I don’t know about you, but checking out the unsubscribe numbers for an email marketing program can really make my heart sink. We put so much time and effort into creating interesting, relevant content together for an audience, and yet folks are still opting out.

When they’re willing to share their reason for unsubscribing, it turns out, almost 9 times out of 10, that it’s not us, it’s them – they get too many emails in general, or they don’t have enough time to read every message, or they’re suffering from information overload: in other words, it doesn’t matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to keep connected to that customer.

Well…not so fast.  It turns out that giving your customers some level of control over how many email messages they receive, and when they receive them, can significantly reduce the number of unsubscribes.

40.6% of the respondents in a Flagship Research study reported that they’d stay on board if they could opt to receive email messages less frequently. In the majority of cases, these users preferred to get messages weekly rather than daily – and 4 touches a month is infinitely better than 0.

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The other eye-opening statistic from this report is the 14.1% of respondents wanted the option to ‘snooze’ their subscription – in other words, take a little break from the regular messaging, only to opt back into it at a later date. This option makes a lot of sense for businesses that are seasonal in nature – after all, while pumpkin-flavored everything is hot right now, your customers may not want reminders autumn is coming in April. Additionally, simply having the option to stop and restart email messaging as desired restores a critical feeling of control to your customer.

Adjusting your email marketing settings to give your customers more options when they  hit the unsubscribe button is a relatively simple way to retain valuable customer connections. If you need help making this happen, or with any other aspect of your email marketing, give us a call! We’re here to help.