7 Email Unsubscribe Best practices every Marketer should follow
Email marketing companies are certainly no stranger to email unsubscribing. Even after spending hours and hours of hard work, time, and money to generate new leads, unsubscriptions still happen. An important fact to remember here is that every unsubscribe is an opportunity. In fact, making it easier for your customers and subscribers to easily unsubscribe is a great marketing opportunity.
It is a matter of importance when the recipient wants to unsubscribe from your email updates. Your sender reputation and email delivery rates may suffer if there is any problem or difficulty when a recipient attempts to unsubscribe.
Unsubscribe best practices to follow
Even after a consumer unsubscribes from your email list, you still need to take care of them. They could choose not to receive your emails, but that never means they don't want to do business with you. If you treat them harshly during the unsubscribe process, they might really end their relationship with your brand. With improved unsubscribe procedure, more people could decide against leaving after all.
The easier you make it for them, the better image they'll have of your business and perhaps even motivate them to follow you on social media or find another means to stay in contact.
In order to give your customers a good unsubscribe experience, follow these seven best practices:
- Easier unsubscribing process:
Sometimes it is inevitable to stop leaving customers, so it would be much better that you accept your defeat. It's crucial that you streamline the procedure as much as you can. The majority of companies will provide their unsubscribe instructions in the email's footer. But you should also add a link in the email header if you want to make the procedure clear and simple for your consumers. Remember that if someone chooses to unsubscribe from your list, they usually have some bad feelings towards your brand at that particular time. Don't make matters worse by obstructing their attempts to leave on purpose. This will demonstrate the sincerity of your brand and show them that you value them.
- Provide an option to update email preferences:
There's a potential that your contacts don’t want to stop communicating with you, maybe its just that they might prefer receiving emails rarely or just on specific subjects. A link to an email preference page should be included right inside your mail, to make it easier for them to customize their email preferences. Your consumers can then choose the topics they wish to read about as well as select the frequency of your mails sent to them. You can further provide them with options like changing their email ids, temporarily pause email updates, etc. by making use of various email marketing platforms.
- Provide them with an alternate option:
A consumer who unsubscribes does not always want to not to hear from you again. So, it's a good idea to quietly offer consumers more ways to keep in touch with your company on the unsubscribe landing page, such as by including links to your social media accounts, links to your most recent blog, message alerts, alerts on WhatsApp, etc. This is a fantastic technique to keep contacts interested even if they choose not to receive your email marketing campaign service. This would show customers that you care about them and want to provide them with better options to ease their customer experience.
- Take customer feedback:
Asking subscribers why they choose to stop receiving emails may help maintain the quality of your list, so never hesitate to do so. Just keep your query short and to the point. A single multiple-choice query is the ideal option. If you're going to employ this strategy, make the survey question optional and adhere to recommended practice for unsubscribe emails. The value of gathering this data is in your ability to modify your email marketing campaign strategies in light of emerging trends. Furthermore, it would help you to up your email marketing service and improve upon the mistakes you might be making during your marketing strategy.
- Include a confirmation page:
Including a confirmation page tells the customer that they have successfully unsubscribed from your email list. It's not a good idea to tell the customers that you'll follow their request by sending them another email if they ask you to stop emailing them. Use a thoughtful confirmation page instead, thanking them and reassuring them that their request has been accepted. This practice might help the customer to rethink their decision and come back to you. It upholds brand image and builds better customer- company experience.
- Make sure to implement unsubscribing immediately:
There should be no justification for a delay in unsubscribes in this era of digitization. Nowadays, everyone wants fast delivery of their request with as less wait time as possible. People expect immediate results and want them quick. Telling them that it may take up to 10 days to take effect is not appropriate and breaks the brand image. It only takes a single click to remove someone off your email sender list. Avoid frustrating customers with unnecessary delays or you risk permanently losing them. Even a little delay would ensure that they might never come back to your brand. So be sure to implement it as and when the request is received.
- A good send off to your subscribers:
Even though your customers might be unsubscribing, it never means that they hold some bad feeling for your brand. So it is of crucial importance that you give them a proper send-off. This can be done by reminding them why they subscribed in the first place, thanking them for placing their trust in you, thanking them for being your customer, thanking them for giving you a chance to serve them. Moreover, you can also display a nice message implying that even though you are disappointed to see them unsubscribe, you are still willing to provide them the best service and quality.
Conclusion
Practicing all these above mentioned tips will not only make you a trustworthy and compliant business, earning the respect of your clients, but also also allow you to cultivate a better customer- company relationship in the future. Just allowing them to unsubscribe would build a better brand image. You can even communicate with your customers in a variety of ways without even asking for their email addresses. If people enjoy your products and services, they will find a way to stay regardless of unsubscribing from your mail list.
