How To: Keep Your Email Subscribers Once You Have Them [Infographic]

We’ve said it many times before – even though you may be annoyed with all the email marketing messages you get in your inbox, it’s still the most effective form of Internet marketing. When I say ‘effective,’ what I mean is that it drives sales. According to this recent study by Forrester Research, as a marketer, your email subscribers are more valuable from a sales perspective than any followers or fans on your social sites. So how do you keep your email subscribers once you have them?

Email subscribers are just like any Internet users – they are finicky, impatient, and they expect certain things. If you don’t tailor your email marketing efforts to fit their needs, they will simply unsubscribe, and in that moment you will lose them. I subscribe and unsubscribe from email lists every week. As a consumer, I can tell you that the number one reason I unsubscribe is because the marketer sends too many emails. There is a way around this though.

The website Think Geek, for example, does something brilliant with this regard. They send a ton more emails during the holiday season than they normally do. In order to keep people from unsubscribing during that time, they allow users to suspend their email subscription just for that month (so they don’t get bombarded during that timeframe). What a great option to give email subscribers.

This infographic called Why Email Subscribers Unsubscribe by Skadeedle gives some insight into why some people stay and some people go. As you see, you may have even lost some of your subscribers without even knowing it. In other words, not everyone goes to the trouble to unsubscribe. Some people just delete the emails or click the spam or junk button. It’s important to treat your email subscribers with care and respect. After all, many times an email is the last stop before repeat customers make a purchase.