Is it Bad That People Unsubscribe From Your List?

Alot of times I get the question or the concern: people are unsubscribing, does that mean I am mailing too much? Or does it mean that they don’t like me?

Or they tell me their feelings are hurt that people are unsubscribing, and it makes them want to quit the business.

So first off: if you are getting a catalogue email because you bought something but no longer need to buy more somethings like that, and you unsubscribe, is it because you don’t “like” the person anymore?

Or is it that you just don’t have a need for what they teach or sell anymore?

You see, many times people join your list based on 3 lines on your squeeze page and they really don’t know what your daily content email is going to be about.

And if you are writing a strong email each day, that email should be teaching something great. So if someone doesn’t like it – then that usually tends to mean they don’t need to learn what you teach anymore.

So wouldn’t you rather they unsubscribe than keep deleting your emails and making your open rate go down and down?

My personal opinion is that I don’t want anyone on my list who doesn’t want to be there.

Here are some more thoughts:

Regarding more unsubscribes if you increase frequency: what happens when you increase frequency is that folks who don’t really want your emails anyway have been deleting them, now they want off the list

So they don’t really want your emails anyway

If you were buying coffee for a friend each day and they asked you to stop buying it – that wouldn’t mean they no longer like you, they just don’t want coffee anymore

same thing here – they don’t need what you have so they don’t want to be on your list

People join your list before they really know if or that they want to learn more, so even if you write a good email, they want to unsubscribe

So unsubscribes are actually a good thing (as long as you are writing good emails. If you are writing trashy, non-helpful emails or writing sales emails for every email, then people are unsubscribing because you aren’t offering value.) But if you ARE offering value in your emails, then normally unsubscribes just mean the people who don’t belong on your list are getting off, so you can more effectively target the people who DO want your help.

Sean