Why Email Unsubscribes Shouldn't Scare You

This article is more or less an opinion piece written for anyone involved in e-commerce email marketing - either for themselves or for clients.

On Aug 22, I saw the news of credit reporting agency Experian being fined $650,000. Why? They constantly sent emails to customers without giving them the option to unsubscribe.

The first thought that crossed my mind was "this has to be one of the most useless ways to lose money as a business".

And that’s not because there's any good way to lose money, but because their decision to spam customers hurts their business in more than one way.

First off, there are numerous laws ranging from the USA's CAN-SPAM Act to the EU's GDPR that strictly prohibit sending marketing emails without an unsubscribe button.

However, let's forget about the legal aspect for now...

Even just from a marketing point of view, in all my years in email marketing, I've never seen or heard of a situation where forcing customers to receive unwanted emails made them purchase products (have you?)

Essentially kidnapping their inbox isn't gonna give them Stockholm syndrome...

At best, it makes your customers start hating your business and everything it stands for.

At worst, you get slapped with a totally avoidable fine, you get bad press, and someone loses their job.

I'm saying all this because I've spoken to many founders of e-comm brands who get worried after seeing just a few people unsubscribe - and such fear is what can cause unwise decisions like removing the unsubscribe button.

Provided you have all the email marketing fundamentals in place and you're sending only relevant emails to relevant segments of your email list, there's no cause for alarm.

Unsubscribing isn’t always a sign that a customer has churned. There are lots of good reasons why some customers will inevitably want to unsubscribe - even if you're sending the most entertaining and helpful emails on earth.

Maybe they no longer need reminders to buy your product/service because it's already part of their routine. Maybe they've moved to a location that's out of your business' reach. Maybe they're simply trying to declutter their inbox.

Irrespective of their reason, no relationship lasts forever - whether business or personal - and locking the door to prevent someone from leaving only makes them want to leave even more.

In a nutshell, customers will inevitably unsubscribe, and that's just something business owners and email marketers have to come to terms with.