Create an opt-out strategy that stops clients unsubscribing

The last few years has seen a complete evolution of marketing practices and instead of traditional marketing, we now rely more on inbound and digital marketing strategies. Marketing automation (link to blog on automation) is now an essential part of almost all successful marketing campaigns throughout the world. This means that we have driven up communication pressure on our clients with email campaigns and other channels of constant communication access.

However, what happens if a possible customer suddenly becomes uninterested in your brand or product? What if they have already bought the product/service from your competitor? Maybe they’ve had to delay purchasing the product due to monetary or personal problems. Whatever their reasons for losing interest – it is not exactly ideal for you. You’ve been using rich data to continually nurture them down the funnel and to lose them now may feel like you have wasted a whole lot of time and skill.

So can you create an opt-out strategy that will appeal to clients that are no longer interested in your product/service, which will convince them not to unsubscribe? You certainly can, and here’s how:

GIVE THE CUSTOMER CONTROL

At Rise + Shine we have found that opt-out strategies that allowed the customer to take control and give them multiple options, resulted in a 40% drop of people actually finishing the unsubscribing process. There are a number of different ways that you can give your customer control in your opt-out strategy.

The following simple steps will give your customers more control and could stop them from leaving permanently:

FREQUENCY

Start with the frequency of which you are communicating with your clients. Send them an email saying something along the lines of “perhaps we are contacting you a bit too much recently” or something along similar lines. You can then go on to give them the option of receiving less news or fewer emails, by suggesting monthly subscription or whatever frequency they would prefer. This is an important aspect of having a sound opt-out strategy for your marketing automation strategy.

WHAT ARE THEY SUBSCRIBED FOR

The next step in an effective opt-out strategy that helps to give the customer control over communication is letting them know what exactly it is they are signed up for. Show them what they are subscribed to, such as advertising, price drops (one for which true prospects will keep the opt-in), 3rd-party emailing, and new product launches etc. This gives them the opportunity to unsubscribe from those that they don’t like receiving and keep getting the ones that they are genuinely interested in, which will hopefully result in better lead generation.

OFFER THEM FULL UNSUBSCRIPTION

Once someone has clicked the unsubscribe button, you have to give them the option to fully unsubscribe from your communication, as much as you don’t want to lose a prospect – you simply have to give them the choice.

GET MORE PERSONA INFO

The thing with personas is that they are going to evolve eventually. Your single 20 - 25 year old young professional could very soon turn into a family man/woman and their needs will therefore change. Ask them questions about their persona and this allows you to gather more information and to perhaps create a new persona to target this section of the market.

END WITH A PERSONAL THANK YOU NOTE

A thank you note at the end of the process is important in any successful opt-out strategy, however, it must be more than just a simple thank you note. A personalized note will make the customer feel like they are losing out on something, and they will feel a real person-to-person connection to your brand.

TEMPORARY FREEZE OUT

There is also the option of offering the customer the chance to temporary opt-out, and they won’t receive any communication during this time. This allows them to decide if they are missing out on the deals that they normally get and they therefore have the opportunity to rejoin further down the line.

HOW TO DECREASE UNSUBSCRIBING RATE

This article from Hubspot, gives nine points on how you can decrease the percentage of customers unsubscribing. Here is a list of the ways mentioned:

Better segmentation lists
Map your content
Customize the frequency of emails
Test the results of email frequency
Offer customers different communication channels like SMS and social media etc
Have a consistent and regular email sending schedule
Use exclusivity to keep customers interested in emails
Create emails that load quickly and correctly
Take feedback from clients and work on improving your service/product.

At the end of the day a customer that really wants to unsubscribe is going to do so and there isn’t much you can do to stop the process. However, by allowing the customer to feel like they are in the driver’s seat, you stand a better chance of keeping them. You should also use your opt-out strategy to update profiles, get to know your personas better, and perhaps even improve your relationship with clients.

At Rise + Shine, we create and implement awesome lead nurturing campaigns, using an inbound marketing methodology, to attract the ideal customers for our clients. If you would like to know more about lead nurturing and ways to get a better lead conversion rate for your company,