Does your unsubscribe process offer choices to your readers?

It's important to offer an easy opt-out, or unsubscribe for your readers. It's not only embedded in legislation, but is best practice. Creating barriers means recipients who don't bother or can't unsubscribe have a very negative view of your brand and reputation from that point on.

Many subscribers don't bother to unsubscribe, instead deleting mail, or designating them to the junk folder.  And even worse, they could be reporting you as spam. JupiterResearch’s recently released report found that 26% of consumers unsubscribed using this method, and 80% did so without opening the actual message. Why is the “report as spam” button a problem? Too many of these reports can lead to an ISP blocking future emails from the sender.

First, review your sign up strategies 

To develop a strategy for opt-outs, it is a good idea to start at the very beginning of the process: the opt-in. This is where you can set the right expectations, be clear about your offerings and attract subscribers who want to be on your list in the first place.

• Review your company's overall email marketing – Review your companywide's email marketing methods. Find out where and how addresses are being sourced in every department. Establish a companywide stringent permission policy. Have a co-ordinated mailing schedule for all departments so your company is not over mailing. ‘Too frequently’ is a top reason why people stop engaging with a company's emails.
• Set and maintain customer expectations - Be crystal clear and transparent in all your sign-up activities. Your text should tell people exactly what they’re going to receive when they opt-in, when they’re going to receive emails and how often. Have a prominent link to your privacy policy that tells people exactly what you’re going to do with their data. Send only what you say you are going to send – and when.
• Identify Yourself - The outer envelope (the from/subject line) needs to provide Instant Recognition. Even if you have the correct permission, if they don’t immediately recognise you they’ll delete the email or report you as spam.

Develop strong opt-out strategies

Here are some ideas for optimising the “opt-out” function to have it actually serve as an “opt-in” process to retain the subscribers by giving them the control of their subscription:

• Give them a choice of receiving emails"less frequently" - Often it is because emails come to frequently from a company. If you can offer a less frequent mailing, you may find that subscribers are happy to continue receiving emails.
• Define the opt-out – Define what type of opt-out the subscriber wants. Is this a global opt-out, is it an opt-out to the specific mailing? Make sure they have choices other than simply a global opting out.
• Offer a different communication channel - Though email is extremely popular, it may be that people would prefer to receive the information through a different channel. For example the individual may prefer to receive an RSS feed.
• Implement a change of address function – One reason people opt-out is to then sign up with another address. It would be a good idea to implement a feature that allows people to change their email address.
• Ask for feedback - Asking for optional feedback during the opt-out process can give you insight into the reasons you are losing subscribers. Rather than just a text box, give them a variety of reasons to select from such as "Content is no longer relevant", "I'm subscribing using a different method (such as RSS)", "I do not recall subscribing to this", "This comes too frequently" and "Other, or will not disclose".