The Sweet Side of Unsubscribes

The Importance of Maintaining a Healthy Mailing List

If you're a marketer or business owner who's invested time and effort into building a mailing list, it's understandable that you may cringe at the thought of people unsubscribing. After all, losing subscribers can feel like a blow to your ego, and it's natural to wonder if you're doing something wrong. But hold on! Unsubscribes can actually be a good thing for your mailing list health. In this post, we'll delve into why losing subscribers can be beneficial and even necessary for the overall success of your email marketing strategy.

Quality Over Quantity

Sure, having a large number of subscribers on your mailing list may make you feel accomplished, but it's not always about the quantity. What really matters is the quality of your subscribers. It's better to have a smaller, engaged, and interested audience who actively opens and reads your emails, rather than a bloated list filled with inactive subscribers who swipe to delete when they see an email from you. Consider this: when people unsubscribe from your mailing list, it's a sign that they weren’t finding value in your emails. They are telling you that they aren’t your ideal customer. That’s a good thing because it allows you to more clearly target those who are engaged. And engagement matters. Why? Keep reading.

Improved Deliverability

Deliverability refers to how likely your emails are to land in your subscribers' inbox rather than in their spam folder. Email service providers (ESPs) use complex algorithms to determine whether an email should be delivered to the inbox or marked as spam. One of the key factors that affects deliverability is engagement, and a high unsubscribe rate can negatively impact your engagement metrics. If you have a large number of inactive subscribers who never open your emails or mark them as spam, it signals to ESPs that your emails may not be relevant or valuable, and they may start sending your emails to the spam folder. However, when people are genuinely interested in your content, it's actually a positive signal to ESPs. It improves your engagement and conversion rates such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates because your content is reaching the right people. It also indicates that you are actively managing your list and keeping it clean, which can help improve your deliverability rates and increase the chances of your emails reaching the inbox of those who are truly interested in your content.

Cost-Effective

As a business owner, you are likely paying an email marketing service based on the number of subscribers on your list. So, having a bloated list with inactive or disinterested subscribers can actually cost you money without providing any return on investment. By allowing people to easily unsubscribe from your list, you are saving money because you aren’t paying for subscribers who aren’t engaged or contributing to your email marketing goals.

Opportunities for Improvement

Unsubscribes can also serve as valuable feedback for improving your email marketing strategy. When people unsubscribe, they may provide a reason for doing so, such as not finding the content relevant, receiving too many emails, or simply not being interested anymore. This feedback can provide you with insights on how to make your emails more relevant and valuable to your audience. It's an opportunity for you to analyze and refine your email content, frequency, and overall strategy to better meet the needs and preferences of your subscribers.

Our advice? Give people opportunities to unsubscribe. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it really will help your business in the long run.