Avoid unsubscribe from a newsletter – 9 strong advice

 

Why do people unsubscribe from my newsletter? Although every Email Marketing responsible hates seeing people unsubscribing from the newsletter, it is a reality that everyone must face.

For each sent newsletter there will always be a number of people who, for one reason or another, no longer want to be subscribed to the newsletter. It can be a hard thing to overcome, that people unsubscribe from the newsletter that you have worked so hard on – and at the same time, you may lose a customer.

In addition, you cannot help but think about what you might have done differently in the latest newsletter to prevent these people canceling the newsletter. Wasn’t the content appropriate for the recipient? Did I send in the wrong time? Did I send too often? Did I send too rarely?

It can be a hard thing to overcome, that people unsubscribe from the newsletter that you have worked so hard on – and at the same time, you may lose a customer.

The average unsubscribe rate is around 0.5% globally, but it will, of course, be different from industry to industry. As a starting point, keep your unsubscribe rate below 2%, and then the numbers will be relatively normal, and therefore there is no big reason for alarm.

Nevertheless, you would of course like to reduce the number of people who unsubscribe from your newsletter. The truth is that the price for acquiring new customers is significantly higher than the price for retaining customers, and it is, of course, in your interest to keep the customers as long as possible once you get hold of them. A lost customer seldom comes back.

Instead of seeing the negative in this fact, it is about learning why people end up unsubscribing from the newsletter.

Here are 9 tips that can help you keep people on your mailing list and ensure that they do not unsubscribe from your newsletter:

 

1. Be consistent in the frequency of the sendings

One of the main reasons why people unsubscribe is that they feel that they are being bothered. It can for example be your sending pattern that generates them. It may be that you

• Have not sent a newsletter for a very long time and suddenly resume the process
• Change the frequency of sendings from few to many or vice versa
• Send newsletters without any real plan for specific sending times

Always keep a constant flow so that people know that they receive something from you – and most likely when. See below.

 

2. Tell how often you send newsletter – Or let people decide

It is always important to match people’s expectations. Therefore, make sure people know how often you plan to send emails to them. Please write it on the website or the popup where they sign up for your newsletter or write how often you send a newsletter in your Facebook Lead Ads in the sign up process. Also, be sure to repeat it in the double opt-in email and/or “thank you for signing up” email that the person receives.

Therefore, make sure people know how often you plan to send emails to them.

In addition, if you want to do much more for this part, you can choose to let people who sign up for newsletters decide how often they want to receive the newsletter. For example, give them the opportunity to receive a newsletter once or four times a month – or even several times a week.

Furthermore, you can choose to send an email to inactive people on your newsletter list and ask them to answer how often they want to receive the newsletter. It can be a way to make them recommited in a way they prefer.

Remember to maintain this frequency. Otherwise, you will disappoint your recipient and we will be back at point 1, as mentioned above, where you are not consistent in your sendings, ending with annoying people who are then unsubscribing from the newsletter.

 

3. Test sending frequency

You are not always so fortunate that you can get people to tell you how often they want to receive the newsletter – or at what times.

Therefore, be sure to carefully monitor your data to see what triggers an unsubscription. Was it when you sent in the morning or in the evening? Was it when you sent on Monday or Thursday? Or was it when you sent 2 emails 2 days in a row?

Keep in mind that the subscribers can have different preferences for when they want to receive an email from you and different level of tolerance before they start to feel annoyed. It is therefore important to work a lot with segments and look at the data for each segment.

 

4. Segment your newsletter list

Sending newsletters to segments is a good idea in several aspects. Among other things, it can greatly affect Open Rate, Click-Through Rate and Conversion Rate, but also when trying to prevent people from unsubscribing from the newsletter, using segmentation can be a big advantage.

By segmenting your recipients, you get the advantage of greater ability to create content that is better targeted towards the recipients and which, in their eyes, is valuable content and not just noise.

By segmenting your recipients, you get the advantage of greater ability to create content that is better targeted towards the recipients and which, in their eyes, is valuable content and not just noise.

Perhaps you have data in your platform that you can use for the segmentation, but you can also choose by signing up for the newsletter to ask people what type of content they are interested in. For example whether it should be only offer, new goods, events, new articles and guides or something completely fifth.

By sending out newsletters to segments, you also get the advantage that your analysis of data will be somewhat more accurate and valid, as you look into segments and not over a big pile of data.

 

5. Offer channel exclusivity

You probably have more customers who follow you both on Facebook and are registered for your newsletter. But why should they keep receiving your newsletters if they already get the same information on Facebook? Keep in mind that their inbox is already filled with newsletters from a sea of ​​other companies and organizations, and you simply do not want to waste time on newsletters containing information that is already being received elsewhere.

Therefore, make sure you communicate different things in your channels to get an exclusive experience in each of your channels

Therefore, make sure you communicate different things in your channels to get an exclusive experience in each of your channels – and that one therefore has a reason to follow you on several places. This also ensures that if you lose a customer in one of your channels, you probably have them in one of your other channels.

Make sure there are really good offers or special gifts for those who subscribe to the newsletter. It must be made like that, so they know that now and then are completely exclusive offers on, that they just CANNOT miss! You may, for example, 4 times a year have really good sales, where one needs a discount code, which one only get if he or she is registered for the newsletter.

Here is not obligatory to have these offers at certain times, so people are waiting to buy from you because they know there is an offer at a certain time.

 

6. Offer alternative ways for following you

If you are about to lose a subscriber to the newsletter, then you should do whatever you can to keep the subscriber. Be sure to link to other sites where one can follow you, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter or other. Remember also to point out the other benefits that may be involved in following you on the other channels.

 

7. Optimize your emails for all devices

Always make sure to check your emails before sending to ensure they look good on any device. For example, if you check only your newsletter on the computer without using a tool like Litmus to test how it appears on both computer, tablet and mobile as well as in the various email programs such as Outlook, Gmail etc., you can risk that the newsletter will not look nice on all devices and that can significantly increase the risk of unsubscribes.

Make sure your email template is optimized for mobile devices.

Make sure your email template is optimized for mobile devices. Previously studies that have been made show that about 70% of emails, which are not optimized for mobile, are deleted. Then imagine how many of them unsubscribe from the newsletter, if they repeatedly experience newsletters that are not optimized for the mobile phone.

Take a look at the statistics in your Email Marketing platform to get an insight into how many people open your newsletters on a mobile device.

 

8. Optimize the size of the newsletter

Although most people today have good network connections, it is still important to pay attention to the size of your newsletter. It is important to keep the size as low as possible. No one wants to wait for a newsletter to be loaded. It could be that you are traveling abroad or are in a holiday home on the outskirts, where the network connection is poor. Make sure not to use large images and elements that are loading slowly on the mobile.

 

9. Offer a parting gift

Should it nevertheless happens that the person unsubscribes from the newsletter, you can try with a final step. When you send the email that the person is now unsubscribed from the newsletter, you can offer him/her a parting gift from your webshop as a thank you for loyally of following you through the time. Make them choose between 2-3 different products or free shipping, a decent discount on the next order or else. Hopefully something will make them reconsider their decision.

Should you succeed from stopping them from unsubscribing, remember in the email, under point 6 further up in the article to draw attention to the other channels they can follow you on (Facebook, YouTube or other), and what benefits they get, so that you try to keep the person in your network.

Finally, consider asking for feedback so you know how to improve and try to secure fewer unsubscribes in the future.