Email subscribers are extremely unforgiving

2 minutes ago, I tried to unsubscribe from somebody’s list (Hey, I can’t read everybody’s damn emails, can I)

And to complete the ‘de-subscription’, the form was asking for my first name, last name and email address.

As in I had to enter them myself, and then click unsubscribe.

I was willing to check a box and click the button, but then I got an error msg chiding me that I’d failed to enter in my details.

Translation: “Hey buddy, I really really want you to hit that ‘spam’ button in your Gmail, that’s why I have set up all these hoops for you to jump through just to get off my list. I don’t give a toss about my deliverability”

So yeah, I’m still subscribed to the list – against my will lol.

And the truth is… a great deal of his persons unsubscribers are clicking ‘spam’, rather than fill out that form.

The stupid thing is, it’s so avoidable.

You can put codes in a link that automagically fill out forms like this. Tech geeks know how to do this and are relatively inexpensive to hire.

Or, just have a one-click unsubscribe like most platforms do. I don’t know which one this was, and I don’t care.

I mean, I’ve ‘failed’ to unsubscribe from somebody because I have to fricken LOG IN to unsubscribe!

Yup, their unsubscribe link goes to a login page.

Meh.

Now, if you’re mailing to a mass market audience, spam reports come with the territory.

Doesn’t make sense to annoy people into reporting who otherwise wouldn’t.

You can lose your email platform for that kinda shit.

I have an offer to the women’s dating market, which I dare NOT piss off – but we manage to maintain a very low spam complaint rate. Even though most of our emails pitch.

There’s a few tricks to that which I might share soon.

The bottom line is – if they want out, let em out. This ain’t The Mob. If your emails are cool, they won’t all suddenly opt out.