subject: 4 Top Reasons Why People Unsubscribe From Your Emails [print this page] Why do subscribers choose to unsubscribe from a mailing list? Here are the four most common reasons.
Every email marker makes a constant effort to grow their mailing lists, but inevitably there are some unsubscribes after every send.
1 - Your content is just not relevant?
Subscribers opt in to your emails with certain expectations of the nature of content they want to receive. When these expectations arent met, they unsubscribe.
Get to know your subscribers and what information it is that they want to receive from you. A simple idea is to add a subscriber preference field to your subscription form when the subscriber creates their profile they can then indicate what theyre interested in: promotions, new product launches, industry news, etc. Alternatively, look at the reports of your past sends. What kind of content generated the highest click-through rates?
Before every send ask yourself: If I were the recipient, would I want to read this email? Or will it be easier to just delete it?
2 - Your subscribers dont know who the email is from
If a recipient doesnt recognize the From name as the same sender whose emails they subscribed to, they unsubscribe. Its always a good idea to keep your From name consistent, and preferable to send from your brand name, for instance Coca-Cola, New York Times or Siemens. The only exception is when you have a particular individual intrinsically associated with your brand who is well-recognized, like Richard Branson with Virgin or Seth Godin and Martha Stewart, who are brand names in themselves.
3 - Theyve forgotten that theyve subscribed
Unfortunately, with the mass of email communications we encounter daily, people do sometimes forget that theyve subscribed to your emails. This could mean that youre not sending emails regularly enough if youre only sending quarterly emails chances are theyve forgotten about your brand.
Regularly ask subscribers to update their profiles. It ensures that you always have their latest contact details, gives them the option of choosing what kind of communication theyd like to receive from your and reminds them that they are subscribed to your list. As an added benefit, it can help you achieve greater relevancy in your emails.
4 - Youre sending too many emails
Bombarding clients with emails (especially repetitive emails) will achieve nothing more than annoying them. Look at the subscriber preferences they selected upon signing up how regularly do they want to receive emails from you? (As suggested above you can add these fields to your sign-up process.) If you dont already ask this, consider adding options for daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly emails.
If your emails mostly push sales rather than offering industry or product information, your subscribers are likely to prefer monthly emails to daily emails. In a recent Marketing Sherpa survey subscribers indicated that theyre more likely to unsubscribe from sales emails rather than emails that offer useful content.
