For every email marketer, an increase in the number of email unsubscribers is a major concern. Now and then, they keep looking for ways to reduce the email unsubscribe rate.
Reality is, you will have to deal with unsubscribers very often, and you can’t help it because users do opt-out of emails.
Sometimes, you may get worried thinking about it. But you also need to understand that you cannot please everyone in your email list. You will find critics even for the movie “The Godfather”.
The problem arises when the email unsubscribers’ count increases.
So, in this article, I will be providing you with some few tips or say best practices to reduce the churn rate. Though it is something that cannot be eradicated, it can surely improve your email unsubscribe rate.
Let’s begin.
How to Reduce Email Unsubscribe Rate?
I have listed down 6 effective methods that can be helpful to reduce the number of unsubscribers.
1. Ask Them When They Want To Receive Updates
At the first place when you are asking a visitor to subscribe to your newsletters or email updates, you should give them a choice regarding how often do they want your emails to land in their inbox. It’s a healthy way to start your relationship with your subscribers.
Whether they want to get daily updates, one email per week, twice per week, the choice should be theirs. And this shouldn’t be taken casually. Be committed to delivering the way a user demands it.
If you are sending emails on a daily basis when they have opted to receive it weekly, you are indirectly telling them that you do not value their opinion. So do not send emails too frequently.
On the other hand, if they are not receiving emails weekly, it is not going to leave a good impression either. You need to be consistent. Inconsistency in your communication may weaken the trust of your subscribers in your Brand.
If you stick to your promises, the email unsubscribe rate will drop.
2. Sending At The Right Time Is Important
Though it is impossible to know the perfect time to send an email to someone, you can figure out the timing when you have the highest open rates. In general, in between 8 am- 9 am and 4 pm is considered to be the best time to send emails to your subscribers.
Your emails will be impactful when the readers are in a fresh state of mind and a bit free. Sending them emails at a time when they haven’t even opened their eyes properly or when they are home with their family after office hours would not do anything good for you.
Users will get annoyed and it is likely to happen that they unsubscribe to your emails.
3. Use Double Opt-in And Double Opt-out
If you want to have a quality email list that does not contain junk in the form of an irrelevant audience, use double Opt-ins. It is one of the best ways to reduce your email unsubscribe rates.
A double opt-in is when visitors submit their email address but are asked to verify it. So, they are sent an email where they have to confirm their email address, and only after that, they become your subscriber. A single opt-in, on the other hand, doesn’t require email verification.
Why is it helpful?
You know those users are genuine and relevant if they are putting the effort to confirm their email address. Double Opt-in ensures lesser spams and unsubscribes.
Although the conversion rate is slightly less in double opt-in as compared to single opt-in, which is very obvious, it gives you a valid audience to target.
Just like double opt-in, you should use a double opt-out unsubscribe option too. This doesn’t unsubscribe users immediately. They are presented with a confirmation message that asks them whether they are sure that they do not want to receive emails. You can make an emotional attempt here and convince them not to unsubscribe.
4. Segment Your Audience
Is there any point of selling a shirt to someone who needs a mobile phone? Totally irrelevant, right? This is exactly what happens in traditional email marketing. A hierarchy is not followed and many users unsubscribe because they feel the emails are not relevant to them.
Segmentation is necessary. You want your emails to deliver to the right people, segmenting your list is the best option. Segment users according to their age, location, gender, activity, etc. and then target them accordingly.
Do not fumble up things. If your emails are not reaching the right audience, the email unsubscribes rate is bound to increase.
5. Do Not Create Misleading Subject Lines
While you want to be creative with your subject lines to capture user attention, it should be strictly kept in mind that they are not misleading and goes well with the email content.
Do not create click-baits. You may succeed in making people open your emails but the happiness won’t last for long. Sooner or later, there will be many unsubscribers.
To improve your email unsubscribe rate, write encouraging and catchy subject lines that aroused curiosity in the users to check out the inside email content. If it is worth their attention, they will become your loyal readers and would never unsubscribe to your emails.
6. Collect Feedback
Though I know you do not want to get unsubscribes, it would be ideal to ask why they are unsubscribing. Have a few options on the unsubscribe page that lets them select their unsubscribe reason along with the comment box so that they could leave feedback.
You might not be able to stop that particular user but through feedback, you will able to prevent unsubscribes in the future.
Also, on the unsubscribe page, you can also let users unsubscribe from some specific type of emails rather than unsubscribing from everything. You can highlight the different types of marketing emails that you send and ask them which among those are not relevant to them.
Final Thoughts
Getting new subscribers on your list is not a difficult task. The challenge lies in keeping those users in your list in the long run. If you are able to do that, you are on the right track.
Follow the above-mentioned six ways to reduce your email unsubscribe rate. Besides all this, make sure that your emails are equally optimized for mobile devices as a majority of the people read their emails through their smartphones.
What are your strategies to improve email unsubscribe rates?
Also Read:
8 Email Popup Best Practices to Grow Email List and Boost Conversions
