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7k Subscribers and List Attrition - Am I an Idiot or Genius?

by Chris The Traffic Blogger
17 replies
Right now I am allow my blog feed to broadcast (Daily) to my aweber subscriber list of almost 7,000 people. I also give them a 7 day course in the form of follow up emails.

Besides this, on occasion (usually friday-saturday) I give one notification style email regarding news and events.

So on any give day, a member of my email list could receive 3 EMAILS!

This does two things:

Makes people hate my emails and unsubscribe.
Makes people love my emails and recommend it to their friends.

I like to call this list attrition, because by sending so many emails I am thinning my list in the process of keeping only the people who really love my stuff.

However, this could be a huge mistake because marketing isn't about the "Yes" or "No" people, it's about the "Maybe"s. Am I scaring away the maybe's before I can really convince them of my expertise?

So now I put it to you, sheer idiocy or pure genius? ... you decide!
#attrition #genius #idiocy #idiot #list #pure #subscribers
  • Profile picture of the author Raja Kamil
    It doesn't matter how many emails you send to your subscriber per day, but the most important, how valuable your email to them. IMO.
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    • Profile picture of the author M Thompson
      What are the open rates??

      I find that if i get lots of emails from 1 person i generally just delete them without opening them.

      If i get only a few i generally open them.

      You might find you actually get more opened by sending less
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris The Traffic Blogger
        The open rate is 20% for blog posts and about 60% for announcements.

        Many subscribers are only there for the announcements, but the 20% that open the blog posts from my broadcast don't visit the website, so I am basically catering to two separate audiences.

        There are people who use my emails as the only means of getting information from me and those people who read the blog and the emails.
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
      Only your subscribers can decide if your strategy is the
      most effective one.

      Rather than asking for opinions here from people who most
      likely aren't on your list, do a split-test instead of your actual
      list.

      For the first half of the split, keep doing what you're doing
      and measure results.

      For the second half, try a different frequency and approach.

      Doing a split-test will allow your list to tell you - by their
      behavior - which method works best.

      Even though you may be getting a lot of unsubscribes, at
      least you're getting some response.

      In marketing, you've got to be prepared to repel strongly
      if you want to attract more people who suit your style.

      The worse thing to be is in the middle of the road where
      you don't get much response either way.

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
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  • Profile picture of the author Giani
    Two emails a week is tolerable by subscribers. But don't sell in every email. 3 information emails followed by 1 sales email
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
      Originally Posted by Giani View Post

      Two emails a week is tolerable by subscribers. But don't sell in every email. 3 information emails followed by 1 sales email
      Where did you pull these statistics from?

      The frequency of contact is a secondary issue compared
      to the quality and relevance of the content and offers
      placed in each e-mail.

      I'm on some lists that e-mail me daily and I look forward
      to receiving them because they contain content and offers
      that are highly relevant to me.

      There are no hard and fast rules for the frequency of e-mail
      contact that will apply to ALL lists.

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris The Traffic Blogger
      Originally Posted by Giani View Post

      Two emails a week is tolerable by subscribers. But don't sell in every email. 3 information emails followed by 1 sales email
      Giani, I have posts (either from me or my blog writers) every day, and a good chunk of my subscribers read them through my emails.

      I send a sales email out sometimes once a week, not usually any more than that.

      Would it be better to do a weekly recap you think? Maybe that would be a good split test as was suggested by Shaun. That way I am only sending out maybe 3 emails per week.
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      Originally Posted by Giani View Post

      Two emails a week is tolerable by subscribers. But don't sell in every email. 3 information emails followed by 1 sales email
      This may apply to your list, but certainly is not supported by anything but anecdotal guestimates. My lists are quite large, and many have been subscribers for over 11 years even though I send emails everyday with hard hitting promotions along with valuable free tools, resources, reports, etc. As long as you set expectations for your subscribers upfront when they opt-in, and are consistent, they will accept it.

      @Chris The Traffic Blogger
      Three emails a day is a bit much, even for my subscribers, LOL!
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  • Profile picture of the author sme
    You might want to start list segregation instead of the attrition. Just send a new email to your list telling them to opt in to a different list if they want to recieve the blog updates. Those who just want the announcements will not subscribe to that. Those who are interested will subscribe. So you don't lose any subscribers and you give people exactly what they want.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris The Traffic Blogger
      Originally Posted by sme View Post

      You might want to start list segregation instead of the attrition. Just send a new email to your list telling them to opt in to a different list if they want to recieve the blog updates. Those who just want the announcements will not subscribe to that. Those who are interested will subscribe. So you don't lose any subscribers and you give people exactly what they want.
      I was trying to figure out the best way to implement something like this, perhaps providing a link in the email for them to go to a page to signup just for updates?

      Thank you by the way, this is the kind of information that can help me solve this issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author vok
    I unsubscribed recently from a lot of lists because I was getting a lot of emails, I don't mind a good quality email if it's giving me good info. But these guys were only interested in the hard sell, just spam your email box and send you to as many clickbank products as possible.

    These were guru's too which was even more shocking, seems the guru tatic is the hard sell p*ss everybody off tatic. My iphone email alerts would never stop pinging, it was driving me crazy in the end and just wasting my time deleting and picking through my emails.

    So one night I spent a good half an hour to an hour just getting rid of anyone who's only interested in spamming you with worthless junk.
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  • Profile picture of the author Owen Smith
    I guess that 3 of those emails are all offers? If so you will create a dead list, after all, who can afford 3 products a day 365/year?

    -Owen
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Shaun, you are such a bright guy. Have I ever told you that?

      To the OP...just listen what Shaun said. This is coming from somebody with
      a list that is small but responsive because I know my market and know how
      to treat them.

      And when I say small, I mean relatively small. Not like these guys who have
      lists over 50,000 and 100,000 people.

      What matters is what kind of response you get. If a majority unsubscribe
      and nobody buys anything then either your approach is wrong or your
      targeting a market without money to spend or both.

      There are no hard and fast rules to list building and list management.

      Do...observe...tweak.
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris The Traffic Blogger
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        Shaun, you are such a bright guy. Have I ever told you that?

        To the OP...just listen what Shaun said. This is coming from somebody with
        a list that is small but responsive because I know my market and know how
        to treat them.

        And when I say small, I mean relatively small. Not like these guys who have
        lists over 50,000 and 100,000 people.

        What matters is what kind of response you get. If a majority unsubscribe
        and nobody buys anything then either your approach is wrong or your
        targeting a market without money to spend or both.

        There are no hard and fast rules to list building and list management.

        Do...observe...tweak.

        I guess my question would be better phrased like this: "Do you find that sending lots of great content at a list (sometimes 3 emails of useful information per day) is too much? I have had 1,000 people unsubscribe from the list and 7,000+ stay so far. When I do broadcast a product I usually see a few sales but nothing spectacular. 99% of my earnings come from selling my own product, and this email responder helps build credibility for selling that product.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dave Lianelli
    On top of what Steven said...

    Imagine if you try, test and analyse your way to 80%+ click / subscriber ratio's.

    Then imagine you got a list of 50,000!

    -----

    In response to the OP:

    Have you ever thought about giving your unsubscribers the option to choose for less emails? Have an opt-in box at your unsub-page to unsubcribe them from your regular list and put them on a weekly-newsletter-only list.

    Remember: some people ARE interested in your content. They just don't want to receive emails daily.
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