Good and bad unsubscribes

(Originally posted on Linkedin)

Email marketing has good and bad unsubscribes.

A good unsubscribe is someone who was never going to engage with what you have to say.

If you're an auto mechanic, and someone on your list exclusively rides their bike, there is absolutely no reason for them to be on your list. They're not going to hire you, because they have no need for your services.

So when this cyclist unsubscribes, that's not really a big deal. All they're doing is artificially inflating your list and reducing your open rates.

A bad unsubscribe is much worse. A bad unsubscribe is someone who would have been interested in doing business with you, but you sent too many low-value emails, and they unsubscribed out of frustration.

This is really the last thing you need, because once someone unsubscribes, that's it - there's no getting them back.

So when people unsubscribe from your list, don't panic or rejoice. Rather, dig into who they were - were they opening your emails at some point? Were they clicking links?

If they never engaged, they were probably a good unsubscribe.

But if they were engaging, but then stopped, then bad news - you drove a lead away with your bad emails.

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