Keep E-mail Unsubscribe Rates Low

To begin, the methods you use to grow your lists may affect your unsubscribe rates, points out Elaine O’Gorman, vice president of strategy for Atlanta-based e-mail marketing solutions provider Silverpop. In a recent Silverpop study of both B-to-B and B-to-C mailers with lists ranging from 10,000 to as many as 10 million names, the company found a correlation between the aggressiveness of the techniques used to grow lists and the incidents of high opt-out rates. While half of the study participants cited their unsubscribe rates as .5 percent or less, some 40 percent reported having a .5 percent to 2 percent opt-out rate. The rest of the participants reported an opt-out rate of 2 percent or higher. “For people who have opt out rates of greater than 2 percent, they are in general using more high-risk, opt-in methods,” notes O’Gorman. “For instance, they’re using a lot of appends, list rental, [and] they’re using a decent amount of co-registration.” O’Gorman suggests recording the source of your opt-ins, and start analyzing your opt-outs based on how these people got onto your list in the first place. “If you consistently see somebody who came in through a specific channel, whether it’s an append, a list buy or a co-registration—which our most recent list growth study says may be correlated to opt outs—you may ask yourself [if] it really [is] worth what I’m paying for these very expensive channels to get people opted in,” she says.

Keeping track of the tenure of subscribers who have opted out of your program also is extremely revealing, says O’Gorman. “Tracking both your original source and the tenure of people who are opting out and trying to discover trends there are excellent ideas,” she notes. If there is a sudden spike of opt-outs from people who have been on your list for a long time, you need to examine your last several campaigns to see what may have offended that group of people, explains O’Gorman. Meanwhile, if you’re seeing people opt out after a week or a month into your program, you may want to consider implementing a welcoming campaign that eases subscribers into your stream of communications more gradually.

Another key to keeping your unsubscribe rates low is to keep your subscribers happy by providing the content they requested and expect. “The number one reason people unsubscribe is lack of relevant messaging,” says Tricia Robinson, chief marketing officer for Atlanta-based e-mail communications services provider Accucast. Instead of a batch and blast strategy, Robinson advises marketers to rely on a database-driven strategy to help them better understand subscribers, including demographics, online behavior, what is important to them, and why they opted into a marketer’s program. This helps target messaging far more effectively, notes Robinson.

She also points out that it’s essential to “understand how the end recipient wants to be messaged.” To that end, O’Gorman strongly recommends offering subscribers preference centers where they can dictate how and when they will be contacted. “I think it’s important for people to be cognizant of the fact that frequency may potentially drive opt-outs,” she says. “One of the solutions for that is to start breaking up [your] e-mail program into specific interest groups.” Also, allow subscribers to opt into as much information as they’re interested in receiving, without giving them the ultimatum of either getting every e-mail marketing message, or getting nothing at all. The key is to offer a range of options. “The best case scenario is that they opt out of what they’ve been getting, but they opt into two things that they’re not getting right now, and you just increased the size of your list,” describes O’Gorman.
Finally, if a subscriber does decide to opt out, O’Gorman recommends you make his or her opt-out experience a positive one. “Just because someone is disengaging from your e-mail program doesn’t mean that they’re disengaging from your brand,” she points out. “Any time you interact with a customer, even if it’s a customer who’s disengaging, you need to make it a positive brand experience.” Along with simply offering an easy opt-out process, that positive brand impression also may include things like asking customers why they’re leaving, thanking them for their business, and, as already noted, giving them the option to change their preferences.

For more information, contact Elaine O’Gorman at (678) 247-0500 or Tricia Robinson at (404) 815-1998.