The value of unsubscribers

If there is one thing that people dislike, it is businesses that make it hard to get rid of their newsletter. Nobody wants to feel trapped in a relationship, even if it's one with a newsletter in your inbox.

I'm not saying you should highlight it and put your unsubscribe button center stage but make it visible and give it a logical and consistent placement.

I have started working on my New Year’s resolutions and am cleaning out my mailbox.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon a lot of uninspiring unsubscribe pages. Why fortunately?
Because it inspired me to write this blogpost, of course.

In all seriousness, as a business, do you really want the last known interaction with your (possible) customer to end with a downer?

Let’s look at some examples of the unsubscribe pages I came across:

This is your time to go out with a bang! Highlight your company values, your most inspiring posts, your best-selling products and services, … Make them remember why your business is one to remember and keep up to date with.

Think about it… Maybe they didn’t want to unsubscribe and you’re just not providing them with an alternative.

Let’s say the person unsubscribing loves some of your content but not all of it. Can you ask them about the topics they love and want to keep receiving communication about? All you need is a decent preference management center to support this, keep an eye out for a follow-up blog post about this topic. Or reach out for more information.

Let’s say the person unsubscribing finds the timing of your newsletter inconvenient and just keeps forgetting to come back to that email you’ve sent. Maybe you can ask them what time or day fits their schedule best?

Let’s say the person unsubscribing finds you a bit full-on but still wants to receive your messages at a lower frequency. Make them choose how often they want to receive your communication.

Let’s say the person unsubscribing loves to be reminded of their shopping cart through your abandoned cart email but doesn’t much like your newsletter. If both communications only have one opt-in, chances are you’ll lose them altogether. Make sure to provide different opt-in options for different kinds of communication.

As mentioned earlier, there are lessons to be learned from people who unsubscribe. Why not just ask them why your communication isn’t serving them anymore? Make it short and sweet, when someone is unsubscribing they do not want to fill out a lengthy question form.

You can choose to go for a free text option and/or predefined answers. Depending on what they answer, you could provide them with some alternatives. For example, if they have selected “not relevant anymore”, you can lead them to a page where they can provide their interests and receive only communication that is relevant to them from now on. Or, if they have selected “I get these too often”, refer them to a page where they can adjust the frequency.

Some people’s resolution might be to stop engaging with newsletters altogether. That doesn’t make your life easier. But it shouldn’t make it that much harder either. Did you consider leading them to one of the many other channels you spread your message on?

Highlight your Instagram or TikTok feed on the unsubscribe page and get them to follow you.

Have an app? Try and get them to download the app where the first question could be: how often do you want to receive a notification? What are you interested to see from us?

You see, there are a lot of different ways to stay connected with your email unsubscribers. That is, if you know what they need from you and why they are leaving.

When you lead people to different channels, though, make sure the alternative you are offering them is relevant. When you know exactly what interests someone, combined with their reason for leaving, you can introduce them to a better alternative.

That’s why we believe a CDP is so important. When you have a CDP in place, the solutions that we’ve presented here are made possible (and dare we say, in a much easier way). A CDP will help you to understand what your subscribers have engaged with previously and what worked for them.

Not sure what a CDP is? We are launching an entire whitepaper on hyper-personalisation, CDP, and digital maturity next week. So stay tuned and follow us on LinkedIn to see when it hits.

Plenty of fish in the sea, right? Well, sometimes getting people to (re)subscribe can be hard.
We’ve got you covered, though. Keep an eye out for our upcoming blog on creating customer loyalty.