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Friday, January 15, 2010
Thursday, June 12, 2008
How to lower your email marketing unsubscribes
As a marriage slips toward divorce, couples often seek out counselors. You can avoid a split if you understand and then address the reasons for drifting apart.
So it is with email. If you understand why people might want to leave a list, you can take steps to address the problem and keep them happily married to your offers and content.
Here are four typical reasons for unsubscribing and how you can best respond...
Reason 1: I like your emails but I just get too much email and something has to give
Problem... Unless you're one of the lucky few, it's highly unlikely that your recipients see your emails as utterly indispensable (sorry, but that's the reality of email life).
Of course, you do your best to encourage subscriber loyalty, but people get a lot of email. And sometimes they go on a subscription purge.
Solution 1... Show them other ways they can stay in contact with your business or brand. For example, on the webpage confirming the unsubscribe, list links to your blog and web feed.
Solution 2... They're unsubscribing from your emails, not from your communication. If you have other legitimate contact data, use it.
Reason 2: You send too much email
Problem... The subscriber is not disinterested, but you're overwhelming them with emails. They're using the unsubscribe link like a "stop" button.
Solution 1... This is where a "subscriber preference center" comes into its own. When they follow the unsubscribe link, the page they reach should allow them to manage their subscription as well as simply confirm they want to get off the list. This might include an option to stay subscribed but change the mailing frequency.
Solution 2... Offer this choice of frequency at sign-up, too, so emails start off at intervals the recipient is comfortable with.
Solution 3... Look at your historical campaign reports for associations between changes in email frequency and results. Or test frequency changes to see the impact. This will give you a feel for the optimal frequency.
Take care here, for two reasons.
First, given a choice, many subscribers will pick lower frequencies. But in practice they may still be happy with a higher one.
Second, gradual increases in frequency often seem to lead to increases in end results. Up to a point when the gains are outweighed by increasingly disillusioned and fatigued (ex)subscribers. There's also a tipping point which can see results suddenly collapse. See this post for an explanation.
Reason 3: I have a new email address
Problem... They don't want to leave your list, they just want to change the address the emails come to. If there's no easy way to do this, they just unsubscribe. If you're lucky, this act is followed by a new sign-up using the new address. If you're unlucky...
Solution... Put "how to change your email address" information in your email's administrative footer. If you have a subscriber preference center which allows people to change their address, point to that. If not, give them alternative instructions (such as sending you an email).
Reason 4: You're not sending me what I want
Problem... The subscriber opted-in to your program with certain expectations. If those aren't met, they have no incentive to stay subscribed.
Solution 1... Check your sign-up processes to make sure the expectations you set match what you actually send. Email strategies change with time, but subscription forms and welcome messages are often left untouched for years and may no longer reflect your current email content.
Solution 2... If you're sending informational newsletters, beware of promotional creep: the tendency to slip ever more (and ever more prominent) promotional messages into the content.
A rule of thumb for such newsletters is at least 70% sales-free content. Alternatively, use teaser summaries to get people to visit a website for the full article. Then ensure the website does a good job of selling.
Solution 3... Let people choose what kinds of email or content they get by giving them a choice of lists or content topics in the subscriber preference center.
Solution 4...Let people selectively unsubscribe only from certain types of email or email content.
Solution 5... Monitor your campaign reports to see what content or promotions resonate best with your audience and adjust accordingly.
Solution 6... Investigate more advanced email marketing techniques like trigger emails, segmentation etc. All are designed to make the messages more relevant to the recipient.
Two more tips...
1. You want people to use subscriber preference centers, as they let recipients express their needs so you can adjust what they get accordingly. The problem is people hardly ever use them, unless they want to unsubscribe (when it may be too late to rescue the situation).
One way round this problem is to give people a reason or incentive to update their subscription profiles. For some ideas, check the examples posted by Chad White.
2. The best way to work out why people want to leave your list is to ask. Add an optional feedback field on the page people reach when they follow the unsubscribe link. You'll be glad of the insights people leave behind for you.
(Also, it's kind of nice when you discover that some people are leaving for reasons that are nothing to do with your emails, such as following a job change.)
So it is with email. If you understand why people might want to leave a list, you can take steps to address the problem and keep them happily married to your offers and content.
Here are four typical reasons for unsubscribing and how you can best respond...
Reason 1: I like your emails but I just get too much email and something has to give
Problem... Unless you're one of the lucky few, it's highly unlikely that your recipients see your emails as utterly indispensable (sorry, but that's the reality of email life).
Of course, you do your best to encourage subscriber loyalty, but people get a lot of email. And sometimes they go on a subscription purge.
Solution 1... Show them other ways they can stay in contact with your business or brand. For example, on the webpage confirming the unsubscribe, list links to your blog and web feed.
Solution 2... They're unsubscribing from your emails, not from your communication. If you have other legitimate contact data, use it.
Reason 2: You send too much email
Problem... The subscriber is not disinterested, but you're overwhelming them with emails. They're using the unsubscribe link like a "stop" button.
Solution 1... This is where a "subscriber preference center" comes into its own. When they follow the unsubscribe link, the page they reach should allow them to manage their subscription as well as simply confirm they want to get off the list. This might include an option to stay subscribed but change the mailing frequency.
Solution 2... Offer this choice of frequency at sign-up, too, so emails start off at intervals the recipient is comfortable with.
Solution 3... Look at your historical campaign reports for associations between changes in email frequency and results. Or test frequency changes to see the impact. This will give you a feel for the optimal frequency.
Take care here, for two reasons.
First, given a choice, many subscribers will pick lower frequencies. But in practice they may still be happy with a higher one.
Second, gradual increases in frequency often seem to lead to increases in end results. Up to a point when the gains are outweighed by increasingly disillusioned and fatigued (ex)subscribers. There's also a tipping point which can see results suddenly collapse. See this post for an explanation.
Reason 3: I have a new email address
Problem... They don't want to leave your list, they just want to change the address the emails come to. If there's no easy way to do this, they just unsubscribe. If you're lucky, this act is followed by a new sign-up using the new address. If you're unlucky...
Solution... Put "how to change your email address" information in your email's administrative footer. If you have a subscriber preference center which allows people to change their address, point to that. If not, give them alternative instructions (such as sending you an email).
Reason 4: You're not sending me what I want
Problem... The subscriber opted-in to your program with certain expectations. If those aren't met, they have no incentive to stay subscribed.
Solution 1... Check your sign-up processes to make sure the expectations you set match what you actually send. Email strategies change with time, but subscription forms and welcome messages are often left untouched for years and may no longer reflect your current email content.
Solution 2... If you're sending informational newsletters, beware of promotional creep: the tendency to slip ever more (and ever more prominent) promotional messages into the content.
A rule of thumb for such newsletters is at least 70% sales-free content. Alternatively, use teaser summaries to get people to visit a website for the full article. Then ensure the website does a good job of selling.
Solution 3... Let people choose what kinds of email or content they get by giving them a choice of lists or content topics in the subscriber preference center.
Solution 4...Let people selectively unsubscribe only from certain types of email or email content.
Solution 5... Monitor your campaign reports to see what content or promotions resonate best with your audience and adjust accordingly.
Solution 6... Investigate more advanced email marketing techniques like trigger emails, segmentation etc. All are designed to make the messages more relevant to the recipient.
Two more tips...
1. You want people to use subscriber preference centers, as they let recipients express their needs so you can adjust what they get accordingly. The problem is people hardly ever use them, unless they want to unsubscribe (when it may be too late to rescue the situation).
One way round this problem is to give people a reason or incentive to update their subscription profiles. For some ideas, check the examples posted by Chad White.
2. The best way to work out why people want to leave your list is to ask. Add an optional feedback field on the page people reach when they follow the unsubscribe link. You'll be glad of the insights people leave behind for you.
(Also, it's kind of nice when you discover that some people are leaving for reasons that are nothing to do with your emails, such as following a job change.)
Top disposable email addresses
Everyone knows that some of the email addresses on your opt-in list will stop functioning with time. When someone changes job, for example, their work account gets deleted and future emails to that address bounce back as undeliverable.
It's an email marketing fact of life.
But nobody expects addresses to go bad in around 15 minutes. But that's happening more often with the growth of disposable email addresses. Here's what you need to know...
What are disposable email addresses?
The term "disposable email address" refers to addresses that have no long-term value to the owner and are easily discarded.
They are used in submission and sign-up forms when the address owner is skeptical of the trustworthiness of the website requesting the address, and/or is concerned about subsequently receiving spam or unwanted email from that source.
A different disposable address is used for each submission or sign-up form. So if you sign-up to newsletter X using a disposable address, then that email address would never be submitted elsewhere.
Semi-permanent disposable email addresses
Semi-permanent disposable addresses are intended for permanent use, but are easily closed down at no loss to the address owner.
If the owner ever wants to cease getting email from a store or site, they simply discard the unique email address they used at sign-up. Since the address only gets email from that single source, its loss doesn't affect the owner's email communication with anyone else.
People often use such disposable addresses to control spam and unwanted email. Say I sign up to a store's newsletter but find the material they send useless. I could unsubscribe, but if I don't trust them to honor my request, I can simply discard the unique disposable email address I used for that sign-up.
Equally, if I find other sites or individuals sending me email using that unique address, then I know that this address was sold or otherwise passed on to a third party. I can save myself a junkload of spam by abandoning the account. None of my other email is affected.
Temporary email addresses
Temporary addresses are identical to the semi-permanent disposable email address with one difference: they expire automatically without the owner needing to do anything. The temporary address might, for example, "self-destruct" fifteen minutes after its creation, or a month after creation, or "after receiving five emails."
These addresses are typically used when the owner needs an email address to complete a transaction, but does not want any further emails from the transactional partner and does not trust them with a more permanent address.
So the owner could submit a temporary email address on a form giving access to a company's white paper. With a 15 minute lifespan, the temporary address is active long enough to receive the email with the white paper link. But any further emails from that company would bounce as undeliverable.
Disposable address services
Many services make these kinds of addresses available to Internet users, often for free. Typical examples include SpamGourmet and Mailinator.
Some of the more popular webmail services also support disposable addresses. Gmail, for example, allows you to set up as many alias addresses as you like. When you no longer want to read emails sent to a particular alias, you can simply have them redirected to the trash folder.
Disposable addresses and email marketing
The semi-permanent disposable email addresses are not a huge issue for email marketers. If you're not selling or passing on addresses and if you're delivering valuable, relevant emails (both of which are recommended practices anyway), then a disposable email address is as good as any other.
If you are selling on addresses or sending rubbish email, you have bigger problems to worry about than disposable email addresses.
Temporary email addresses are another issue. They will go inactive, irrespective of your email marketing practices. The main issue here is the opportunity cost. Obviously, you have no chance to develop an email dialog / relationship with a temporary email address. And dead addresses mess with your statistics.
There are, however, various ways you can discourage their use.
You can reject form submissions that contain temporary addresses. Lists of temporary email address domains are apparently available for exactly this purpose.
The blacklist approach is short-term. It doesn't address the reasons why people use a temporary email address. Nor does it seem likely to encourage people to resubmit with a more permanent email address. Nevertheless, it's an option which is widely used.
A longer-term approach is to tackle the reasons why people use temporary addresses. People do so because they don't trust you to respect the privacy of their email address. Or because they object to having their goal (a purchase, a download) tied to a subsequent and compulsory stream of emails they simply don't want.
So you need to do three things:
1. Demonstrate your trustworthiness
This concerns issues such as the overall design of your website, presentation of your business, reputation management etc. But thinking specifically of sign-up forms and pages:
Include obvious links to privacy policies and ensure that these policies are customer friendly.
Include reassuring statements on privacy, such as "we will never rent, sell or pass on your address to others."
Ensure full contact details and information on your business are available (it's hard to trust an anonymous website).
Post relevant privacy, security and email certification seals.
Post customer and subscriber testimonials.
(See more sign-up form tips here.)
2. Only send subsequent emails that are truly necessary to complete the transaction...
The use of temporary email addresses is partly through the fear of the unknown. Let people know exactly what emails to expect (and why they are necessary / important / useful) and they are more likely to trust you with a "real" email address.
3 ...and provide a voluntary opportunity to grant permission for the other kinds of email you might also like to send.
Which is another way of saying, practice strict permission-based email marketing. If you accept that the only useful email address is one given with explicit permission for sending subsequent emails, then you want to do this anyway.
The key here is to make the benefits of your emails clear to the prospective recipient.
Websites and address list owners that have treated privacy and permission issues with disdain mean disposable email addresses are now a fact of email marketing life. The above tips should help minimize the "problem."
It's an email marketing fact of life.
But nobody expects addresses to go bad in around 15 minutes. But that's happening more often with the growth of disposable email addresses. Here's what you need to know...
What are disposable email addresses?
The term "disposable email address" refers to addresses that have no long-term value to the owner and are easily discarded.
They are used in submission and sign-up forms when the address owner is skeptical of the trustworthiness of the website requesting the address, and/or is concerned about subsequently receiving spam or unwanted email from that source.
A different disposable address is used for each submission or sign-up form. So if you sign-up to newsletter X using a disposable address, then that email address would never be submitted elsewhere.
Semi-permanent disposable email addresses
Semi-permanent disposable addresses are intended for permanent use, but are easily closed down at no loss to the address owner.
If the owner ever wants to cease getting email from a store or site, they simply discard the unique email address they used at sign-up. Since the address only gets email from that single source, its loss doesn't affect the owner's email communication with anyone else.
People often use such disposable addresses to control spam and unwanted email. Say I sign up to a store's newsletter but find the material they send useless. I could unsubscribe, but if I don't trust them to honor my request, I can simply discard the unique disposable email address I used for that sign-up.
Equally, if I find other sites or individuals sending me email using that unique address, then I know that this address was sold or otherwise passed on to a third party. I can save myself a junkload of spam by abandoning the account. None of my other email is affected.
Temporary email addresses
Temporary addresses are identical to the semi-permanent disposable email address with one difference: they expire automatically without the owner needing to do anything. The temporary address might, for example, "self-destruct" fifteen minutes after its creation, or a month after creation, or "after receiving five emails."
These addresses are typically used when the owner needs an email address to complete a transaction, but does not want any further emails from the transactional partner and does not trust them with a more permanent address.
So the owner could submit a temporary email address on a form giving access to a company's white paper. With a 15 minute lifespan, the temporary address is active long enough to receive the email with the white paper link. But any further emails from that company would bounce as undeliverable.
Disposable address services
Many services make these kinds of addresses available to Internet users, often for free. Typical examples include SpamGourmet and Mailinator.
Some of the more popular webmail services also support disposable addresses. Gmail, for example, allows you to set up as many alias addresses as you like. When you no longer want to read emails sent to a particular alias, you can simply have them redirected to the trash folder.
Disposable addresses and email marketing
The semi-permanent disposable email addresses are not a huge issue for email marketers. If you're not selling or passing on addresses and if you're delivering valuable, relevant emails (both of which are recommended practices anyway), then a disposable email address is as good as any other.
If you are selling on addresses or sending rubbish email, you have bigger problems to worry about than disposable email addresses.
Temporary email addresses are another issue. They will go inactive, irrespective of your email marketing practices. The main issue here is the opportunity cost. Obviously, you have no chance to develop an email dialog / relationship with a temporary email address. And dead addresses mess with your statistics.
There are, however, various ways you can discourage their use.
You can reject form submissions that contain temporary addresses. Lists of temporary email address domains are apparently available for exactly this purpose.
The blacklist approach is short-term. It doesn't address the reasons why people use a temporary email address. Nor does it seem likely to encourage people to resubmit with a more permanent email address. Nevertheless, it's an option which is widely used.
A longer-term approach is to tackle the reasons why people use temporary addresses. People do so because they don't trust you to respect the privacy of their email address. Or because they object to having their goal (a purchase, a download) tied to a subsequent and compulsory stream of emails they simply don't want.
So you need to do three things:
1. Demonstrate your trustworthiness
This concerns issues such as the overall design of your website, presentation of your business, reputation management etc. But thinking specifically of sign-up forms and pages:
Include obvious links to privacy policies and ensure that these policies are customer friendly.
Include reassuring statements on privacy, such as "we will never rent, sell or pass on your address to others."
Ensure full contact details and information on your business are available (it's hard to trust an anonymous website).
Post relevant privacy, security and email certification seals.
Post customer and subscriber testimonials.
(See more sign-up form tips here.)
2. Only send subsequent emails that are truly necessary to complete the transaction...
The use of temporary email addresses is partly through the fear of the unknown. Let people know exactly what emails to expect (and why they are necessary / important / useful) and they are more likely to trust you with a "real" email address.
3 ...and provide a voluntary opportunity to grant permission for the other kinds of email you might also like to send.
Which is another way of saying, practice strict permission-based email marketing. If you accept that the only useful email address is one given with explicit permission for sending subsequent emails, then you want to do this anyway.
The key here is to make the benefits of your emails clear to the prospective recipient.
Websites and address list owners that have treated privacy and permission issues with disdain mean disposable email addresses are now a fact of email marketing life. The above tips should help minimize the "problem."
Top tips to grow your email marketing list
"There are plenty more fish in the sea." Except that isn't true anymore. As it gets harder to find people willing to part with their email address, two things need to happen.1. Look for new and better ways to drive new subscriptions2. Do your best not to lose those subscribers you do haveAs such, list growth isn't just about acquiring addresses. Your whole program bears responsibility for keeping these addresses happy so they stay with you.Indeed, the qualities that encourage retention also encourage new sign-ups. As Tom O'Leary puts it in a post about forward-to-a-friend:"If you create content that stirs emotions, causes laughter or inspires recipients in some practical or meaningful way; they will probably want to share it with others in their life."Retention is key to list growth for a simple reason: if you have a leaky bucket, you plug the leaks before you add more water.If a lot of people leave your email program, find out why and address the problems. Don't just throw more good addresses in and hope this time they'll stick around.This whole concept is explored in depth by DMNews and multichannel merchant, who both get a host of experts to weigh in on how best to build a list of email addresses.One strong message is to simply be aware of the value of an email address. Or as Andy Sernovits puts it:"There is nothing more important than capturing an email address on your home page."Among the expert advice is a lesson from the Avis Budget Group, who had considerable success using transactional messages to encourage people to sign up to their promotional email programs.You'll find many people sensibly recommending you put marketing messages in transactional email (order confirmations etc.) But nearly all focus on the cross- and upselling opportunities..."thanks for buying this book, why not buy the sequel."Based on the Avis experience, perhaps it's also worth thinking about plugging your newsletter and other email promotions.At the other end of the chain, there are things you can do to rescue those who would otherwise unsubscribe.
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