10 Actionable Tips To Reduce Email Bounce Rates
Unsubscribe rates are one of the really important email marketing metrics.
Of course, other factors also matter – including open rate (open rate), click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate (CR). However, it is the unsubscribe rate that can tell a lot about your customers and their preferences. It makes it clear what kind of content they like and how often they would like to receive updates from you.
WHAT IS UNSUBSCRIBE RATE IN MARKETING?
The unsubscribe rate expresses the percentage of customers who opted out of receiving emails after an email campaign. This is the proportion of potential buyers who are no longer interested in your news. For example, if 10,000 emails were sent during an email campaign and 100 customers unsubscribed from your email campaign, then the unsubscribe rate will be 1%.
Unsubscribing customers may offend you, but this is quite common in the world of online marketing. Unsubscribes can happen for a variety of reasons, so don’t take them too personally. Don’t worry – your client may no longer be interested in the subject lines of your emails, or they are just looking to make their inbox a little cleaner. After all, the average unsubscribe rate in the industry is around 2%.
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR WITH HIGH UNSUBSCRIBE RATES
If your unsubscribe rate is above average, you should think about it and try to figure out how you could keep customers.
The first thing to do is to study the statistics of the last email campaign that could have caused bounces. If your unsubscribe rate doesn’t change over time, there might be other reasons as well.
Let’s take a look at what typically motivates customers to unsubscribe and what you can do about it. By following these tips when developing your email marketing strategy, you can reduce unsubscribe rates.
1. Sending frequency
The first thing you need to figure out is the number of emails you send to customers.
Perhaps the email frequency is too high and you are annoying people? A large number of letters can easily be mistaken for annoying advertising. Because of them, customers will quickly unsubscribe or, even worse, start marking your messages as spam.
Also Read: Top 3 Email Marketing Campaign Trends For 2022
At the same time, too low an email frequency will lead to the fact that your brand will simply be forgotten.
No one wants to receive a barrage of marketing emails or advertisements every day. The optimal email frequency is once a week.
2. Come up with original themes
A good topic should arouse interest and curiosity among customers, which will lead to an increase in open rates. Make it personalized, relevant, and interesting. Avoid boring headlines and use your imagination to come up with unusual subject lines for your emails.
In addition, your phrases should be short, pleasant, and reflect the essence of the letter in advance. The subject line of the email should evoke curiosity and create a sense of urgency.
3. Segment your customers
If you know your customers well, it will be easier for you to satisfy their interests. Segmentation is the grouping of a mailing list based on certain general parameters, including location, personal preferences, etc. Segmentation of the email address base will help you create targeted email campaigns that will interest your customers.
4. Personalize emails
When you have enough data about your customers – including their purchase history, date of birth, addresses, etc. – you should start personalizing emails and sending them relevant offers.
People will be more willing to read personalized messages addressed to them personally.
5. Optimize your newsletter for mobile devices
With over 50% of internet traffic coming from smartphones and tablets, you can’t afford to forego mobile optimization. Your content should be visually appealing, easy to read, and easy to view across multiple platforms. A bad mobile experience will reflect badly on the brand and cause a surge in unsubscribes.
6. Use a two-stage subscription (Double-Opt-In)
Often, customers are not even aware that they have subscribed to your newsletter. Make sure you only have workboxes in your database by offering a 2-step subscription. Subscribing customers will need to pre-verify their email addresses so you can be sure they really want to receive emails.
7. Create valuable content
Retaining an existing customer is much easier than acquiring a new one. If a person decides to leave you his email address and subscribes to the mailing list, you should provide him with really valuable content.
The emails you send out should be unobtrusive, informative, and helpful. There is nothing better than high-quality content that will delight your customers and reduce unsubscribe rates.
8. Make it easy to unsubscribe
A large email database is not always a good thing, especially if you have low open rates and low engagement rates. Although it may sound counterintuitive, making it easier to unsubscribe ensures that you have a list of workboxes. Achieve this by providing the ability to unsubscribe with one click.
The unsubscribe button must be prominently displayed in the header and footer. It makes no sense to annoy the client by forcing him to look for her or, even worse, to log in. Customers should be able to unsubscribe just as easily (if not easier) than they can subscribe.
9. Add a selective subscription and ask for feedback
When unsubscribing, you can provide customers with a selective subscription option. If users decide to opt-out anyway, be sure to ask for feedback that can be used to improve your email campaign and change your marketing strategy. Most customers will be happy to share their reasons for unsubscribing.
10. A/B testing
If you’re unsure about a particular nuance—say, the subject or design of an email—do some A/B testing. This is a method where you run one email campaign for one audience segment and another for another, in which you modify only one variable that you want to test. Thus, you can improve your email campaigns step by step and identify the most effective emails.
CONCLUSION
With a re-engagement campaign, you can try to win back customers who no longer open your emails. If you have done everything possible and are still not interested in some of them, it is better to remove their addresses from the database. Then you will get a list of engaged customers and will be able to more accurately measure the return on your investment when organizing email campaigns.
