Email marketing best practices to reduce unsubscribe rates:
Have you noticed that many customers unsubscribe from your email lists? And you keep wondering why and if there is something you can do about it? Well, it will most likely case of "It's not you, it's me" situation, where there is a lot of things you could have done differently to save some of those subscribers. Below we list some of our best practice to reduce your email unsubscribe rates.
1. Segment your lists
First of all, your email subscribers are a most likely not homogeneous group, so to segment, your lists are important since it allows you to deliver only the most relevant, customized content to your subscribers. This means you can tailor your message for each segment, keeping your emails ultra-relevant. Best of all, with features like Segment & Flow, this can be done dynamically, so you can set your criteria and have your segments updated automatically.
2. Personalize your emails
The ability to personalize your emails allows you to add relevance to your emails, and build on your relationship with your contacts. It is nice as a receiver to be acknowledged as a person instead of just an email address on your list. Plus, maybe most importantly it gives your customers a better reader experience.
3. Content, content, content
You can segment your list to perfection, add professional personalization, and include a killer subject line. But if the content in the email is poorly written or not interesting for the reader, well the risk of contacts unsubscribing is high. Make sure your emails have a clear purpose - don´t just send an email for the purpose of keeping your list warm. Provide something that the readers will find useful or a story that sparks interest. And remember to structure and design the content in a compelling reading format.
4. Determine your email marketing frequency
To choose the best frequency for marketing emails can be challenging since want to activate and engage our list, but avoid 'over-mailing'. One of the major reasons people unsubscribe is that they didn’t expect so many (or in some case so few) emails from you. This risk can be minimized by setting up the expectations on sign-up. When they subscribe, send an automated welcome email which explains how often they’ll get an email from you. Or you might even set it up as a preference question in the sign-up and can then segment the lists with this as a filter.
5. Offer alternatives to ‘unsubscribe from all’
Even if you have come this far on the above list, there still will be some people that want to unsubscribe from your email lists. Perhaps they are only interested in one of the topics you email about, or they do not want invites to your events but want your thought leadership content? You can then use functions like Unsubscribe Lists to offer your contacts the option to unsubscribe from specific lists and topics. This helps your contacts by letting them stay in control, plus it helps reduce the risk of someone unsubscribing from all your communications.
6. Make the unsubscribe link easy to find
If someone wants to unsubscribe, there’s no point in making it difficult. If they can’t see how to unsubscribe, they’re more likely to mark you as spam which will harm your deliverability rates. Also, immediately act on unsubscribe requests. Don’t make users wait hours or days before you remove them. It annoys them and may harm your brand.
7. Bonus tips: Use double opt-in for sign-ups
Depending on regulations and your organization’s needs, you can also use double opt-in for sign-ups. Double opt-in send them a follow-up email for them to confirm their consent. Plus, it helps with your open rates if you know you have a motivated list who have opted in twice.
How to manage Unsubscribe Lists in Upsales
Give your customers the opportunity to only see the content most important to them with the Unsubscribe Lists feature. Also, if investing time to take on thought leadership it makes sense only to provide your customers and prospects with relevant customized content.
Every email sent through Upsales needs to offer recipients an unsubscribe option. It’s a legal requirement, for one thing. Plus, it makes sense from a customer experience point of view. You probably don’t want to clog up someone’s inbox if they’ve had enough of hearing from you.
However, with Upsales unsubscribing doesn’t have to mean goodbye forever. Maybe your users want a temporary break. Perhaps they still want to hear from you, but less often, or about different stuff.
That’s why you should run multiple lists in Upsales. You give your contacts more control and choice, which is excellent for customer experience. It also helps you to be relevant and to keep more of your subscribers, which is great for your bottom line!