Recently I had a client who was taking it personally when people would unsubscribe from her email list. This was due in part to two things:
- She knew many of her subscribers very well and the person was someone she saw on a semi-regular basis.
- She likes to be liked.
There is no real problem with either of these things since many entrepreneurs start to grow their business by soliciting follows or subscriptions from friends, families, and acquaintances.
The problem starts when you see a couple unsubscribers and decide you are going to “take a break” from sending out emails for a while.
The short answer… DON’T DO IT!
The longer answer is, sending regular emails (and updates on your social channels – while we’re talking about consistency) will lead to fewer people unsubscribing. When emails seem to be coming out of the blue, people forget why they subscribed or that they subscribed to your content in the first place. Thus leading to the unsubscribers when six weeks later you send an email.
Reduce unsubscribers by ensuring:
- Your emails have a point.
- The subscriber knows they are being added to an email list.
- You have some kind of plan in place for how often emails are sent out.
- Your subject line doesn’t look like spam (this causes a whole other host of issues).
- Your content is personalized, timely, engaging, and relevant!
