Why People Unsubscribe From Your Lists – The Answers
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 17, 2011
Our buddy Sire recently wrote a post titled Why Do People Unsubscribe From Your List. It was an intriguing little post that asked the question more than attempted to answer it. He’s fairly new to the list game; I only have one email list, and that’s for my own leadership newsletter.
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Still, I’ve had it for about 8 years now (man, no wonder I’m tired), and I’ve been on many other lists. Initially I thought that maybe he asked the question wrong. My thinking was that people don’t unsubscribe from lists, per se, but from newsletters or blogs or other types of things. Then I thought about it and using “list” or “lists” covers all of these things, so I came back to it.
Back to the topic; why do people unsubscribe from lists. It’s an intriguing question; let’s come up with some answers:
1. Too many emails. This is probably the biggest reason people unsubscribe; I know it’s the biggest reason I’ll drop out of something, usually pretty quickly. We don’t mind information, but we don’t want to be overwhelmed since it’s almost always some kind of sales pitch that we’re receiving at that point.
2. Subscribed to get something and now we’re satisfied. This is kind of disingenuous but it happens all the time. Many people that offer something if a person signs up for a list know this is going to happen, but since by that time most of those lists are automated anyway they really don’t care.
3. Subscribed then realized it’s not what we thought it was going to be. I’ve subscribed to some things and then noticed that I wasn’t getting what was promised so I drop out.
4. You run out of time. This could be for many reasons, such as getting too much other email, not enough time to read what you’re being sent, you’re participating in other things now that you weren’t before… time can be a killer, especially if you’re subscribed to a lot of things.
5. The frequency isn’t what you want it to be. Do you want weekly newsletters? Maybe something every two weeks or so? When you’re putting out a newsletter, it’s hard to figure out sometimes just how often you should be doing anything. If you’re the reader, it’s possible that every time a newsletter or whatever comes to you it’s more irksome because you weren’t expecting it and eventually you decide it’s time to leave.
6. You’re tired of it. Maybe you’ve been subscribed to something for a few years and now you’re just tired of it. It’s not that you don’t like it but you’re ready for something new, something from someone else.
7. You’re on too many lists. Many years ago I subscribed to a lot of things. I eventually created a new email address so I could shunt everything there instead of my regular email address. Then I realized that I just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, keep up with it all and I started cutting a bunch of them. At this point I only subscribe to two email lists, and it’s eased my load a lot.
8. The other person dropped your list. This one might seem petty, but it happens often. Heck, I know I’ve done it; people leave me and then I leave them because the only reason I was a part of their list was because they were receiving what I was sending out. That was years ago; I don’t do that anymore.
9. You didn’t subscribe to begin with. Man, is this irksome. I meet someone and they just add me to their list that I didn’t ask for. Or suddenly I’m receiving stuff from people I don’t even know, and I figure someone bought a list with my email address on it and just started pumping stuff my way. Some folks say you shouldn’t unsubscribe to these things because all you’re doing is proving that email address is accurate. Heck, spam’s coming anyway, so you might as well unsubscribe because it’s possible the person sending you something will have some ethics and remove you from that list.
10. You’ve irked the reader in some fashion. I had this happen to me where this guy reacted to a newsletter I wrote about my dad’s time in the military with a rant against the American military and government. Eventually, after I tried to have a conversation with them because that wasn’t what the newsletter was about, he threw out a parting shot and left. Frankly, I wasn’t unhappy he left.
There’s 10 reasons for you and Sire; do you have anything more to add?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
A Question About Free
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Apr 25, 2011
I was having an interesting conversation with a friend of mine about the concept of free. He was saying that offering free items these days, which almost everyone recommends as a way to drive people to one’s blog, website, or newsletter, is passe and just doesn’t work anymore. He used as his example the free food given out at places like BJ’s Wholesale Club on a weekend and how he always passes all that stuff by.
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Of course, his mentioning something like that to someone like me doesn’t quite work out. When I go to BJ’s on a Saturday, one of my pleasures is making sure I get to scarf up many of the free goodies, There’s no way I’d ever just up and buy anything I didn’t get to taste first, and I love sampling foods… at least foods I’ll eat.
However, his overall point seems to be one to consider. Let me ask you the question outright: how many of you really notice increases in visitors, increases in subscribers or increases in anything else when you offer something free? I have to say that my friend (okay, it’s Mitch) isn’t far off base.
For instance, how many of you have noticed the freebie there to the left, the book download of The Synergy of Business and Blogging? How many of you who saw the original post when I wrote it in January actually went ahead and downloaded it? Unfortunately for me, 1&1, my hosting company, has changed their start up page so I no longer have access to seeing how many times it was downloaded, and Google Analytics doesn’t tell me that either, but I’m betting it’s been a rare thing for me or the people who created it.
Eliminating myself from the mix, how do most of the rest of you feel about downloading free stuff? Are you wary that you’ll get viruses? Do you think you won’t get anything out of it? Have you just gone blind to the concept of free stuff posted on a blog or website? Or do you have other reasons if you don’t download, as well as reasons you do? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
Thank You, But… Don’t Do This
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Apr 8, 2011
Many of us write about blogging and social media in general. We hope we give pretty good tips on how to treat your audience, the people who visit your blog and the people who follow what you have to say on social media sites. We love the fact that so many people are looking for a way to thank people for doing this or that online. I’d say it’s all appreciated, but I’d be lying.
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Truth be told, there are some things that, I’m sorry to say, are kind of irritating. I know it’s done with people in mind, and it’s supposed to be somewhat positive, but it’s not. Instead, it creates clutter, irritation, and a sense of not really caring about us as much as going through an automated process that someone said “we” wanted to see. Untrue, I hate to say. What am I talking about? Let’s look at some of these things.
1. Please stop sending me messages from your blog thanking me for leaving a comment. If you’re not going to respond to the comment, or you have it in moderation, then go that route, although I hate being moderated. I see that I left a comment, and that’s all I need. If you decide it’s not worth commenting on, trust me, I’ve moved on. You’re just making me delete the email in my Mailwasher program (great program by the way; if you don’t believe me ask Sire, who purchased it from my link); don’t waste your time.
2. If I decide to follow you on Twitter, don’t send me an automated message through the direct messages area thanking me for following you. At the same time, don’t send me a link to your latest free ebook or product or blog or anything else. If you really care, send me a real message through the normal channels first, and then if we’re talking share something with me. Almost all the time I get one of those things, I immediately drop you from my account; you’ve been warned.
3. Please don’t automatically add me to your email newsletter just because we’ve connected somewhere. If I didn’t subscribe, I’m not downloading it, and I’m going to be looking to see where we might know each other and possibly dropping our connection. I don ‘t just go around adding people to my newsletter… anymore. By that, I did used to add internet marketers that I know I didn’t subscribe to that suddenly started sending me stuff to my newsletter, but that bit of run wore out quick. If I want to subscribe to your newsletter, I will.
4. I covered this one a couple of days ago when talking about LinkedIn, but I’m not going to spread it to Facebook. If you want to connect with me as a friend on Facebook, at least add a message as to why you want to do it. I’m pretty accommodating, but I have to tell you that if you’re not connected with any of my “real” friends already, I’m probably not adding you unless you give me a reason why. Now, I’ve reached out to the few people who aren’t my friends that are following my Facebook business page and I’ve told them why in the message I send them; that’s how it’s supposed to work.
5. Please, everyone, stop following everything one of the big time internet gurus told you they do on their blogs. Stop popping up the notice asking people to subscribe to your newsletter. Stop with all the toolbars that we can’t get rid of. Stop with the videos or music that automatically starts playing when we stop by your blog. I get it; you’re trying to engage me, and you’re trying to make sure I know about your newsletter, and you’re trying to help me retweet all your stuff, or list it on some other social media site. Can’t you just add a Facebook like button like I did and move on, or a blurb about your newsletter in a sidebar (heck, I removed my newsletter link; gotta get it back on there) that people can see? And the other stuff… no more!
I think that will cover it for now. I decided not to go on the Twitter Follow Friday rant again, since I wrote about that already, but that’s another one. What have I missed folks?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
The Basics Of Writing A Newsletter
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 27, 2010
I’ve been writing a newsletter for more than 7 years now. I was writing two, but I already wrote about why I gave up writing one of them.
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When I started, there weren’t tons of email newsletters out there. Not that there weren’t any, but I’d seen very few when I decided I was going to write one. Over the years I think I’ve refined it somewhat, to the point that I believe I can now tell others my thoughts on writing one. Sure, everyone has their own style, and that’s fine. You can see what I have to say, then take from it what you will and do your own. My opinion, my blog, and thus I’m writing my beliefs on the subject. By the way, if you’d like to subscribe to my business newsletter, there’s the link for it.
The first basic is that you have to have something to say. Just like the recommendation I make to bloggers, if you don’t think you can write about something for at least a few years don’t even start it. I know people who start writing one and give up after 3 or 4, or go six months or more between them. To me, that’s a waste of time and insulting to your readers, since they took the time to sign up.
The second basic is determining a style. The lucky thing is that you don’t have to keep the style you start out with. When I first started writing my business blog, there was little personality in it. As I kept writing, I knew that people might like seeing more of what I was about and why I might come to the conclusions I do when writing my newsletter. I’ve come to a style now where I start off with some kind of story most of the time, then use the story to get to my point. Not that I have thousands of subscribers, but I can say that once I went to a less formal format readers seemed to enjoy it more, and I started getting some comments, which almost never happened before that.
The third basic is determining what your purpose is. Will your newsletter be to showcase your expertise? Will it be a sales and marketing newsletter? Will it be a combination of both? Will you post a product, and will that product be related in some way to your topic? Will you highlight your business in some fashion, or just entertain? Will your newsletter have new content, or will it be a recap of blog posts you wrote during the week? My newsletter is to highlight my expertise in certain business areas, and I’ve stuck to that all these years. It took me awhile to realize I should have not only my business listed on it but my products and some of my other websites. And it wasn’t all that long ago that I started adding two books that I recommend in some fashion with every newsletter that addresses the topic, at least most of the time, as I haven’t been able to resist popping something in every once in awhile that I just happened to like.
The fourth basic is determining the look and format. The newsletter I have now is the culmination of maybe 10 different styles or colors. It used to be really colorful, and every newsletter had a different color. Now it’s pretty clean; all white background, dark blue print and framing, and the books. As a matter of fact, I’m going to let you see one of my newsletters, the last one I’ve written, because I not only want you to see it, but because I was somewhat inspired by a blog written by one of my favorite commenters here, Karen Cruz, and she honored me by not giving the link out to the newsletter and I want to thank her for that. The title of my newsletter is Money, Power and Respect, and Karen’s post was titled Letter of Resignation.
By the way, a quick sidebar to Charles, who comments here and writes a great blog as well. What I just did in linking to a specific post on Karen’s blog is a trackback. If she’s got it turned on, her blog comment will show this link in it saying I have linked back to, or tracked back to, that specific blog post.
The fifth and final basis is determining how you’re going to send it out, or delivery. I’m not going to get into how to market it or publicize it, as that’s another topic entirely; just stemming that question for now. Anyway, You can decide on a number of things; send out email, post it to a website or blog and let people know about it, print it and send it out in regular main, set up a forum, etc. What I do is send it out in email along with the HTML attachment, and then I put the link online. I’m thinking about either creating a membership site at some point with all my newsletters in there, since new subscribers don’t have access to older newsletters, or taking what I consider are my best written ones, re-edit them, and put them in a book format. I’m just not sure yet.
Oh yeah; how many words? That’s up to you. I’ve seen some newsletters that are barely 300 words, and others that are nearly 2,000 words; I think I’ve written one or two of them. Someone said the standard should be between 500 and 750 words; I tend to think, just like blog posts, you write as much or as little as you need to and then move on. For instance, if you’re writing an instructional newsletter, you might be using images and thus cut down how many words you’re writing. Or you might have a long story to tell to get to your point, in which case you write longer newsletters. Mine come in between 750 and 1,100 words most of the time.
And that’s that. If there are other questions I’ll be glad to answer them. Otherwise, good luck!
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010-2011 Mitch Mitchell
My Big RSS Subscriber Contest!
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 11, 2009
For those of you who read my 2009 Online Goals post, and those of you who will possibly go back and read it now, my third internet goal for this year was to increase my RSS subscribers to 500 by the end of the year. At the time I didn’t have any idea how to get there; now, I’ve come up with something that might help me get closer.
First, the reason why I want more RSS subscribers. I’ve been writing most of my life. I think I’m a pretty good writer, and I have a lot to say. And I like that people come here to read what I have to say, and comment on it, but the truth of the matter is that I’m somewhat of a writing narcissist; I want as many people as possible to read what I write, and pass it on to others. Not only in this forum either, but I’ll stick with this one for the moment. Not only that, but it’s always acknowledged that marketers have a better chance of making money if they have higher numbers of something, either visitors or subscribers or email addresses for those types of lists. Everyone knows that a big part of this blog is to help me generate income online, but I want readers and subscribers and the like. And this contest is geared towards that.
There was an initial problem, though. I can see how many subscribers I obtain through Feedburner, but it doesn’t tell me who’s subscribing. It does tell me who becomes a fan, though. So, I have to use a different method for determining who the winners will be, and there will be a first prize winner, a second prize winner, and a third prize winner. That’s it; no ties. It will be a drawing, which is going to require a lot of work from me, but I’m ready for it because I’ve done things like it in the past, and I’m well equipped to get it done properly. Everyone will be able to earn entries; how many entries they earn will be determined by what I’m writing below.
Now, the contest. Right now, Feedburner is showing that I have 54 subscribers to this blog. I want to increase that number to at least 250 subscribers in 28 days, which is the main thrust of the contest; the contest starts on Sunday the 11th of January, and ends on Monday, February 9th at 3AM EST, to give people on the West Coast a chance to have until midnight to enter if they so choose. In this introductory post, every person who writes something is automatically entered into the contest, but that’s not all. I want more than a blanket “here I am“, but I’m going to accept that as one entry; spam will be deleted, so don’t try it. But there’s more.
If you become a fan of this blog on Technorati, that will add another entry for you. We’re up to two possible entries.
I have a business newsletter, the T. T. Mitchell Consulting Newsletter, geared towards leadership, management, motivation, customer service, and other business issues, that’s fairly entertaining if I say so myself. Everyone who subscribes to that newsletter, and, in the subscription letter, tells me the name they use on my IJS blog, gets another entry. You don’t have to subscribe to the healthcare newsletter, since I write that one also, and subscribing to it doesn’t give you an extra entry. For examples of that newsletter, you can check out my latest issue, Chain Of Command and a previous issue, Credibility. We’re now up to three possible entries.
I participate on Twitter, and my link there is for Mitch_M. Anyone who follows me on Twitter, and mentions it on my blog, along with their user name (the only way I can go back and verify you’re actually following me), gets a fourth entry.
I now have a brand new blog, Top Finance Blog, and it needs a little bit of promotion. Anyone who happens to mention it on their blog with a link back to the site, then informs me here of it, earns another entry. If you happen to write an article and link to a particular post that helps the article, and you give me that instead, that’s two entries. We’re now up to either five or six entries.
The final opportunity for entries is to purchase a Top Spot link, which is over there near the top on the right. Those links are $5, and since I’m not expecting a lot of people to do that then it’s possible that your link will stick around for awhile, but anyone who purchases a link earns 10 entries into the contest. That’s now a possible 15 or 16 total entries into the contest; that’s not bad if you ask me.
Okay, I hear you now: “That all sounds well and good, but what the heck could you offer that’s worth all of that.” Well, it’s now time for the prizes. These are the minimum prizes that the winners will receive, but only if I hit that 250 subscriber number:
* First prize wins, at least, a website optimization review of up to 10 pages, which is worth $300 based on my SEO business (if you don’t have a website, or want cash instead, I’ll pay you a $50 prize, either through Paypal or by check); a copy of the book The Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner, which is worth $59, and will be purchased by me and sent to you by Barnes & Noble; a signed copy of my book Embrace The Lead on leadership, worth $25; and a copy of my ebook Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool, worth $20.
* Second prize wins, at least, an optimization review of three pages of their website, a $100 value (or a $20 cash prize); a signed copy of my book Embrace The Lead; and a copy of my ebook Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool.
* Third prize wins, at least, a copy of my ebook Using Your Website As A Marketing Tool and a written review of your blog or website, on this blog.
Now, why am I saying “at least“? Because I’m offering anyone who wishes to help sponsor this contest by adding a prize to any of the levels something. When I receive an offer of a prize for one of the levels, or all of the levels, I will mention that prize in a post on the day I’m notified of it in a blog post, along with a link to their website or blog, as I’ll be giving regular updates of how things are progressing (as well as my normal blog posts), mention all of them again on the day that I identify the winners and all the prizes they won; and create a widget for them that will appear on the right sidebar for a month, dofollow of course, with their blog name and, of course, the link to their blog, or website as you will, in that box. By the way, unless you’re offering something for all three prize slots, I’ll make the determination as to whether your donation is a first, second, or third prize gift.
Frankly, I don’t think I’ve seen many blog contests that offer so much, as such perceived value as it already is, and value that could increase as some sponsors might come out of the woodwork and want to offer something. Of course, my opinion is biased, but now it’s out here for everyone to see, and if you see it as a nice value then you’ll participate in the contest. And I hope you mention it to your friends, mention it in your blog posts, mention it on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace or Digg or StumbleUpon or Technorati or wherever else you want to mention it. Get the word out, and let’s at least get to that 250 figure. Like I said, it’s going to be a lot of work for me, but I don’t mind because, well, it’s all about y’all. Okay, it’s about me also, but it’s not like y’all won’t be getting anything out of it, right? Look at that Spread The Word thing just above the comment box, pick something, and do whatever it does to help get the word out. If this contest works, well, who knows what the next one, if I have another one, might be.
As Bartles and James used to say, “I thank you for your support.”
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