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Mission Control / Digital Marketing

5 Reasons People Are Unsubscribing From Your Emails

Spammy subject lines, daily touchpoints, messy design. No thanks. Hit the email sweet spot by avoiding these email blunders.

White cards with envelopes drawn on them, representing email subscriptions.

1. Too Many (or Not Enough) Emails

Receiving too many emails is the No. 1 reason that people unsubscribe. Readers who feel bombarded with multiple daily messages are more likely to opt out, regardless of content quality.

Conversely, sending too few emails is also a problem. Leaving enough time between emails can lead users to forget about a brand and ignore it when it does reappear in their inboxes.

Balance lies somewhere in the middle of the road. Successful email marketing strategies are consistent, but never overwhelming. (Hint: Weekly emails often do the trick.)

2. A Spam-Like Subject Line

Subject lines that make an email look like spam should be avoided at all costs. Deal-breakers for subject lines include text in all caps, excessive punctuation or emojis, overuse of phrases like “free offer” or “urgent,” poor grammar, and many more.

A winning subject line makes people excited about what they’ll find when they open an email. Aim for something short, sweet and, above all, professional.

3. Irrelevant Content

One surefire way to lose subscribers is to send them irrelevant information. A mismatch between the audience and the content they receive ranks among the top reasons that people opt out of email messaging. Just like with email frequency, the quality of any content becomes irrelevant if it’s not in the right hands.

To avoid this, an organization must understand their different audiences and segment email lists properly. Your readers should know exactly why they’re receiving what you send them.

4. Not Providing Value

While emails are extremely effective tools for sales and conversion, savvy email marketers know that, above all, what subscribers want is real value. If they see that a newsletter is a one-way street, constantly demanding their time and money but never providing anything in return, they’ll send it straight to the spam folder.

Emails are an ideal venue to create brand loyalty.

Think of email as a way to share valuable information that your subscribers can’t get anywhere else — a blog post, a thoughtful article or a useful tip. Emails are an ideal venue to create brand loyalty. If an email list truly provides value to readers, they’ll look forward to those weekly messages — and will be more likely to buy something from a brand they trust.

5. Visually Unappealing

Any email list is sure to shrink if it sends out messages that aren’t easy on the eyes. This means emails that aren’t mobile-friendly — remember that about half of readers open emails on their phones — as well as emails with too much text or too few images.

Like any other marketing piece, an email should be thoughtfully designed. Be sure to create (and test) emails that adapt to all devices and incorporate eye-catching images, typography, and other graphics.

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