I have noticed an increase in the rate of un-subscribes over the last few weeks. I believe that is at least in part due to the increased work levels across the board as people try to achieve as much as possible before Christmas and the end of year.

So, what can you do to reduce the likelihood that your contacts with un-subscribe at this time?

Value is king – providing value in your emails is always the most persuasive reason people have to stay on your email list. The question for you is what do my contacts perceive as value. It might be any of the things listed below, or something entirely different, the important thing is to know what your contacts value:

• special offers, especially when they are only available to people who receive the messages
• free shipping of products – this is especially appreciated by Christmas shoppers short of time, but not wanting to spend more on shipping. We’ve added a new Free Shipping image into eNudge to help you communicate this to your contacts.
• information that helps your contacts achieve more with less, or save time
• information that gives your contacts an edge
• information that enables your contacts to solve a problem they have e.g. don’t know what to buy someone for Christmas!

Make Skimming Easy – including a table of contents at the top of your email helps your contacts to consume your message, finding the items more important to them, more easily. Using topic headings also helps to make it easy to find information. If you make it easy to read, people are less likely to un-subscribe.

Keep it short – if you have a lot to say, put that information into a web page, and include just a teaser to it in your email. This also contributes to making it easier for people to skim through your email.

Make it Personal – if your contacts feel like you are having a 1 on 1 conversation with them, they are also less likely to un-subscribe. You can do that through personalisation e.g. including their name and company in your email. If you have a bit more time, you can also include a personalised paragraph in your message. It’s not hard to do with eNudge.

Target your Emails more Carefully – that is, if you have different types of people in your contact database, go to the trouble of creating different emails to send to these different groups. A very obvious example is a Christmas message to your customers will be very different to a Christmas message to your suppliers. This consideration is also related to the first point above – adding value. What is valuable to one segment of your target audience, may not be valuable to other segments.

Add Humour – if you give your contacts something to laugh at, even if they don’t feel that a particular email is of value to them, they will be less likely to un-subscribe.

Ensuring People Know they Have Joined Your List – this applies to any time of the year, but especially at this time. Make sure that you not only get consent before sending messages to your contacts, but make sure each person knows they have given you consent – don’t hide it in fine print, and don’t assume.

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Though it’s been around for over 10 years now, the concept of Software-as-a-Service model is becoming more prevalent, helped by the increasing launch of new web based applications such as Google Apps, and dare I self-promote, eNudge!

So what is Saas? Wikipedia describes it as “… a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires.” The model is pay as you use, for what you use.

There are lots of benefits, the most common being: cheaper software costs, paying for software just while you need it, without high costs of installation and purchase, and easier to work with others and remotely from your organisation through web-based applications.

I know that some of you are using SaaS applications to assist you to collaborate with virtual teams e.g. Google Calendar. So, I have three questions:

1/ Are you satisfied with the reliability and performance of the applications?
2/ Have you found them to be value for money?
3/ Are you considering utilising more SaaS applications in future e.g. are you considering using Google Docs (the SaaS ‘equivalent’ to Word, Excel and Powerpoint), Gmail for Business (rather than Outlook)?

Share your answers by posting a comment below.

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