What! Has she gone mad? Surely that goes against everything that GDPR stands for!!

Yes... and no...

The act of a customer parting with their data to your organisation is one of trust and usually the start of the journey. In business we count the number of new newsletter subscribers we have, the number of new competition entries we've acquired or new survey responders but how often do we really look at the numbers involved in unsubscribe? Yes, I'm sure you check the unsubscribe rate per email and make sure that it isn't increasing or at least is inline with industry standards.

But what are the current email unsubscribe rates? When was the last time you checked yours to ensure you're actually comparing yourself to your competitors? Campaign Monitor's research into current email metrics, sights the UK unsubscribe rate as 0.20%. Whilst this doesn't seem that high, what does that equate to in numbers? I would argue that a better metric is actually the difference between the number that have unsubscribed and the number of new records being generated. Once you've looked at all the emails in your organisation from all the different departments or brands, are you net down in a given week?

Customer data is so important to all businesses and yet we still seem to be a bit slapdash in our approach to it. We usually have targets for new subscribers or competition entrants but who is looking after the unsubscribes?

Food for thought?

OK, maybe I've piqued your interest? Perhaps now is time to consider the approaches you can take to the unsubscribe? Below are a few ways to start thinking and planning for a better exit for your customers and for your businesses when it comes to the unsubscribe.

Give the customer choice

Have you considered an incremental unsubscribe? What I mean by this is presenting the customer with a choice on the unsubscribe page. Perhaps you'd like to offer less frequent emails, or emails about a specific topic.

Preference Centres are under utilised

Dotdigital's "Hitting the Mark" research found that 66% of e-commerce brands are not using a preference centre. A preference centre can be a a fantastic platform to control and manage the preferences for each brand and marketing channel. It puts the control into the hands of your customers which helps engender trust.

Let it rest

Perhaps the best course of action is actually just to rest the data for a while. In their 2019 research of their customers, Selligent Marketing found that those customers that rested their data and didn't send an email for 80 days actually saw open rates increase significantly. So perhaps a better strategy is less is more?