August 13, 2013 by Daniel Sharkov|
Is building an email list a priority for you?
Well if it isn’t, it is time to make it one!
An year ago I was a little hesitant about email marketing and didn’t really think I needed to get into this. But the fact was people were praising it. I went through dozens of articles, talking about the importance of building a list and
I just HAD to give it a shot.
Soon enough I signed-up with the free email marketing client MailChimp and started working on converting my blog’s visitors into subscribers.
Now an year later, with almost 1,000 subscribers
under my belt I’m clearly seeing the benefits behind list building…
But today I’d like to talk about something else.
One of the discouraging “phenomena” to email marketing are the unsubscribes.
You’ve probably had those times when you just couldn’t figure out why people are clicking the “Unsubscribe” button and getting out of your list. Over the months I’ve been doing a lot of trying and testing to keep my list healthy and today I’d like to share some of my findings!
In the below paragraphs I have covered
four ways to help you reduce the number of unsubscribes and improve the open- and click-rates of your campaigns along the way.
Let’s start step by step. What is the first part of the whole turning-visitors-into-subscribers process? The opt-in forms.
And what do the opt-ins consist of?
A short message, an email field and a subscription button. And although things like color and layoutplay a role,
the first element is obviously the most significant one. That is the most important factor based on which people will either decide to subscribe or pass by your offer. And as much as you’d like to write something fancy just to get more subscribers, that’s really not how it works. No, you need to be absolutely TRANSPARENT.
If you don’t want 90% of your subscribers clicking the “Unsubscribe” button after they get your first email,
you need to set their expectations. Just take a look at my opt-in:
A short and straight-to-the-point call to action that tells people exactly what they will get. Additional security from the sentence in the brackets.That is what I’d suggest you do
– come up with one or two sentences that DON’T fool people around and make their decision easier by either letting them know they can unsubscribe at any time or telling them you won’t spam their inboxes. Simple yet effective.
Your welcome message is the place for you to expand on the reasons one should be on your mailing list. Your welcome message is where you tell people you appreciate their feedback and that they can always get in touch by replying to your emails.
But wait a second…
What exactly is that welcome message?
What I’m referring to is a setting-up a really simple autoresponder. Fortunately that is possible even if you are using the free version of MailChimp. From the main dashboard you click on “Autoresponders”, then on the top-right corner you click on “Create Autoresponder” and simply follow the instructions:
The idea of the autoresponder is simple. When one of your subscribers takes some sort of an action (for instance getting on your list) they automatically receive a custom email from you.My Welcome Message is actually the email campaign with both the highest open- and click-rates, respectively at 49.6% and 19.5%. People pay attention so you need to be careful with what you say.
Best would be to use simple text without any images or formatting Make sure to first thank the person for subscribing Tell them once again what they will get Let them know they can get in touch with any questions Optionally you can give them a link to your Resources page3. Never Change Your InitialsSeveral weeks ago I noticed that the initials in my welcome message and in the rest of the email campaigns I was sending out were different. It wasn’t a big difference really – I used
Daniel Sharkov in the author’s name for the autoresponder and
Daniel from Reviewz N Tips for the other emails.
Most will recognize that the two emails come from the same person,
but some of your newer readers might not.
Right after setting my email campaigns to use Daniel Sharkov as the author,
I noticed a slight increase in open-rates . From the usual 23-25% the numbers went up to around 27-29%. That in terms reflected on the click-rates as well.
Aside from that before choosing what name you will put in the author field,
I’d suggest you to run some A/B tests for a couple of weeks. Once you have reached a decision however,
make sure to stick to the name , use it for all of your campaigns and autoresponders and never change it (or at least let your subscribers know if it’s absolutely necessary).
If you are into marketing and blogging for some time you’ve certainly heard the saying that money is in the list.
Well that certainly holds its truth.
It’s a fact that the ones who decide to subscribe are the readers of your blog who are really INTO what you have to say. In other words if you recommend a product to them, they are highly likely to believe you and give that product a shot.
And it seems like that is the reason why many bloggers abuse this.
I myself am on a lot of different lists and unfortunately had to unsubscribe from many others over time.
Why?
As much as I enjoyed their content,
their email marketing came down to nothing more than making sales. Rebates, discounts, special offers and any other promotion you can think was the main thing on the menu.
A far better way to get your subscribers interested in a product that you like is if you take the time to write a
review about its pros and cons. This means
no affiliate links in the emails you send. You can still have an offer, but you can just keep that offer within the review (as in my Market Samurai review).
And similarly to directly selling products,
reviews should be occasional. I’d say once a month at most. I mean the more often you do it, the more it seems you do it for the money. And when people realize that, they will sooner or later decide to get off of your list.
Wait, what?
Yes, I know… I just wrote a whole post on how to get less people to unsubscribe from your list and now I’m telling you not to care.
Well as I see it there are two main types of people who unsubscribe:
Those who leave your list for one of the reasons I talked about in the postAnd…
Those who unsubscribe for their own reasonsWhen it comes to the latter there really is nothing you can do. Some people just won’t like your list whatever you do. Those people will never really be your customers and they won’t ever try the products you are reviewing and recommending. In other words you simply don’t need them.
That’s especially valid if you are using a paid service that charges based on the number of subscribers you have. It might be worth taking the time to go through your list and remove the inactive subscribers.
They are not worth your money.
I hope you enjoyed the tips. And keep in mind, as much as you can reduce the number of the folks who decide to unsubscribe from your list, there will always be those who leave. Don’t waste too much of your time looking for ways to catch them – you won’t.
Now I’d like to read your comments!
Have you embraced email marketing? Do you have a welcome message in place? Do you pay attention to those who unsubscribe from your list?
Please take a minute to share your two cents!
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