Are you worried about your email marketing unsubscribe rate?
This article explains why you shouldn’t be concerned.
When I built my first business I was very concerned about keeping my email marketing unsubscribe rate as low as possible. In fact, I became obsessed with not losing subscribers.
Why?
Because it’s freaking hard to build a solid email list in the first place.
So every time you see someone unsubscribing from your list it feels like a loss.
It might even feel like you’re losing money: If you spent money on ads to build your email list, your cost per opt-in was likely somewhere between $0.50 and $7. Whenever you send out an email and someone unsubscribes from your list, it seems like you just flushed a couple dollars down the drain.
Of course, all of this is stupid and immature.
What Happens When You Become Obsessed with Keeping Your Email Marketing Unsubscribe Rate Low?
You stop sending out emails.
I’ve worked with many clients who had email lists with 10,000 or 20,000 subscribers but never sent out a single email to the people on their email list.
Their reasoning?
If I don’t send out any emails then I won’t lose any subscribers.
This makes absolutely no sense because they built their email list in the first place so they could send out emails to these people. There is no use for an email list apart from sending it emails.
Except maybe to build a custom audience or lookalike audience on Facebook.
The bottom line is:
Email lists are here to be emailed.
If you’re not going to regularly email your email list then there’s no point in building the email list in the first place. A dormant or dead email list has zero value for your business.
In fact, it will cost you money.
I currently have around 20,000 email subscribers in my MailChimp account.
MailChimp bills me $150 to store my list every month.
So if I don’t regularly send out emails to my subscribers and sell them something, my email list quite literally turns into a liability for my business. And that defeats the whole point of a list.
It’s supposed to make you money, remember?
But I get it, you’re still concerned with keeping your email marketing unsubscribe rate low.
Here’s why you shouldn’t.
Anyone Who Unsubscribes From Your Email List is Doing You a Favor
I used to get frustrated, sometimes downright angry, when someone would unsubscribe.
How dare they just abandon me? Is my content that bad?
This type of emotional attachment is dangerous in the business world because it makes you vulnerable. And when you’re vulnerable you make stupid decisions that will harm your business.
There’s no room for your ego in business.
You have to look at email unsubscribes through an objective lens rather than an emotional lens.
Think about this.
If someone unsubscribes from your email list they just did you a big favor.
They weren’t going to buy anything from you in the first place. They likely just wanted to grab your freebie. And trust me, there’s tons of people who will never turn into customers.
Sorry to break it to you but 80-90% of subscribers will never turn into customers.
They will just sit in your MailChimp account and cost you money.
In fact, the more of these people you have on your email list the lower your email open rates and click-through rates will drop. Having a ton of unengaged people on your email list will also harm your email deliverability. If you don’t get rid of these people, sooner or later, you’ll have a dead list. You want to purge subscribers from your list every once in a while.
And the best way is when they unsubscribe themselves.
That means less work for you.
Having a decent email marketing unsubscribe rate is a good thing.
You can now replace that person who unsubscribed with a new subscriber who might turn into a customer. To cultivate proper “list hygiene” your email list needs to be in constant motion.
The worst thing ever is a static email list.
Static = dead.
Now you might say:
“Okay Till, but this doesn’t apply to customer email lists”.
Not so fast.
What If You Annoy Existing Customers By Sending Them Email Marketing?
According to Jay Abraham there are only three ways to grow a business.
- Increase your number of clients
- Increase your average transaction value
- Increase the frequency that your average client buys from you
Most businesses that rely on chasing new customers as their main source of income don’t survive long-term. Sure, finding new customers is important but it’s also a lot harder.
Someone who has bought from you in the past is twenty times more likely to buy again.
That means, you’ll have to spend twenty times less money on marketing and advertising to get a sale from an existing customer compared to acquiring a new customer. If you are planning to stay in business long-term you have to focus on repeat customers rather than one time transactions. And that’s why having a customer email list is so important.
In fact, some people believe this is your businesses’ biggest asset.
Not emailing your customer list is a noble gesture that’s based on ego. But it’s also the fastest way to ruin your business because you’re leaving about 50% of the revenue on the table.
That’s right.
It’s estimated that around 50% of your revenue comes from front-end marketing.
And the other 50% of revenue comes from back-end marketing in the following 12-18 months.
A dormant customer list can literally be compared to a pile of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars that you’re not picking up because you’re scared someone might unsubscribe.
Can you see how stupid this is?
Go ahead and pick up that additional revenue.
Even if it means losing some customers and getting some unsubscribes.
Your business can’t be static.
While you should focus on building long-term relationships, you also have to overcome the fear of losing some of your customers along the way. Not everyone is meant to stay a customer forever. Just like in personal relationships, you sometimes have to learn to let go.
The truth is that your email marketing unsubscribe rate shouldn’t concern you at all.
Next time you login to Mailchimp and see that 20 people unsubscribed since your last campaign, you should be happy. Thank these people for doing the work for you.
In fact, sometimes I even actively unsubscribe people these days.
If I send out an email and get a nasty response.
I will scroll down and click on the “Unsubscribe” button for them because I don’t want to work with nasty people. Sometimes it’s good to fire customers that aren’t a good match for your business. And this includes getting rid of email subscribers that aren’t suited for you.
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