Each week, Martech Zone delivers an email via Mailchimp that automatically converts our feed to nicely formatted HTML email. Only a few thousand subscribers take advantage of it – a fraction of our weekly readership. That’s okay… it’s a niche and feeds those who want it. I don’t try to artificially grow the list; it’s got excellent retention and does the trick for those who want my publication in their inbox.
Email is a push marketing channel. I’m an advocate of permission-based email marketing, but I believe most companies utilize email ineffectively.
- Retention: Email marketers don’t measure their email list retention; they only pay attention to how many are on the list at any time. Your list acquisition may be outpacing your retention. If you’re getting a lot of unsubscribes, you need to fix something sooner rather than later.
- Open Rates: Email marketers believe that incredibly low open and conversion rates are good when above industry averages. Folks, a 4% click-through rate off of an email is a 96% failure rate and not something to celebrate.
- Schedule: Email marketers often have a calendar that requires them to publish, regardless of whether or not the content is crap. I get emails in my inbox every week and I wonder how the company possibly thought something was intriguing enough to send it.
- Frequency: Email marketers believe in email math: If ten people purchase from my list of 1,000 on my weekly email, I can double sales with two emails per week. It’s like printing money. No… it’s not. More lackluster emails may initially increase sales, but ultimately, you’ll lose valuable subscribers. Email fatigue is a huge factor in unsubscribes.
Although the cost of email marketing is plummeting, it still costs companies a lot of time and money to send email. I haven’t tried to push my email or dress it up because I’m not sure it will do well with readers. Perhaps I can have dedicated content in the email down the road – but I’m not going to send out crappy emails for the sake of trying to get a few more eyeballs.
Why People Unsubscribe
Unsubscribing from email lists is a common action taken by both satisfied and unsatisfied customers, and the primary reason is email volume.
The top reason for unsubscribing is receiving too many emails in general (26%). Consumers also express frustration when a company sends them emails too frequently, whether it’s multiple times a day, daily, or multiple times per week.
MarketingSherpa
To address this issue, email marketers can consider behavior-based sends, where emails are sent more frequently when customers have shown interest. However, overdoing behavior-based triggers can also lead to unsubscribes. Offering customers options for email frequency, such as a preference center with multiple choices, can help retain subscribers.
Additionally, email content plays a crucial role in unsubscribes. Irrelevant and overly sales-oriented content can turn customers away. Email marketing should focus on serving customers by providing valuable information, helpful tips, and relevant content throughout their lifecycle with the brand or product.
The best thing you can do for a company that sends a crappy email is to unsubscribe. Don’t wait for the email to get better – send them a message today.
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