You made it, or so you think.
You’ve created great content for your blog, and decided to start building an email list. All of your efforts are paying off, as you are slowly building your list of email subscribers.
Chances are you’re feeling pretty good about yourself, and decide to create your first email campaign for that small set of subscribers you worked so hard to attain.
You spend hours creating unique content on your site that is only available to your subscribers, and proudly include that link in your first newsletter. You hit send, sit back and wait excitedly to see what percent of subscribers open that email and click on any of the links you’ve included.
Then the unthinkable happens.
Someone unsubscribes from your list, or worse, marks it as spam!
Panic sets in. You just lost your first email subscriber.
Good Riddance
Once you get over the initial shock, you’ll realize this isn’t such a bad thing.
You see, the typical open rate for an email campaign is somewhere south of 25%, depending upon what industry you are targeting. So if you are expecting 100% of your emails to be opened, you need to reset your expectations.
The unsubscribe rate for an email list should normally be under 1%.
Constant Contact has some great statistics on average open, click-through, and opt-out rates broken out by industry, if you want to take a closer look.
These things happen, and it’s really for the better.
Do you want subscribers that will never open an email you send, do you want a subscriber that won’t be engaged on your blog?
That’s easy. No!
You want your email list to consist of those subscribers that will engage, that will open your emails, and that will click on the links that you’ve included.
Good Riddance!!!
Remember, you’re building an email list for a purpose. Whatever that purpose may be.
Chances are that someday, someday when your list has grown, you’ll want to sell something.
Whether that something is a product you’ve created or a service you are offering, you’ll want potential sales.
So let’s weed out your list now, keep the good and get rid of the bad.
Good Riddance!!!
Too Many Unsubscribes
If your unsubscribe rate is within the threshold that I’ve called out above, there’s no reason to panic. Remember, you’ve only done your first campaign.
Ride it out, and evaluate things after your subsequent campaigns.
However, if your unsubscribe percentages are higher than average, you may want to take a look at a few things. Is any of the following possible:
- Are you sending too many emails?
- Is the content relevant?
- Is the content what you initially promised?
Pauline Cabrera recently did an expert roundup with 20 influential bloggers and asked why do you unsubscribe from an email list? Some of the answers may surprise you, most should not. In any case, this is something you probably want to take a look at.
Nobody Is Reading My Email
Remember, you’ll be lucky to get 25% of your list to even open your email.
The open rate for the limited number of campaigns that I’ve sent out is is right around 36%. At first I was horrified by this. But after evaluating the statistics, I’m finding that’s actually pretty good.
If your not seeing an open rate that is between 20% – 25%, you may want to take a look at a few things.
Boring Subject Lines
Are your subject lines catchy? Do they scream – open me?
Similar to your blog headline, you want an attention grabbing subject line. This email needs to stand out from every other email that a person on your list receives on a daily basis.
So how do you do that?
By writing a subject line that gets emails opened that’s how.
Too Many Emails
Are you sending too many emails?
If you’re sending multiple emails a day/week, perhaps your subscribers are tired of seeing all of them. Instead of taking the time to unsubscribe from your list, it may be easier for them to simply delete them from their in-box.
So what’s the right frequency? Chances are if you ask 5 people this question, you’ll get a different answer from each of them.
How about this. Send enough so they don’t forget you, but not so many that you annoy them.
How many emails would be too much for you to receive from any one person? That’s probably your answer.
Check Your Spam Score
Are you sure your emails are getting through to the recipient? Maybe they’re ending up in their junk folder.
So how do you avoid this?
Check your spam score.
Most, if not all, Email Marketing Clients have a built in spam score checker. Use it!
Before you publish your next newsletter or email campaign, take the 5 seconds to check your spam score.
Segment Your List
Perhaps your targeting multiple audiences on your site.
Say you have a blog that focuses on motorcycle brands. If you’re sending an email on the latest and greatest Triumph model, I’m pretty sure the Harley Davidson fanboy won’t give a rats ass about that.
So create multiple lists, and focus your email campaign to that list.
Summary
Don’t fret about your unsubscribes. It’s going to happen.
Having said that, it is a good thing to monitor your statistics. If your email open rates or unsubscribe numbers are higher than the norm, then it’s time to act. Here are 5 costly list building mistakes you want to be aware of.
Keep these things in mind:
- Don’t go crazy with the emails
- Keep the content relevant and focused on what you initially promised
- Create catchy subject lines (and check your spam score)
What do you think? Do you get worked up about your unsubscribes, or is it something you just don’t worry about?
By The Way – If you’re frustrated with blogging, don’t give up. I was there and I decided to do something about it. If you’re interested in following my progress, just click here.
[ Smiles ] Now, I am not at all intimidated by the idea of people unsubscribing.
What is frighting for me is: someone actually marking that email message as spam.
The most that any blogger can do is: to continue building a list of email subscribers.
Besides, a small percentage of people would learn about the existence of our blog via search engines.
Ha – I know the feeling. I wrote this because after my first email campaign, I had a subscriber mark my message as spam. I was like really? You subscribed to my list, and you knew I was going to send you a newsletter. Sure, go ahead and unsubscribe, but mark it as spam?
Thanks for the comment Renard. Talk soon!
Hey Craig!
I love every single unsubscribe I get because that’s one less person I’m going to have to pay for that didn’t click with me for some reason or another. Obviously I want to keep the unsubscribe rate as low as possible but the truth is you can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try to because it simply won’t happen.
Funny thing, the first promotion in my autoresponder sequence has a higher unsubscribe rate than any other email. You’ve got to ask yourself… if somebody’s gonna get offended that you’re trying to sell them something, do you really want to keep those people around? Hahaha… I don’t.
Important subject to talk about. Glad you brought it up!
Thanks Craig!
– James
I hear ya’ James! You can’t please everyone, isn’t that the truth!
Interesting that your first promotion produces the highest unsubscribe rate. I mean, what did they expect? Like I said in the post, good riddance.
I was a little distraught when I received my first unsubscribe, but after I thought about it I was like, oh well. If what I was saying didn’t register with them, chances are they weren’t going to do my any favors sticking around my list.
Thanks for dropping by again, great to hear from you! Talk soon!
Hi Craig,
I think the key here is to not take unsubscribes personally. Learn from it and move on. Now, if the person marked me as a spammer, I would worry about it but what can you do?
Thanks for the reminder to check our spam scores and to set reasonable expectations – such as an “open rate that is between 20% – 25%”. Good job!
Thanks for replying Sherryl!
It was my first unsubscribe after my first campaign. It kind of annoyed me 🙂 I’m over it now. I know it’s to be expected, as long as it doesn’t get to out of control.
Great advice as usual. Thanks again Sherryl.
Hey Craig,
Great post here.
It’s interesting … when I first got started, I dreaded getting unsubscribes. But as time went on, it only helped me realize that those people that unsubscribed, weren’t good for my list in the first place. I’m not at a place where I’m ok if someone unsubscribes. Mainly because they can eventually be replaced by someone who wants to recieve the content I have to share.
As far as open rates? There was a point where I was sitting high with a 43% open rate, not I’m around 20%. Which is fine because everyone is going to ready EVERY email.
Great post here.
– Andrew
Thanks for the comment Andrew!
I’m with you. I’m not to the point where I’m good with people unsubscribing from my list, but I do get it. I’ll be better off down the road. As longs as I’m continuing to grow my list on a regular basis, I’ll take the unsubscribes. It goes with the territory I guess.
Open rates… I’m still monitoring things related to this. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been in the mid-30’s or so, but my list is young. We’ll see where this settles down the road. It seems as long as I’m above 20%, I’m in the norm.
Have yourself a great week Andrew.
Hey Craig,
Yeah, it happens to everyone.
I once had a lady email me after she unsubscribed to tell me that she didn’t like how personal I was. Really? Then why did you get on my list? I mean you do read my blog right? I really had to chuckle because you never want anyone on your list that’s not going to take some type of action.
I even had one of my friends wonder why they weren’t getting my emails any longer. I clean my list out pretty regularly so for those that don’t open my email for three straight months get kicked off. She said but I want your information and my response was obviously not, you’re not opening or reading my emails. Duh! Do you think I want to keep you around so I can brag about my numbers being higher? What good is that when you never open them up.
My open rate is pretty high but I also don’t overly promote to my list. I rarely promote in all honesty but they know that when I do it’s something I think is really really good. If they want to opt-out because you did promote to them then you’re better off anyway. They would probably be the one complaining all the time. LOL!!!
You always have to be trying things out if what you’re doing isn’t working. That’s the only way we’ll know what does work and what doesn’t.
Great read and an important subject. Thanks for sharing this and you have a great week.
~Adrienne
Hello Adrienne – That’s funny.
I love hearing stories about everyone’s lists. It does amaze me that people signup and they are signing up for a reason, probably because of what they are reading on your site. But then for some reason they decide to unsubscribe down the road. I can see if you are bombarding them every day with useless emails, but come one. Oh well, not dwelling on it…
I totally agree about always trying new things out. I’ve been playing around to see what works and what doesn’t. Great advice.
Thanks for the kind words, and we’ll be talking soon.
Hi, Craig,
This is a very important topic and a great article to be able to deal with this tough issue early on in our list building journey. Great job, as I couldn’t agree more! 🙂
I was shocked when I saw my first unsubscribe, and I will admit to you and everyone else, that I cried! I was hurt, and definitely took it personally. Ha ha!
Now, of course, I know it’s a business decision, and understand that only folks who really resonate with me and are in tune with what I’m sharing will want to stay. This is fine with me, and I’m blessed to have as many subscribers as I do.
Yes, catering to specific needs in email marketing is why I switched from AWeber to ActiveCampaign because I can tailor messages based on user behavior and truly have marketing automation.
Your advice about segmenting our list is spot on, my friend – I have done this and plan to continue perfecting this area in my business.
Yep, it took a while for me to actually be able to celebrate ‘unsubscribes’ – it’s just taking me one step closer to that person who relates to what I’m sharing and will benefit from the value I give!
Great post, Craig – Hope you have a wonderful afternoon.
˜Carol
Thanks Carol – I know the feeling. I was a little stunned myself with that first unsubscribe. You should have seen me, I was doing all kinds of research trying to figure out where I went wrong. Oh well, moving on now….
I’m not sure that I’m to the point yet of celebrating my unsubscribes, but maybe one day when I’ve grown my list I’ll get there.
The list segmentation thing is something I’ve just started doing, so I think that will help out as well.
Thanks again for commenting Carol. Have yourself a great week.
HI Craig,
I actually don’t get that many unsubscribes. I have a pretty firm niche in an international market and they are all ears when it comes to learning things and making money. I used to get upset when there was an unsubcribe on some other lists, but it is a natural thing. You suggestions will be helpful to many who worry about it. It is a bit of a shock the first time – but it’s par tof the natural process.
Thanks for writing about this.
Great article,
Barbara
Hi Barbara, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment. Very appreciated.
I know, I know, it’s all part of the process. But I was still a little irked with the first one. There’s been one or two others since then, so I think I’m over it now.
Thanks for the kind words, and I do hope it will help others.
Have a great week Barbara.
Hi Craig,
Nothing good comes easy! This also applies to email campaigns. If we continuously get many unsubscribers it is normal for the panic button to set in.
However, it should provide us with the opportunity to reassess our strategies for email marketing.
Your advise on this matter is readily on track. Email marketers must make the most of these tips to sustain their campaigns!
I left this comment in kingged.com where this article was upvoted.
Hi Sunday, thanks for the comment!
Completely agree, it’s good to reevaluate your strategies from time to time. Reviewing your unsubscribes is a great opportunity to do just that.
Thanks for the kind words, and I appreciate your upvote over at kinged.com.
Thanks Sunday. Have a great week.
Hi Craig,
Great write up, my friend!
I don’t get too many unsubscribes, but I get at least one every time I send out my weekly newsletter. Sometimes, the person will provide a reason in the “why are you unsubscribing” field. Almost always, the reasons are understandable. One person said they weren’t into blogging anymore. One said they were unsubscribing from all their lists because they were getting too many emails.
And then I had one person give the following answer…
“DONT WANT TO HAVE IT.”
I admired the honesty. Didn’t appreciate it (or the shouting in all caps), but admired it.
I resisted the urge to email the person and write, “YOUR LOSS.” Wanted to, though! 🙂
Hope you’re having an awesome week so far, Craig!
-Kevin
That would have been awesome Kevin!
I do get it, the reasons someone signed up for you list in the first place do change. It is understandable that you do get the unsubscribes from time to time.
I wish it was mandatory that they had to fill out the reason they were unsubscribing, I think you could possibly learn something from that. Then again, I might not want to know.
BTW – I feel better knowing you get at least one every time you send out your weekly newsletter 🙂
Thanks for the comment Kevin, have a great week as well.
Hi Craig,
When I first started an email list, I was horrified when someone unsubscribed! Nowadays, not so much!
I realize that I won’t attract everyone with my personality, but it still upsets people when a person leaves their list. ESPECIALLY if that person has been a subscriber for longer than one year.
Still, we have to look inside to get a better idea of what’s going on outside. We change our minds every now and then regarding our private lives… why on earch would we consider that nobody changes how they think business wise?
It happens. As you say, good riddance. At least we’re not stuck paying for subscribers that won’t read our messages, and we’re making room for someone else who would be less likely to leave our list so quickly!
– Bonnie
Well said Bonnie! I do realize that there’s no guarantee that your subscribers will stick around forever, and it is a fact of blogging that you will loose some. It still stung a little when I lost my first one 🙂
All valid points. Clean out the old and make room for the new. I’d rather focus on the people on my list that want to receive my messages.
Thanks for the comment Bonnie. Have yourself a wonderful week.
Hey Craig, man I still remember my very first unsubscribe. I thought about it for two entire days and I was feeling like a complete failure.
Of course with the days that faded away, then I wrote about it and a ton of people started telling me that I should be focusing on the people who actually opened, read my emails and clicked on the links, not on someone who decided to unsubscribe.
As soon as I heard this it completely clicked with me and now I don’t care too much if I get an unsubscribe here or there, I know it’s part of the business.
I think I’d only worry if everyone unsubscribed at once! lol
Sergio Felix
That’s great advice Sergio and makes perfect sense. Focus on the people that are opening your emails instead of dwelling on the bad.
Yea, I’m over it now but it still stung a little when it happened. Luckily my open rates have been pretty good, but I know that can change at any time.
Thanks for stopping by Sergio and taking the time to leave such a great comment. Very much appreciated.
Have a yourself a great week!
Wow!I love this post man 😉
This is such a teaching that everyone doing emailing needs. Sometimes we wonder what’s going on. I used to have horrible open rates with Aweber but when I switched to Ininbox, those guys gave me exceptional training that took my experience to a higher level.
No I get above 25% open rate for most of my campaigns which is good for the industry. My unsubscribe rate is averagely 1% so I think I don’t need to panic.
You know in most cases, we pay per subscriber so if someone normally leaves, that saves us some cents. I’m just doing some cleaning up of my list. I’m kicking out anyone that has not opened my mails for the past 5 months. I’ll be doing this regularly so as not to keep and pay for dormant subscribers.
This has been great post Craig so I’ll be excited to share it with my readers 😉
Do have a wonderful week man
Thanks for the kind words Enstine.
Sounds like your metrics are pretty good, hopefully I can maintain rates like that going forward.
That’s a great plan you have to maintain your list and weed out the bad. I just upgraded my email marketing so I know what you mean about paying by subscriber. I’d do the same thing if someone hadn’t opened any of my emails in months.
Thanks for the comment Enstine. Appreciate you stopping by and also for the share.
Have yourself a great rest of your week.
Hey Craig,
This is a very important and controversial topic. The headline of your post force me to read that post. 😀
You’re right, sending tons of email a day or a week makes your subscriber tired and often you lost most of your valuable subscribers. I’m familiar with it because whenever I receive tons of emails from the same sender I just unsubscribe that person mailing list.
Oh! great addition “Check Your Spam Score” literally I have not heard this before. I was not aware before that I can also check the score of my spam folder.
Thanks for letting us know! 🙂
Thanks for the comment Mustafa.
If I get too many emails from any one list, chances are I automatically delete them or unsubscribe from their list. I get too many emails every single day, and usually once every few months I get in the mood to start unsubscribing from things. So that’s one thing that I think can be easily fixed.
Yea, checking your spam score is something we should all do. I forget if I’m in a hurry, but it’s really something that takes less than 30 seconds to do. Lots of services out there that do that.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day.
Craig,
I remember when I got my 1st unsubscribe to my email list. I was horrified and thought I should be doing something different. Then I realized that these things happen and not to take them personally.
It also bothered me that a small percentage would open my emails. I got over that also.
I like the ideas you have for improving the open rate and unsubscribe rate. Especially to have “catchy subject lines”. This something I have struggled with and am not very good at.
Great post and great ideas.
Dee Ann Rice
Hi Dee Ann – Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.
I’ve been subscribed to other email lists, and a catchy subject line always attracts my attention. While there’s no guarantee that I’ll open the email, but if the subject intrigues me enough, chances are I’ll take a look. I’m not saying everyone’s mindset is like that, but I figure it can’t hurt right?
Appreciate the kinds words Dee Ann, hope to hear from you again.
Hey Craig,
When I first get your unsubscribers I didn’t panic, I was pissed off LOL… I knew I write pretty good content, but according to them it wasn’t good enough.
I’m glad that I came to my senses because I probably would have unsubscribe from my own list as well at that time. Some of the emails weren’t relevant, and the headlines itself weren’t attractive.
So I had to dig deep?
I had to look at how i was coming across to my subscribers. You have to figure that your subscribers are really a reflection of you. So you have to write content that will appeal to you first before it does to your subscribers.
And that’s what I did. I made those changes for the better. I wrote more catchy headlines and made the emails itself more relevant to their interests.
These are simple things to do, but yet still powerful!
Great share Craig! Have a good one!
I found your post on kingged.com under the category of Email Marketing
http://kingged.com/dont-panic-but-you-just-lost-your-first-email-subscriber/
Hi Sherman – First off my apologies for not responding to this sooner. It’s a good thing I do review my spam folder from time to time, as your comment ended up there for whatever reason. In any case, thank you for stopping by and taking the time to comment.
You were pissed huh? Yea, I kind of thought the same thing. I went back through that email I sent out and re-read the thing a number of times thinking I had all sorts of spelling or grammatical errors. Couldn’t figure it out.
Agree with your points. You need to take a look at things and determine what you can improve on. I’m guessing you’ll always find something.
Have a great week Sherman.
It’s horrible for me to lose my very first email subscriber. But you have a point to not panic. We still have time to go back on the track and do our best to magnet new email subscribers.
Constant Contact is making your email list engrossed and engage with you. I do agree, with “You want your email list to consist of those subscribers that will engage, that will open your emails, and that will click on the links that you’ve included.” It is what we need, thus give them what they also need.
Too many emails and irrelevant content will only root negative end result. This will bother them. Well, I think the tips are smart and easy to comprehend.
Thanks Metz, appreciate the comment.
I’m over the unsubscribes now, but it did bother me at first. As longs as my numbers don’t go north of the norm I can live with it. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t constantly evaluate things to try and make them better, but I’m not going to freak out about it.
Thanks for stopping by.
Enjoyed the post Craig.
I use to get bummed when people unsubscribe, but it’s not a big deal now. Their loss right? Course, like you and other shave mentioned, as long as we are not giving them a good reason to unsubscribe. Then it is on us and we do need to look into it.
I think of of the biggest reasons people unsubscribe is that many marketers don’t email enough. Least from the many lists I’ve been on. Sure guilty of it myself. Let’s face it our subscribers are probably on many lists, so if we don’t mail enough, it’s can be very easy for them to forget us. Which can also lead them to marking the few emails we send, as spam. Like, who’s this person emailing me?
Actually I’ve also seen many marketers say they don’t want to mail that often, they don’t want to “bug” their subscribers. it’s like they are afraid to send emails. It’s sure the path to getting forgotten. Why spend time and effort building a list and paying for an autoresponder service if your afraid to mail?
It is their loss isn’t it 🙂
I do think it is a good thing to always evaluate your open & unsubscribe rates. I think there’s always things we can do to try and improve those numbers, which was the main intent of this post, but it’s really not worth getting worked up about.
You bring up a great point about not emailing enough, something I’m guilty of and need to work on. You’re right, it is easy to forget about someone since our subscribers are probably on many lists. I think I’m going to do a quick update to this post when I have a chance and reference your comment. Awesome add Ron!!!
Thanks for the comment sir, and hope to see you around in the future.
This is great advice and information. I never really looked at the statistics on email opens and that is a big eye opener. I have not done many email campaigns yet, but I will definitely keeps these insights in mind as I start to. I will remember not to send to many emails and have a catchy subject line. I think I will also notice what email catch my attention when I go to my email and emulate what those people are doing that is catching my attention. Like you said, not fret over someone who unsubscribed, just work harder and see what you may be doing wrong if you rate are lower than the average.
Thanks for the comment Lawrence! I’ve done the same thing with trying to emulate other emails that seem to grab my attention, and it must be working a little, as I’m doing ok with my open rates. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Glad you found this useful, and thank you again for stopping by.