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It gets to a point when regular emails from organisations on today’s/this week’s/this month’s special offer/featured product/service/specially selected partner, outnumber the business and personal email and it’s time to take action before my PC falls over trying to load my mail service.
As the title suggests, this month I have been unsubscribing from what has mostly become junk mail and editing preferences on services for which I have registered to cull the flow of unnecessary notifications. And the results are showing. Junk mail really is junk and my inbox is a pleasing view of the select few items that are genuinely interesting.
Sitting in the middle ground between clients and customers it’s easy to understand both sides of the argument. Decaying subscriber numbers isn’t an attractive prospect for clients, but don’t make the last impression of your company a negative one. If someone has elected to unsubscribe ensure it is error free and efficient.
The best unsubscribe processes I have experienced are accessed from a dedicated ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the foot of the email. The web page that opens contains a replay of the email address which you are going to remove with a confirm and a cancel button. And that’s it, pressing confirm provides a big green tick and a ‘You are successfully unsubscribed’ message. And I’m unsubscribing, so no, I don’t need a bl**dy unsubscribed confirmation email!
There is however a trick which companies might be missing. I’ve not seen anyone attempt to rekindle the relationship here. There’s potentially a more effective approach for retention. Replaying email preference options could re-engage your audience.
Those who made it through my cull are those that send me truly relevant and personally interesting content. Allowing me to change preferences at the point of unsubscribing might flare some interest in other content on offer. For instance if my tastes and needs have changed and new options are available for preferences or frequency that weren’t there when I signed up. If you can influence your eMarketing distribution system opt out page, it’s worth investigating.
People are fascinating and I love to know how things work; people, systems, technology, which is why I do this job, and it all started with an Ergonomics degree at Loughb...
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