Every month we'll be featuring a question sent in by one of our readers and asking you to contribute your thoughts and advice.

In August Rob from Brighton asked: 'My company sends out a regular email newsletter to around 5,000 subscribers but every month since we started at least 10 people unsubscribe – what are we doing wrong?'


Here's what our readers had to say:

I would suggest first and foremost that Rob looks at the quality of his initial list, where has this data come from, was it purchased, or are they recipients that expressed a keen interest in receiving info about the company?

If the lists were purchased then this drop off may well just be a filtering process as initial recipients that don’t have any real interest gradually fall off.

Secondly, is the frequency too high? Can the company truly offer a valuable news/info service at this frequency or are there times when emailers are being distributed that are purely going out due to the monthly commitment rather than the company actually having anything to say?

In connection to this, is the information in the email of real interest to anybody outside the company? Look at each content element in turn and place an internal/external stakeholder relevance percentage mark, those that fall more in internal than external should be removed.

Lastly, try turning the proposition on its head. We have come to learn how websites need to be user centric if they are to perform at the very highest level. However, such thinking often goes out of the window when we jump onto e-marketing.

In my opinion Orange have one of the best e-marketing distributions, this not only has a sensible distribution frequency (so users don’t think 'oh no, not them again') and is totally external stakeholder driven, but also puts users in control as they select which content they do/don’t want to receive (this is then re-communicated at the top of each email with the option to change).

This proposition could be taken even further with a little lateral user centric thinking.

Rob’s current situation should flag up some pretty big warning signs, and it’s important that the company resolves this situation quickly and effectively. If any unsubscribing user is moved to regard the emailers as spam and reports Rob’s company then it could spell big trouble for all the company’s email communications, as they battle to get removed from blacklists.

Adie – Deviate, Barnsley

An unsubscribe rate of 10/5,000 is only 0.2% per month or about 2.4% per year, which is way below industry averages. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things you can still do.

Firstly, present users with the option to update their details, as opposed to just unsubscribing. Not only might people prefer it sent to a different email address (e.g. due to changing jobs), but also offering the option to receive it less frequently (say quarterly, instead) might keep a couple more in the fold.

Offering email in both plain text and html can help, as will providing RSS feeds instead for those suffering from email overload. Finally, if they insist on unsubscribing try asking them for a reason, again make this voluntary, and easy, via a short list of tick boxes, plus an 'other – please suggest' option.

Anthony – Epoq Group, Edgware

What’s his content, is he tailoring it to the individual companies? Are they still the right people? Has he got news or is he just sending 'stuff' for the sake of sending stuff? I don’t think regular and monthly go together. 

Email is about being much more regular, splitting your list, finding their interests and making it personal! 10 out of 5000 doesn’t seem like too bad a number of unsubs… so long as he’s building into it as well!

Sarah – FaceTime Communications Inc, London