4 Deadly Newsletter Mistakes that Make Your Readers Unsubscribe

Is your newsletter losing subscribers faster than you can attract new ones?  Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at why they’re leaving.  If your newsletter makes any of the following subscription-killing mistakes, it’s time to take action immediately.

Deadly Mistake #1 - Selling out your subscriber list.  It’s tempting to want to share your subscribers or sell them to another newsletter – especially when the price is right.  It’s also tempting to convince yourself that they won’t know it was you. 

Guess what? They know.  Oftentimes people use a select email address they’ve created “just” to subscribe to your newsletter – and when that email address starts getting junk mail and newsletters, you can believe they’ll know who was responsible.

Take the high road. You wouldn’t want your personal contact information shared – don’t share your subscriber’s information either.  If you have ongoing joint ventures where it’s more common to share lists – make sure your readers know that they’ll be sent information from someone else.  And say so up front – don’t bury it in the legalese of your privacy policy.

Deadly Mistake #2 – Not staying in touch regularly.  With the hundreds of emails they likely get every day, it’s all too easy for your readers to actually forget who you are and why you’re writing.  Keeping them “in the loop” with new updates, recent (and relevant) news, or a special offer or discount on one of your products is a good reason.  

You can choose the frequency of sending your newsletter – but remember that staying in touch too much (emails every single day) is just as annoying as not staying in touch at all, or irregularly.

Deadly Mistake #3 – Not Asking for Suggestions.  Your readers might have some great ideas on how you can improve your newsletter, including how often you send it, what you put in it and a lot more.  But you’ll never know unless you ask them!  One easy way to do this is to use a free online survey and give away a free report, sample or coupon for their time.

Plus, giving your newsletter a sprinkle of “interactivity” through a survey or other feedback method will help your readers feel as if their input matters (and it should!)

Deadly Mistake #4 – Not Letting Readers Forward Your Newsletter – This is a common mistake for e-mails written in HTML. Oftentimes they contain a lot of images and complex layouts which, if you wanted to forward the email to a friend or colleague, makes it impossible to do so. 

Plus, many e-mail software programs today automatically block images from senders you don’t know, or they attach the whole message as an “.eml” file, which is often used to send viruses over email.  Instead, make it easy for your readers to forward the mail to their friends.  You might get some subscribers you never would have reached otherwise. 

Writing your message in “plain text” seems like a bland way to send an email, but remember, the content of your mail is much more important to your reader than all the bells and whistles you use to highlight it!

Overall, when writing and sending your email newsletter, do so as if you were on the receiving end of the message.  What would you want to know? How could you improve it? 

These are the kinds of questions to ask yourself to make sure your subscribers stay satisfied.  And if you’d like more information on adding newsletter functionality to your own site, why not get a free quote through iElectrify.com?  There’s no cost and nothing to sign up for.

Recommended Tools and Resources

• Add Audio to Your Website
• Wordpress Tutorials