Should you push ppl to unsubscribe?
Is pushing people to unsubscribe from your newsletter a bad idea?
I used to sometimes prompt readers to do so if they were no longer interested (see copy below for example or link)
However I've come around to thinking it gives readers a negative impression. Instead, I should just let unsubs come naturally.
Any thoughts based on your own experience?
Example copy:
Readership has grown compared to when I was directly emailing family and friends years ago. Despite that, my open rates of ~60% are way above industry average of 20% and best in class of 40%. I need your help to keep that going, and prefer quality to quantity. To that end, please unsubscribe if you're no longer interested [11].
I think phrasing it with that language is a little offputting and dehumanizing to readers: from their perspective, you’re reducing them to a percentage point! Maybe something a little friendlier, like:
Totally agree! I think it's healthy to "clean-up" your email list once in the a while and offer a chance for those that don't open your emails to unsubscribe.
There is also another thing I would try - @avoidboringpeople - check to see who has not opened a single email from you in 3, 6 or even 12 months and send those people an email letting them know, somehow politely, that you will be removing them from your list if they are no longer interested. If they are, then maybe have a link to click on something like that.
That makes sense! Yeah I like your copy much better.
You can also tighten up your list hygiene. Anyone who hasn’t opened the last x number of issues, gets sent a note asking if still interested and if no response you unsub.
Depends on what you want the outcome to be.
Unsubs don't bother me because I pay for each subscriber (mailchimp).
Now (like just this week) I became an affiliate to Leave Me Alone. I added a line that says if they want unsub superpowers. go get Leave Me Alone.
Here's the link I use: https://leavemealone.app/a/influenceweekly
And actually a few times in the past I noticed an unsub from a highly engaged reader who had regularly emailed me and replied to the emails.
I emailed them about it. They said it was a mistake and needed help to get back on the list.
They had forwarded it to someone who accidentally clicked that button.
Thanks!
If anyone else is interested in doing the same as Andrew then send me a DM :)
Offer to switch less engaged users to a less frequent version of the newsletter. Daily to weekly, or weekly to monthly. That can help improve open rates without fully dropping a subscriber.
For subscribers that haven't opened in X months, just remove them and don't feel bad about it. It is better for everyone.
I clean my list pretty aggressively. I delete subscribers that haven't opened at least one of my emails in the last 3 months.
You could try a softer approach: segment your list and send them a re-engagement email.
good to know that others clean their lists as well.
yeah i think the main thing i've learnt here is my copy was terrible, will have to change it entirely
Perhaps it would be better to segment those people and send them content that resonates with them instead?
Someone emailing me asking me to unsubscribe feels a bit like I'm not wanted on the list. If I'm not interested, I'll unsubscribe of my own accord.
Agreed, that was a miss on my part
Your copy makes it sound like you're only intereseted in good open rates, not in providing good content. I'm sure that's not true, so I definitely agree with @buttondown.
What we find is even if readers want to unsubscribe, if it's not very easy for them to do so then they will mark as spam or swipe away instead of doing it, leaving you with these low quality subs and emails that never get opened.
If it was me then I'd try leading with email with the unsubscribe copy for the next few emails (or at least making it very obvious how to unsubscribe) and seeing if that improves your open rate over the next few months. Also make sure that your emails are getting the "one-click-unsubscribe" button in Gmail.
Essentially your goal is to make it very easy to unsubsribe if that's what the reader wants.
Yep agreed, on hindsight I definitely could have worded it better! Thanks jivings.
Agree on making unsubscribes as easy as possible. I personally dislike content that is hard to unsub, and assume many others feel the same
Litmus has a bunch of great content about this: https://litmus.com/blog/the-dos-and-donts-of-unsubscribes
thanks justifyles, checking it out
Create a segment of subscribers who haven't opened your last 5 campaigns. Send those people a polite reactivation email along the lines of what @buttondown has suggested. If they don't respond, then remove them from your list.
No sense in carrying subscribers that aren't opening any of your emails.
You can set up automation in many ESPs to do this automatically.
Thanks Steven! I'll take a look again at substack (the provider I'm using) and see if they let me do so.
Sounds like you think it's worth getting rid of stale subs then?
I'm not familiar with how substack works. Most traditional ESPs like Mailchimp charge by number of subscribers, so inactives cost you money. Also some people say that inactives can hurt your deliverability rates (not sure if that's still true).
I wouldn't worry about it unless it's a problem. If inactives are a small number it's not worth the effort. But if you have thousands of inactives, then probably it's worth trying re-activation campaigns and pruning those you can't reactivate.
More on this: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2020/01/say-goodbye-inactive-subscribers/
Saving this down together w/ the one from @justifyles as well
i don't think you ever have to ask... i mean, people will do this usually on their own... right?
lol. maybe i'm missing the question?