Video 30.mp4
How to Handle Newsletter Unsubscribes
We've focused a lot over the past few articles on how to encourage
people to subscribe to your email newsletter. But what happens when
people want to unsubscribe?
All email lists to decay over time. By "decay", I mean that email
addresses that were once active, engaged subscribers become inactive
and those addresses are no longer addresses you can send your
newsletters to. That is why it is important to have a plan for
continually adding new subscribers.
Don't try and fight that natural list decay. Instead, accept that it is
a natural part of marketing via email and plan accordingly.
List decay happens when people abandon email addresses, change jobs
(and lose access to their work email), forget they have an address,
lose their domain names (which affects their email), get locked out of
their email accounts, mark your emails as spam (either accidentally or
intentionally), or from a myriad of other causes.
A big part of this natural list decay is made up of people who simply
unsubscribe from your list. When this happens, it's not the end of the
world.
It's part of the "cost" of your email marketing program. And, given how
inexpensive email is to send, this is a very reasonable cost.
.2% is the Normal Unsubscribe Rate
The normal, acceptable unsubscribe rate is about .2%.
That means it's acceptable to have 2 people unsubscribe out of every
1000 emails you send. 2 / 1,000 = .2%.
For example, at FineArtviews, we sent approximately 70,000 emails a day.
That means that we could acceptably have up to 140 unsubscribes a day,
although, after years and years of refining our list, the actual number
is more like 30-40.
If you're list is smaller than 1,000 then you calculate the rate over
multiple newsletters. Let's say your list is 100 people. That means you
would have to send ten newsletters to reach 1,000 emails sent. (100
subscribers X 10 newsletters = 1,000 emails sent). In that case, your
acceptable unsubscribe rate is 2 people for every 10 newsletters sent.
Keep in mind, in practice, the rates can appear to vary a lot more with
very small lists because small lists are such a small statistical
sample.
According to Mailchimp data
, the
average unsubscribe rate for the "art and artists" category is .28%.
Which is slightly higher than my rule of thumb of .2%, so, in practice,
anywhere from .2 - .3% is probably acceptable.
What I mean by "acceptable" is that if you lose 2-3 subscribers for
every 1,000 emails you send, then don't worry about it.
If you lose a little more than 2-3 subscribers per 1,000 emails sent,
then you probably want to investigate.
How to Reduce Your Unsubscribe Rate
And if you lose a lot more than .3% then you probably need to either
change how you acquire new subscribers or change and refine the content
of your email campaigns. Or both.
If you are gaining your subscribers via invasive or manipulative
techniques such as invasive in-your-face popups
, misleading Facebook ads, buying a mailing list, or by
simply adding people to your list without permission - your unsubscribe
rate (and spam complaint rate) will go up. Don't use those techniques
to build your list.
Your content can also definitely affect your unsubscribe rate. If
people subscribe to your list expecting updates about your art, and you
start sending rants about one political party or the other, then your
unsubscribe rate will go up quite a bit.
Your best bet, in most cases, is to stick to updates and stories about
your art. If you feel that you absolutely must talk about a
controversial subject (especially if your art is about that subject),
then it's OK to make an exception and send such content. But if you do,
just know that the "cost" of that decision will be a higher unsubscribe
rate.
Unsubscribe Rates on Cold Email Lists
A "cold" email list is one that you haven't been sending to for months
or even years.
The unsubscribe rate numbers outlined in the previous section are
benchmarks for active lists that you have been sending to regularly .
By regularly I mean at least once a month.
If you've been sitting on an older mailing list and suddenly start
sending newsletters, your unsubscribe rate will be higher, perhaps much
higher for your first few campaigns. That's normal and to be accepted.
If you are in this situation and you have a list but haven't used it in
a long time, don't judge the unsubscribe (and bounce) numbers until
you're a bit into your campaign. As I said earlier, lists get stale and
become "cold" over time, so your unsubscribe rates will be higher at
first. Simply accept that, and wait 3-4 newsletters to evaluate the
true health of your list.
How do you know your unsubscribe rate?
To measure your unsubscribe rate, you absolutely have to know who
unsubscribed.
That means you cannot and should not send your newsletters with your
regular email program using the BCC field for all your subscribers.
Seriously. Don't. Do. That. It will violate the Acceptable Use Policy
of most mailbox providers and will put you and risk of having your
email box deactivated. We host thousands of email boxes used by visual
artists, so we are in a position to see what happens when people break
the use policy of mailbox provider. Trust me. You don't want to do it.
Our mailbox provider fairly regularly shuts down artist email boxes for
breaking this rule. (We work with the artist in those cases to get the
artist set up properly for email marketing, and help get their boxes
reactivated).
What you need to use is an Email Service Provider (ESP) that
specializes in sending email newsletters. ESPs are services such as
Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, or ArtfulMail, which, if
you're a FASO customer, automatically
integrates with your website. All of these programs will tell you your
unsubscribe rate and specifically who unusbscribed.
What should you do when someone unsubscribes?
First off, don't get upset and don't take it personally. People are
busy, sometimes they decide they want to get less email. I've often
unsubscribed from lists before a vacation and re-subscribed at some
later time.
In fact, you should be somewhat grateful when people unsubscribe
"properly".
A regular unsubscribe is much better than people silently filtering
your campaigns out of their inbox (reducing your open rate) or worse,
reporting your newsletter as "spam." Considerate unsubscribers make it
easy for you to protect your sender reputation
.
Secondly, If the person who unsubscribed was a personal friend or
contact, then realize you can still occasionally reach out to them via
regular email, by sending them a direct personal email. You are allowed
to send a personal email at any time to anyone you personally know. But
be very very selective about what you send and who you do this with if
you choose to continue sending emails to a person who has unsubscribed.
Sending personal emails to someone who has unsubscribed is something
you will have to decide on a case-by-case basis. Absolutely do NOT send
anyone who has unsubscribed a copy of your newsletter.
You should only make this exception for those people you have a high
degree of certainty would like to hear from you personally but just
don't want a regular newsletter.
A great example of a type of person who would warrant such an
exception: Many artists probably have great past collectors on their
personal contact lists who would love to hear directly from the artist
about specific new artworks, but who don't want to receive a regular
newsletter. Respect that and work with that. Those people are your best
prospects for future sales. But the way you approach them must be a
separate marketing plan that does not rely on your regular newsletter.
Lastly, it's imperative that you remove unsubscribed emails from your
list. Immediately. If you continue to send to those addresses, then
those people will mark you as a spammer and those spam reports will
hurt your sending reputation.
If you're following our recommendation to use a real Email Service
Provider (ESP), then this removal process is automatic (except in the
rare case someone replies to you with the classic "STOP SPAMMING ME!"
reply).
Finally, as I said previously, if you have a list but haven't used it
in a long time, don't judge the unsubscribe (and bounce) numbers until
you're a bit into your campaign.
Until next time, please remember that Fortune Favors the Bold Brush
.
Sincerely,
Clint Watson
BoldBrush/FASO Founder & Art Fanatic
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