user to take in order to get to your goal?
The When: When will you send the email? Day of week? Time of day? Is this campaign something you can repeat in the future?
From all of the above, the most important thing is to motivate your audience to take the action that you need them to take.
The more relevant the content, the less likely they are to unsubscribe.
OFFER DISCOUNTS
Discount, offers and exclusive email content is a great way to give others a quick win and give them the opportunity to get to know your product or service. Make your email list your VIPs and give them exclusive discounts. They will feel appreciated and will be less likely to unsubscribe.
USE PERSONALIZATION
When you see your name on something, don’t you pay a bit more attention to it? That’s why personalization works very well in email. Not only can it be used on the subject lines, it can also be used in the body of the email. Using this tactic, makes the person feel that you are talking directly to them. Make sure that you are at least asking for first name in your email sign ups!
QUIRKY, UNIQUE SUBJECT LINES
I say this over and over…. SUBJECT LINES are my favorite part of an email! Why?! Because if you don’t catch them with the subject line, they won’t even see the great and valuable content that you crafted. Check out my blog on 13 Email Subject Line Mistakes and How to Avoid Them to create the perfect subject line.
EMAIL FREQUENCY
This is one of the million dollar questions… how many times should I email my list? There are not set rules on this and it’s something that truly relies on your product or service. I always tell my customers to email at least once every 2 weeks or monthly. It should be something that you feel comfortable with and when you have something of value to say. You can also ask your list! Based on their replies, you can create a segment based on frequency; for example, weekly or monthly send. This will definitely help to maintain your unsubscribes low.
I hope this 6 strategies will help you reduce your email unsubscribe rates. If you have any questions, comment below or send me an email. I would love to hear from you!