How to reduce the amount of unsubscribes from your email list

A strong email list can benefit your business with increased audience engagement and ROI.

Here are a number of ways to reduce the amount of unsubscribes on your mailing list:

1. Make it clear what they are signing up for

You need to strike a balance between giving users options for subscription and making things easy for them to sign up.

Adding five or six tick boxes and drop down menus could lead to a decrease in conversions. What’s really important here is for the user to understand what’s going to be in the emails.

The key here is not to confuse your audience – this is how you lose potential conversions.

2. Conduct frequency tasks

Testing the amount of emails you send to your subscriber list is important as it is one of the main factors that affects your unsubscribe rate.

There is, however, a lot to think about when looking into email frequency and it can be tough to come to a firm decision on how often you send.

For example, subscribers may only want to interact with a company sporadically over a year, but they are still fully committed to the brand. Many may want to keep the emails coming just in case they feel like making a big one-off purchase or if there’s an enticing sale on.

3. Get feedback from your unsubscribers

This is a great way to get information on why people are unsubscribing. It’s quite common to offer users a list of reasons why there are unsubscribing before they can complete. But another option is to leave it open ended with a blank text box for them to fill in. This will most likely give you more instructive feedback.

4. Allow for a change of heart

When a user clicks unsubscribe, immediately offer them a chance to change their mind. You may find that people were on the fence about unsubscribing, and having that message pop up gave them a real chance to think about whether they really want to unsubscribe.

Read and comment on the original Econsultancy article.