True story:
One of my clients also enlists the help of a marketing agency… and said marketing agency has terrible advice.
For example:
My client recently met with them, and they advised my client to send way fewer emails because apparently, the unsubscribe rates are too high.
Here’s what I told my client after when he mentioned this to me:
Unsubscribe rates don’t matter.
In fact, worrying about unsubscribes are a deadly poison…
Here’s why:
1. It shows your neediness.
If you care when someone unsubscribes from your list, it proves that you’re coming from a place of need instead of a place of abundance. If you live in a place of abundance, you don’t care if anyone unsubscribes because you know that someone better will fill their empty spot on your email list. Someone who is more qualified for your offer, someone who will use your offer to improve their life (instead of having it collect dust on their shelf), and someone who will spend more moolah over their life than the person who unsubscribes.
Neediness is as deadly for business (if not, more so) as it is for simps who can’t get a girl.
2. It makes you make boneheaded decisions, like sending fewer emails instead of sending more emails.
Here’s a counterintuitive fact about email:
People are more likely to unsubscribe when you send fewer emails than they will when you send more emails.
While it’s counterintuitive, it makes a ton of logical sense. The more someone sees your name in their inbox, the more trust they develop for you and your brand - even if they don’t actually open and read your emails.
Emails work as a form of social proof for you, your offers, and your brand. You know who doesn’t send a ton of emails? Dead brands.
Besides being a form of social proof in and of themselves, email also works to keep your brand top-of-mind for your audience, and it gives you more opportunities to send the right message to the right person at the right time.
3. It means you're focusing on the wrong things.
The best way to get your unsubscribe rates to 0% is simple, but deadly:
Never email your list.
But that’s obviously a backwards metric to track. In fact, for many of my clients, the emails that rustle the most feathers and get the most sales… also result in the most unsubscribes.
Such is the way of email.
When your priorities are this back-asswards, then, well, it’s gonna result in less revenue and impact for your brand.
Instead of trying to minimize the unsubscribes, if you notice a lot of them (without a lot of accompanying sales), it’s better to focus on simply writing better emails instead of sending fewer emails.
Worst part?
After meeting with this marketing agency, my client realized that most of the unsubscribes are coming from our non-customer list. Which means, there is absolutely no negative side effect of these folks unsubscribing.
They’re simply saying “this isn’t for us,” which is fine if you’re not needy.
Because I’ll let you in on a little secret:
You can’t create demand for something that has none. A copywriter’s job isn’t to create demand, but to make the audience realize there is a demand there already, then offer the solution for said demand.
Anywho:
If you need an email pro like yours truly who will keep dumb marketing agencies spreading nonsense in their place… hit reply, and let’s chat.
John