Over the past few weeks I have been victim to a rather drastic increase in the number of unsubscribes to my email list. This probably isn’t something I should admit, but then I’m not one to hold back on stuff like this, am I?
Here’s the thing though — I’m not that bothered. Yes, it’s not exactly pleasing to see that a pretty considerable number of people are unsubscribing, but I could feel worse about it. Despite the fact that an email list is touted by the vast majority of bloggers as the most important asset you can have (and I agree), I’m not breaking a sweat.
Why?
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The State of Affairs
First of all, let me fully reveal the extent of the issue:
Yep — I wasn’t lying when I used the word “drastic”. Starting in September, the number of subscribes per week has increased massively.
However, this apparent mass exodus of LWB subscribers is contradicted by the spreadsheet I update on a weekly basis:
The number in the right column is the number of subscribers gained in that week across two lists — the main LWB list, and a list I created for my Smart Passive Income guest post. This number is taken directly from my AWeber homepage:
The AWeber stats seem to be contradicting themselves, which is really confusing (and frustrating). I contacted support but they were unable to figure out what the issue was.
I don’t actually know what to believe at this point. Aweber’s graph shows that unsubscribes are outnumbering subscribes by a huge margin — here’s what data from the past 30 days looks like in line chart form:
But according to my spreadsheet, my weekly number of subscribes has been positive, with last week being particularly good. I have no idea what data to trust.
Suspected Causes
So let’s assume that I am losing more subscribers. Why?
In short — I don’t know. I can’t think of one clear reason as to why I would suddenly start dropping so many subscribers. I have a couple of ideas, but I wouldn’t typically envisage either of them having such a major impact.
First of all, I reintroduced a signup incentive — my guide to keyword research and competition analysis. One could theorize that I am getting a lot of people subscribe just to get the guide, then immediately unsubscribing. I don’t think this is happening, because it’s not something I experienced when I previously had the guide on offer as part of subscription.
My second theory centers around my somewhat sporadic broadcast/autoresponder habits. I reintroduced autoresponder emails a few weeks back, to be sent out once every seven days. At the moment I only have three emails in the series, and most of my subscribers won’t be receiving them, as they received up to seven messages as part of a previous (and now scrapped) autoresponder series. They won’t get a new autoresponder message until I have written eight. Aside from that, I tend to write a new broadcast email every Monday, which gets send to all subscribers.
But again, I don’t see why this would provoke such a major shift in unsubscribes. Apart from those two theories, I have no idea why my unsubscribes have apparently increased so much.
Why I’m Not Worried
It would be all too easy to freak out about the kind of “leakage” I may be experiencing. And it would be fair to say that I will be more concerned if it continues in the long term. Judging by one set of data, that would result in my list eventually reducing to zero!
But at the moment I’m not too bothered for three reasons:
- My autoresponder messages are good — at least, I think they are. I haven’t received any complaints yet, and I have had subscribers email me just to tell me that they like them (one even wanted to know how she could share it).
- It’s a learning process. Even if I am leaking subscribers, I will eventually figure out why and learn from it. There’s no point crying over spilt milk — I am constantly pushing myself into new areas, and that will inevitably result in unanticipated results and mini-crises.
- Even if I am losing subscribers because they don’t like me, I am who I am. This blog is very personal to me, I have no plans to change it, and I would like to think that the guys and girls who do hang around like it. This blog’s for you — if someone unsubscribes because they don’t like it, I’m not going to lose sleep.
Improvement Needed?
One thing’s for sure — I definitely could be doing more to build my list. I could be optimizing the sign up forms on my blogs, split testing, and adding autoresponder messages. But you’ve got to prioritize your time, and I’d rather focus on serving existing subscribers and readers than trying to boost my subscribe rate.
Having said that, I would like to get my autoresponder series up to the magic number eight as soon as possible. I don’t want my old subscribers to be seeing nothing but my Monday broadcasts — I want to give them genuinely useful content that they won’t find elsewhere. I put a lot of time into my autoresponder messages, which is one reason why I have been so slow in creating them, but I could try harder to write more (in fact, I’m going to write one right now).
What do you think? Do you have any theories regarding my mysterious unsubscribe increase? If you’re a subscriber, do you take value from being on my list? What suggestions would you have?
Jamie Alexander says
Have a look through your lists and it should tell you what email they are unsubscribing on. You’ll know if it’s right away, or maybe you’ll need to play about with the copy on one particular email.
I had to do the exact same as you and scrap my follow-ups and I think I actually got to 8, so you realized before me lol
Do you just give people great information, or do you actually build it up over the weeks.
For instance, I have a goal that I want people to accomplish. I then decide how many weeks it will take to reach and break it down into stages. Let’s say it’s 8 emails. Then I write those 8 emails and when I’m writing each one I’ll build them on top of each other and tell people they will get the next part next week.
I think when people know they need to read all of them, instead of them being single bits of advice, then they’re more likely to succeed.
There’s a few others things I do. Don’t destroy them with too much info. Just give them little nuggets and let them have small wins so they don’t get discouraged etc
I’m sure you’ll work it out 🙂
Tom Ewer says
That’s a good idea Jamie, although my figures are skewed massively because it’s showing data from the lifetime of the list, including old autoresponder messages and new. There’s a huge weighting of unsubscribes on the first message because for a long time that’s the only one that existed. Perhaps I can find a way of hitting a “reset” button…
Cheers!
Cari Mostert - A Writers Website says
Hey Tom,
As a subscriber, I must just say that if I calculate the value spent reading your content in terms of time = return, yours is one of my most valuable resources, hence the article “On the Trail of the Experts, 4 of the Best!” on our other site Mozimaxweb. We don’t even have a mailing list but still get good traffic and our Alexa ranking is only 10,000 behind you on two of our websites.
I use our websites as a platform without squeeze pages. The problem we’ve found in times past with ’email systems’ is that your subscriber lists get hacked and makes your website vulnerable to attack. Whether this is your problem or not, I couldn’t know, although it’s worth a look in.
Some website owners like squeeze pages and e-mail lists, although we’ve moved away from that with better success in many areas – time, energy, efficiency, worry, etc.We just put it all out there on our websites for all to see; both the best and the worst and forget the worries. This comment is prompted by the way we feel for you right now and to let you know we care very much…Keep on keeping on! Don’t let it get you down.
Cheers,
Cari
Tom Ewer says
Hey Cari!
First of all, thank you for the mention in that post. I am extremely flattered to be named alongside the likes of Chris and Kristi!
That’s a very interesting approach you have — contrary to the vast majority of bloggers (which always interests me). I don’t think the list has been hacked but it is certainly something to bear in mind…
Cheers,
Tom
Shawn says
Another thing I’ve seen you doing, Tom, is providing your announcements on different mechanisms. If you’re posting, feeding, tweeting, emailing, and facebooking the same content, it does no good for your subscribers to participate in more than one of those methods, so they’ll choose the one that suits their needs best and drop the others.
Tom Ewer says
Hi Shawn,
That is true, but the purpose of the email list is to provide unique content that you cannot find elsewhere (not least the keyword research guide). But as I said in the article, I have not been adding as much to the autoresponder series as I should’ve been, but I’m working to remedy that. You make a fair point.
Cheers,
Tom
Chris says
In my experience, the main reason I unsubscribe from a blog or a youtube channel is when the posts become more frequent than I can keep up with. If you have recently stepped up your posting like Spencer and Pat are doing now, it might be one reason, but I don’t know for sure because it’s only from my own experience as a subscriber.
Alexis Grant says
Such a good point, Chris! I think that’s why a lot of people subscribe… Remembering this for my own newsletter 🙂
Tom Ewer says
Hi Chris,
That’s always something I’m wary of — I’ve always thought that no more than two a week is enough. One broadcast keeping people updated with what’s going on at the blog, and one autoresponder message with unique content. I hope that’s not too much for most people!
Cheers,
Tom
Kate Yu says
Hi Tom, I like that you “get naked” in front of your readers. I like the transparency, which is why I’m a subscriber and bought your Guide to Freelance Blogging book. You have something different to offer than the rest of the freelancers out there- no holding back honesty.
Like Chris, I usually unsubscribe if it becomes too frequent and I feel it’s not giving me value with what’s happening in my life. There’s just too much information these days and readers have to triage to keep up with it and prevent their inbox from overflowing.
Tom Ewer says
Hey Kate!
I’m glad you like my style 🙂 to be quite honest, I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.
I totally appreciate where you’re coming from. I think as bloggers, we have to really respect readers’ time. Pushing out loads of posts is fine, but when it comes to emails, you need to be wary of overloading inboxes.
Cheers,
Tom
Alexis Grant says
One thing you said here stuck out to me as more important — it’s a LEARNING process. We’re all learning as we go, getting better every day.
Tom Ewer says
That’s pretty much how I justify every mistake I make Alexis 😉 but seriously, it’s true — 18 months ago I’d barely read a blog before, let alone written for one, so I feel like I can forgive myself for the occasional cock-up!
Casey Dennison says
Hm.. That is very strange, Tom. I wouldn’t know what to say to this issues because I have yet to start building a list, but it does sound frustrating, to say the least. It’s good that you positive about it, though. You always seem to have a positive outlook, that’s why I enjoy reading your posts.
Cheers!
Casey
Tom Ewer says
Hey Casey,
Thanks! I think I’m nearly at the bottom of the issue, and it’s probably not as bad as I thought. Will post an update when I know!
Cheers,
Tom
Bon Crowder says
Do you have a way for people to tell you why they unsubscribed? There were two unsubscribes in my inbox this morning (to my sadness, of course) but one of them explained that she had already graduated all her children, and so no longer needed my math education information.
It very much offset the other unsubscribe, who was somehow offended that I had dared to send him a pitch e-mail. Strange, because he been a subscriber for almost 2 years and had gotten over 50 auto responder e-mails!
Tom Ewer says
You can’t account for some people…and yes, I do — thanks for the unsubscribe 😉
One recent comment was that emails were too frequent, but I think two a week is okay in my opinion. What I have done is changed up the autoresponder so it only sends on a Thursday, so the emails are a little more spaced out (as the broadcasts are sent on a Monday).
Another comment said that they were receiving tonnes of spam email from a “Tom Ewer” email address…not good, but I don’t know what I can do about that.