Is there a penalty for a high unsubscribe rate?

There is no penalty for having a high unsubscribe rate. Yes, you should offer them an unsubscribe link so they can opt out whenever they want to, but that is not what they are talking about in the courses you have read.
What they mean is: minimize your unsubscribe rate by offering great value to your subscribers. This way you'll keep more subscribers and because of the value you have offered them, they will probably buy the stuff you promote.

My thought is, you're worrying about stuff that hasn't even happened. Why not think about how to build the list and start doing the things to make it happen and quit thinking about the things that haven't.

There are different schools of thought regarding unsubscribe rates. However, generally, if you can keep people on your list chances are they will buy. Granted that there will always be people on your list that will nevef buy and that's fine, but if people stay on your list there are ways to get them to eventually buy.

No two lists are alike as each one has it's own unique set of traits, statistics, demographics, content (or lack thereof), etc.

I keep people on most of my lists by providing outstanding value and unadvertised bonuses and freebies that actually provide a solution to a specific problem. In some markets I will hold 2 to 3 hour long webinars that give a s-load of great content which softens them to my offers.

Then I prune my lists of unwanted folks sometimes by asking them to re-opt into a new list (I don't do that with customer lists though, only prospect lists).

I never try to hide the unsubscribe link or put a ton of spacing so it's so far on the bottom that some people won't find it (btw, that's against the TOS of most autoresponder companies to do that).

RoD

Perversely, a high unsubscribe rate could, in the short term, work in your favor.

Many of the big systems rate email based on user interaction, for purposes of delivery. That includes opening the mail and clicking on links in it. Most people will do both in order to unsubscribe. So, it could mean a bump in the interaction scores.

I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't true for all the systems using that sort of ranking algorithm, but it fits the public descriptions. (There's always a lot of hidden voodoo in those systems, so who knows?)

I'm not aware of any system that penalizes senders for high unsubscribe rates. I'd be surprised if they were unusually high, though, without also triggering higher than usual spam complaint rates, which are a whole other story.


Paul

who are you thinking will penalize you?

google? alexa?

So... i gotta admit...

I'm a total NOOB when it comes to autoresponders...

why would you use one? why would the companies penalize you?

I guess i just dont understand the pros and cons?

Just don't have a high complaint rate

If a course recommends that you MINIMIZE your unsubscribe
rate, then it's probably been written by an inexperienced
e-mail marketer.

Though counter-intuitive, your goal should be to put out
strong content and offers that strongly attract or repel
people from your list.

One of the biggest mistakes that many list builders make
is to 'play it safe' by putting out mild content with little
or no offers - partially to minimize unsubscribes.

My goal as an e-mail marketer is to push the envelope
to more strongly attract the true believers and repel
the non-believers (and get them to unsubscribe).

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

I'm currently running a contest where people enter by signing up for my email newsletter with mailchimp and in 2 weeks I have over 1,200 signups and still counting.

I sent the first email newsletter last Friday and it had a 3.6 percent unsubscribe rate and MailChimp contacted me and warned me that my unsubscribe rate was high which felt odd to me because I didn't think it was. Last Friday, I sent an email to 900 people who signed up and 32 unsubscribed which to me was a win because most of the people on my list only signed up to enter contest. So I explained all of this to Mail Chimp and they removed my warning, and yesterday I sent another newsletter to now 1,213 people in my list, and so far only 26 has unsubscribed and brought my percentage down from 3.6 percent to 2.1 percent. And this time, no warning.

I just hope this trend continues. As far as my emails that I send are concerned, I am not trying to sell them anything in the email. All I want them to do is read my blog posts and that's it. I send out edigests twice a week. I used to do that daily but I thought that was overkill. I'm going to build my list up to hopefully 10,000 within a couple of months and then maybe send out my edigest 3 times a week then.

Always give people a clear path to the exit or they'll break windows to get out. Mark Brownlow of emailmarketingreports.com tested adding an unsubscribe link to the top of his emails years ago and found that his unsubscribe rate almost doubled (small test sampling though).

Here's what he concluded: This is not a bad thing.

• Every unsubscribe is potentially one less spam report.

• Every unsubscribe is one less person likely to get annoyed at me and my website when getting another email.

• Every unsubscribe is one less unwanted email cluttering up the airwaves and inboxes of this world.

I'd rather have people opting out than hitting that spam button any day.


Regards,
jim