Let’s be honest: No one likes to see that someone has left you. And I’m not talking about your offline relationships, I’m talking about when someone stops reading your blog, or your newsletter, or unfollows you on Twitter. Sometimes it’s because of something you did or said.
But sometimes it’s not about you, it’s about them.
I started the Think Like a Rock Star newsletter back in February(You can sign up HERE). It’s had slow and steady growth, and now has over 500 subscribers.
I have two goals for this newsletter:
1 – Give subscribers information on how they can begin to create closer connections with their biggest fans
2 – Give subscribers information on how they can work with me
Now to help with that first goal, every newsletter has original content that you don’t see here. Well you will occasionally see me talk about something here that’s already been in the newsletter. But the newsletter subscribers will get that information first. It’s honestly a LOT of work and I often wonder if I am putting TOO MUCH into the content I share there.
To help with that second goal (telling subscribers how they can work with me), once or twice a month I will publish an additional issue of my newsletter highlighting one or two services that I offer that I think they would be interested in learning more about.
Every time after I send one of these ‘work with me’ emails, I immediately see a spike in unsubscribers.
Is that a bad thing? Not in my eyes, because by unsubscribing, these people are telling me that they have zero interest in working with me. So much so that if I even mention the possibility, they are gone. So if one of the main goals for my newsletter is to drive new business and they don’t want to work with me, then we are wasting both of our times, so them leaving is a good thing for both of us.
The people that unsubscribe have typically already made the decision a long time ago that your content wasn’t valuable to them, they just haven’t gotten around to officially ‘cutting ties’. I’ll get a few unsubscribers from this post, I know because every day when I get an email saying my latest blog post has gone out, within 5 mins I will get a few notices of unsubscribes.
So don’t worry if people leave you online, that just makes it easier for you to find the people you are supposed to be connected to!
PS: And if you want to leave me after reading this post, I won’t hold it against you 🙂
A while back, when I was trying to be all serious with one of my other little blogs, I had some subscribers – I’m talking a handful here. One of my friends decided to unsubscribe and I politely asked her why. She gave me great feedback by simply saying something like, “Well, I already read your blog via an RSS feeder and follow you on Facebook and was just trying to clean up and declutter my inbox.” This immediately taught me that I need to provide other content that I don’t share anywhere else, maybe. I have an automated email subscription now via feedburner and all it does is takes my current content and delivers it to subscribers. I’m thinking, eventually, I’d like to go back to MailChimp where I can customize the content. Thanks for sharing Mack.
Hi Carol! That’s a good point about providing unique content, and your friend wasn’t unsubscribing cause they didn’t want to hear from you, just cause they thought they would be duplicating content. But that feedback helped you decide what type of content to create, moving forward!
Years ago, I had one of my best online friends email me out of the blue one day. She said ‘Mack I have to ask you something because this has been bothering me for a while now. But why don’t you have my blog on your blogroll?” She took it as an insult and slight against her blog that I didn’t have it on my blogroll, but the reality is that I hadn’t updated my blogroll in months at the time, and had stopped doing so, it had nothing to do with not wanting to add her blog!
It’s often easy to jump to the wrong conclusions about why people do the things they do 🙂
It is funny how we take things like that personally!
You are so right that it makes sense for everyone that those who are not interested should unsubscribe. Numbers mean nothing if they are not opening or reading your newsletters. It is better for you to have a more accurate picture of your true following.
Jennifer as long as you are still reading then I must be doing something right 😉
You are indeed! 🙂
Thanks for this post ~ I feel so much better now! 🙂 I have always felt a little pang of guilt when I unsubscribe to what I consider to be very valuable information to some … just not to me. I tell myself that it’s a good thing that this company won’t be wasting precious mktg $$ & sales time plugging me into a funnel in which I don’t belong.
Some do, however, provide me with excellent information and valued smartitude so I stay and enjoy the insight.
Exactly, it’s far better to unsubscribe than just keep talking newsletter that you no longer want (which is what I do too often!).
Oh, and hi 😉
I just caught a few this week Mack. I followed up with a ‘sorry to see you go’ letter, but you-‘re right – I shouldn’t panic when someone leaves. Maybe Carol is right and they cutting duplicate info; I know I’ve purged some Reader content, trying to streamline and save time. Maybe you’re right and my blog isn’t for them, meaning maybe they’re not for me. Win-win. FWIW.