An email unsubscribe doesn’t always mean your users aren’t interested — It can mean they don’t want to be spammed.
We know that some companies can overdo it on the marketing emails — especially around the holidays or a big sale. Sending out email blast after email blast checks the “top of mind” box for many marketers, and very well may result in clicks. But over time, too much of a good thing can actually work against a brand’s marketing strategy and force email unsubscribes.
“More” Isn’t Always Better.
Email marketing is a different animal — one where quantity isn’t always your friend. In fact, getting ~10 different notifications from the same brand through the same medium in a week can feel like an invasion of privacy — or even a lack of respect for loyal customers.
HubSpot’s 2020 Marketing Report backs this up: The CRM company found that 51% of users unsubscribe because “emails come too often.”
[Read: Your Content is Getting Views, but Is It Getting the Right Views?]
In an overzealous effort to garner more business, it can also signal a lack of a cohesive and integrated omnichannel strategy. While email might be the preferred platform for a particular segment of your users — it isn’t going to be only brand medium they ever interact with. This is something that marketers need to take into consideration. More isn’t always more. There is something to be said for quality over quantity — and not spamming users in the process.
Let the User Choose Their Email Preferences — and Keep More Subscribers
Yet how can you tell if your users are feeling spammed? Your number of email unsubscribes could give you a clue. If you’re seeing large amounts of unsubscribes, consider introducing a dialog in the unsubscribe flow that allows users to request less emails or select the type of emails that they would like to receive from your brand.
Let users choose their email preferences. Do your subscribers want to receive less emails? Or do they only want to receive certain types of emails? If “spamming” is a hiccup in your email marketing strategy, this optimization will help keep users engaged with your brand, but on their terms.
[Read: The Best Real Estate for Marketers: A Customer’s Inbox]
If users still choose to opt-out of your email marketing, ask, “why?” as part of the unsubscribe process to reduce email unsubscribes in the future. Spam may not be the issue at all, which is why a thorough audit of your email content, strategies, and brand sentiment is advised if problems persist.
Knowing How Many Marketing Emails to Send
Sometimes it’s not that your users don’t want to hear from the brand, it’s that they don’t want constant notifications from the same brand and their inbox filled with the same marketing message. In fact, the brands that have already done the legwork to garner customer loyalty, whether through customer service, mission, or a superior product, don’t need to send to multiple emails a day to loyal customers. Those loyal customers will only need a nudge at key points in their customer journey.
[Read: Is Your Brand Using Social Media the Right Way?]
Instead of focusing on quantity, consider how you can synthesize omnichannel data to optimize CRM and marketing efforts to reduce email unsubscribes and retain brand loyalty in the longterm.
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