Email attrition, or email churn, occurs when people choose to leave your mailing list over a given time period. It’s a problem that affects all email marketers, so there’s nothing you can do to stop losing your email contacts over time.
On average, businesses lose about a quarter of their mailing list yearly, which sounds pretty bad on the surface. However, it isn’t all that bad. This article explains why email attrition occurs and why it’s actually good for your business.
Causes of Email Attrition:
1. People are Unsubscribing from Your List
No matter how well-thought-out and well-written you think your marketing emails are, there are some subscribers who are always going to unsubscribe after reading every email. This can happen when:
- People don’t find your emails relevant or interesting to read anymore.
- People prefer getting information through other sources (organic search, social media, etc.) instead of receiving emails.
- Your emails are not optimized for mobile devices.
- You’re overwhelming your subscribers with too many emails.
- You’re sending emails to the wrong audience.
In addition, people may decide to unsubscribe from your list due to:
Lack of personalization: Generic, one-size-fits-all emails are a turnoff for many consumers. If you want to keep your subscribers engaged, make sure your emails are tailored to their specific needs and interests.
Boring content: No one wants to read a dull email. Make sure your messages are interesting and engaging by using strong visuals and compelling copy.
Irrelevant content: Sending irrelevant or untargeted emails is a surefire way to lose subscribers. Make sure you segment your list so you can send each subscriber content that’s relevant to them.
This article should guide you on how to reduce subscriber churn.
How Email Unsubscribes Benefit Your Business
a) Gives a True Picture of Your Email Engagement Level
One of the benefits of keeping an eye on the number of people who are unsubscribing from your email list is that it gives you the true picture of the level of engagement your subscribers have with your email content.
A low unsubscribe rate means that a majority of your subscribers find your content valuable, engaging, and interesting. That’s why they’re still on your list.
A high unsubscribe rate, on the other hand, indicates that more of your subscribers don’t want to receive your emails anymore.
This serious issue should make you wonder where the problem is and push you into finding a lasting solution to keep the rest of the subscribers from leaving.
b) Saves You Lots of Time and Money
Knowing your email unsubscribe rate can also save you lots of time and money in the long run.
It’s cheaper and less time-consuming to send marketing emails to 1000 contacts who are truly interested in reading your content than one million people who don’t care about your business.
You’re also likely to get a better conversion rate when your list is small but highly responsive than a large one that doesn’t open or read your emails.
2. You Emails are Bouncing
Another common cause of email attrition is email bounce. Email bounce occurs when your marketing emails can’t be delivered to the inboxes of the intended recipients.
There are two types of email bounces; soft bounce and hard bounce. Soft bounce refers to emails that can’t be delivered at the time they’re sent because of a temporary reason.
For example, the recipient’s inbox can be full, the email servers can stop responding, etc. Such emails usually get delivered to the recipients eventually.
Hard bounces are emails that can’t be delivered to the recipient’s inboxes because of a permanent reason. Here are some reasons why hard bounces occur:
- Your emails have been blocked by the receiving email server.
- The recipient has changed their email address.
- The recipient’s email address is invalid.
- The recipient has a spam filter in place.
How Email Bounces Benefit Your Business
a) Helps to Maintain an Accurate List of Prospects
When you know whose emails have been delivered successfully and whose emails have bounced, it gives you a true picture of the way things are in your email marketing campaign, which helps to maintain an accurate mailing list.
For instance, if your database has 10,000 email contacts in total, but only 2,000 are valid emails, it means that there are only 2000 people you can market your products or services to from your list.
This information can make a huge difference, especially when you’re developing your sales and marketing strategy.
b) Improves Efficiency
In addition, targeting so many contacts with invalid emails is a waste of time and money for your sales team.
But, when you know the email addresses that have bounced and get rid of them from your database, it can help greatly to improve your overall efficiency.
c) Saves You Money
Lastly, sending marketing emails to prospects costs money. The more contacts you have in your database, the higher you’ll be charged.
Knowing and getting rid of invalid emails from your database reduces the size of your contact list, which means you’ll be charged less.
Summary
Email attrition is a problem that will always be there, but it isn’t bad for your business. It can occur when your email contacts unsubscribe from your list, when your emails bounce, and so on.
Paying attention to your email unsubscribe rate and your email bounce rate can give you an accurate picture of the state of your email marketing campaign and help you to make the necessary changes to improve your conversions.