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Why do you unsubscribe from emails?
I saw in a slideshare presentation from Hubspot that 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company's email that they had previously opted into. What is the cause of this? Why do you unsubscribe from emails that you once opted in to?
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9 Answers
Mostly because:
1. the information sent to me is irrelevant at that point in time.
2. I get too many emails from that organsiation/aliase
3. Signed up to a better source
4. No longer require that information
5. I'm the wrong contact in the organisation
6. No call to action in the email
7. confusing content and information
8. Misleading call to action
9. Non personal emails or Generic content (Fishing)
These are just a few.
I guess the flip questions is why do users continue to subscribe to emails :
1. Informative & Concise
2. Keeps me upto date
3. Allows me to now miss an opportunity
4. Personalised to my needs
5. I know wha to do or call to action is easyier
6. I have a working relationship with that organisation..
The key areas to consider when emailing customers are who they are , what they want, frequency of email and how they can opt in easily.
Personally I unsubscribe for a two main reasons:
First, I no longer use their service or I may have relocated from the area so it's no longer relevant.
Second, and this is the big one for me, the e-mails come so often I find them to be more annoying than helpful. If the e-mails become more of a burden, it's easier to unsubscribe rather than continue deleting them.
Generally speaking, most websites require you provide an email PRIOR to gaining access to what you were originally seeking. If websites didn't require email and made it truly optional, you would find that email marketing may actually become more effective.
Great answers so far... I'd add two other notes...
(1) Value... my time is valuable and thusly the email has to be valuable or it goes away. I'll prolly delete the first four or five but as I see a trend of non value added emails from a particular source (friend, company, whatever)... then I'll unsubscribe.
(2) I use other email address to help with "email overload"... so, with primary email address, I have only valuable emails. But, with my Gmail account, I'll subscribe to all kinds of stuff... some of which is valuable and some is not. When I want to see that stuff... then I have a searchable database to find it in.
When the email is trying to sell me something and the sale supercedes the value of the email, I unsubscribe.
If it's a third party, I automatically unsubscribe.
When the content is no longer germaine, I'm gone.
The most simple answer is that the content isn't valuable. It has to be consistently interesting and engaging enough to get me to do more than scan it - and to keep me subscribed. Also, it should offer something I can't get elsewhere (or lead me to it, like a coupon on Facebook.)
If it's from a retailer of some sort, a coupon or special offer (a real, valuable offer, not fluff) will keep me subscribed. For publications, blogs, etc. - valuable articles that I might not have seen otherwise, and preferably with value-added comments or insights. What I don't like is fluffiness, over-promotional hype or survey after survey - who has the time?!
Also, and perhaps most importantly - keeping it short and sweet.
When newsletters get too long, too wordy, delivered more often than I asked for, or repetitive, I'll unsubscribe.
- @missusP
Well said, James
I would say that I completely agree with list that Gurmail Singh provided, but the observation you made probably accounts for 80% of all the emails I have ever unsubscribed for, after previously subscribing at some point and time.
Lately, I've even taken to avoid websites that won't let you download the software you are looking to test/evaluate without a lengthy data gathering endeavor for marketing purposes...
http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker
Better E mail management, turns in better Time Management.
Emails subs are like friends - you only have time for so many at once. So I believe most people have only have a few which are best friends. We are always open to new friends so new subscriptions have a few months to break into the top 3 and if they fail they get dumped.
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