Losing subscribers might be GOOD for you!
Hey there,
The subject line sounds preposterous, right? Losing something you spent good money to build – how can that be good?
Turns out, unsubscribes are actually a really nuanced topic. It’s not so much as how many people have left, it’s more about who is leaving.
Today, we’re talking about the benefits of having a smaller email list – again, sounds counterintuitive, but stay with me. If done correctly, culling your subscribers is actually good for your business.
What are the benefits of a smaller email list?
Here’s a hard truth – only a small fraction of subscribers are actually interested in your emails. The large majority of your list is made up of deal hunters and unengaged folk. These people add very little value – they’re mostly dragging your email deliverability down.
If you were to start removing these users from your list, you’ll see several tangible benefits.
Your Klaviyo cost goes down. Most ESPs charge by active profiles. Which means you’re paying for the unengaged users, who give you no benefits whatsoever. Getting rid of them will reduce your costs by as much as 50%.
Your deliverability will thank you. Removing unengaged users (which will be at least 30% of your list) means that your open rates shoot up instantly, and your domain stays healthy.
You know when your strategies are working. Imagine this: you try a new, fresh strategy which you’re sure will work – and a bunch of people unsubscribe. What will you think? That the strategy sucks, right?
But if you scrutinize further, you might realize that the active segment is engaging well with this new email, while a bunch of deal hunters jumped ship. This tells you that your strategy is actually working great for the people who actually matter.
Basically, what I’m saying is you should remove unengaged subscribers from your list, and it’ll be good for you. Quality >>>> quantity. A 10,000 strong actively engaged list is much better than a 100k list, where only 10k are engaged.
Let’s see how to actually go about doing it.
Culling your subscriber list
This is not easy to do – you need to be sure that you’re only removing the customers who are actually unengaged. That will require a large amount of analysis, guesswork, and conjecture, which has risks.
But there’s a method which will give you an accurate answer every single time – unsubscribes.
Most marketers will panic if they see subscribers leaving. But is it really a bad thing? Think about it. It saves you the trouble of figuring out if a subscriber doesn’t want your emails. They’re doing it for you!
That being said, you need to make sure that these subscribers are a lost cause – if it’s something you can fix, you want to put in 100% effort for those customers. There’s a difference between:
Customers leaving because they’re not interested in emails – they only signed up for discounts.
Customers actually want emails but you’re not doing a good job.
You want to keep tabs on the 2nd category, while not worrying about the first one. Here are a couple ways to do it.
Configure your unsubscribe page
First off, if you haven’t done it, you need to do it ASAP. So many brands don’t even know this exists, and keep using the default unsubscribe page.
You can ask subscribers why they’re leaving – from the responses, you can judge if it’s a harmless reason, or you need to do something about it.
This also gives you crucial info about your active subscribers. One simple example:
Let’s say you send 3 emails a week. However, you find out that subscribers leave because 3 is too much – they want only 1-2 emails a week. You can adjust your frequency to match what customers want.
If you didn’t have the unsubscribe survey, you wouldn’t know and would keep sending thrice a week, resulting in losing out on perfectly good active subscribers.
Actively sunset unengaged audience
Most sunset flows are configured to trigger after 12 months of inactivity. We feel that’s way too long – 3 months is more than enough time to judge if a customer is willing to engage with you (it’s also enough time to severely damage your domain reputation).
We recommend actively removing non-engaged subscribers after 2-3 months of inactivity. This will keep your list clean, tidy and manageable, while still allowing these subscribers the chance to opt back in.
Sounds paradoxical, but sending less emails will often result in more conversions.
With all that said, what if you actually are losing active subscribers? That’s beyond the scope of this article, but I’ll be writing another one soon! We’ll go over the best methods, tips and tricks to make sure your active audience doesn’t even think of hitting ‘unsubscribe’.
Figuring out unengaged segments isn’t hard, but you’ll certainly have second thoughts – am I pulling out a weed, or a perfectly healthy tomato plant? If you’d like some professional help, consider getting a quick Subscriber Audit!
We’ll take a look at your unsubscribes
You’ll know if you’re losing valuable customers
We’ll provide a stable, safe strategy of removing unengaged audience
We’ve done it countless times, for hundreds of eCommerce brands. It’s completely free of cost – we have no further expectations beyond helping you out! If you’d like to proceed with the Subscriber Audit, please click the link below.
To conclude…
Most people are set on the idea that bigger -> better. All I’m trying to convince you is that you should be more concerned with the quality of your subscribers, and not beat yourself up over the ones who don’t matter. I’ve seen many brands have positive short and long term benefits from culling their subscriber list.
It’s hard, I know. But one of the greatest qualities of a good owner is their ability to make the right decision, not the easy one. I ask you to be true to your brand, and make those hard decisions which will make your brand soar even higher.