AP 0211: Do You Follow Up with People Who Unsubscribe?

AskPat 211 Episode Transcript

Pat: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 211 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you're doing awesome. We have a great question from Jon. But, before I get to that, I do want to thank today's sponsor.

An old school sponsor of the show. And I appreciate them so much for that. This is ZipRecruiter.com. This is an awesome site. Because, if you're looking to hire anybody for your business, whether you are a business of one or a business of 100 or even more, you know it can be difficult to do that. Because there's a lot of different job sites out there and you have to put a description on each and then kind of vet all, all of the different sites, to find the best candidates. Well, with ZipRecruiter, you can do it with one easy click. So, you can post to actually 50-plus job sites. With a single click you can screen right and hire the right candidates fast. All from one spot. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com. Just try it out. You can actually do it for free, by going to ZipRecruiter.com/Pat. So, hire the right way. Go through ZipRecruiter.com/Pat.

Awesome. Now, let's get to today's question from Jon.

Jon: Hello. This is Jon D. Harrison from ClassicallyTrained.net. The site for life and leadership lessons from classic games. Pat, my question is: What response do you have or follow up, if any, for individuals who unsubscribe to your blog or podcast mail list? Mine’s still pretty small. So, I was curious, do you recommend following up with those individuals via email? Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Hey Jon. Thank you so much for the question. And, before I get to the answer, I just want to say, I went to ClassicallyTrained.net, the site that you mentioned. And, initially when you said that was the name of it, I thought it was something about music. You know, classically trained as a musician or maybe an actor. But no, it's about video games and life. And, I think that's super cool. So, very unique and I love it. And, I listened to a little bit of your latest podcast episode. And I just got hooked. Because, I'm all about video games, I grew up with video games. I love the intro music. Anyway, just awesome stuff. Good, good job. Keep pushing forward.

Now, to answer your question. So, for everybody out there, you know, we collect email addresses and not everybody sticks around. When you send an email, that gives people an opportunity to unsubscribe. Often times most of the unsubscribes happen when you send an email, because people are like, oh I don't want this email. I want to get off this list. And so, they unsubscribe.

Now, when people unsubscribe, and most email providers that puts them into a list of people who are unsubscribed. It doesn't necessarily, and doesn't typically delete them entirely. For AWeber, which is the company that I use and that is a sponsor of the show as well. They have it so that when people unsubscribe, they are put or marked as unsubscribed and you still have to delete them if you want them completely off your list. And so a good trick for all of you if you are using AWeber is just—not really a trick, it's just something that we should all be doing—is make sure that when people unsubscribe, if you're not going to deal with them anymore, don't pay for them. Because, you will continue to pay for them as a subscriber. Unless you completely delete them. So, you can go into your subscribers tab and then filter out those who have unsubscribed. And then, delete those all in one fell swoop. Or, a few fell swoops, if you have more than a hundred, because you can only see a hundred at a time.

When I first did that, I had about 4,000 people I had to unsubscribe. Or, excuse me, delete who had unsubscribed. Now, that might sound like a lot of people, and it is. 4,000 people is quite a lot. And again, more people have unsubscribed over time and when I send an email out, because I have about 95,000 on my email list. You know, I get up to 100 unsubscribes sometimes. Sometimes more, depending on the content of that email. And, different types of things will trigger people to unsubscribe.

However, I personally feel like when people unsubscribe that is them telling me that they don't want anymore emails. And so for me to follow up them, with another email, just doesn't make sense. And, I know for me, as a person who subscribes to other lists, when I unsubscribe and I get another email, immediately after, I'm like, no. Please, I told you. I don't want anymore emails. And so, I personally don't want to follow up with people. Or, you know, there are people I know who will, three months down the road, you know, they have it timed so that when a person unsubscribes, three months down the road, you'll get an email that says something like, hey I haven't heard from you in a while. I know you unsubscribed but I just wanted to give you, or I just wanted you to give me one more chance.

And you know, even then, that's just isn't my style. I feel like, if somebody unsubscribes, good. That's my style. And kind of Derek Halpern’s style too. He actually has written a post about this. How you shouldn't worry about the people who have unsubscribed. You don't want those people on your list. They aren't your target market. Those aren't the people who deserve the great content and what you have to share and offer them. If it was meant to be, they will come back.

Sounds like we're talking about relationships, but actually we are. And so, if you continue to deliver content on the front end of your site, or if people continue to still talk about you. Then they're eventually going to come back. And that has happened to me before. A lot of people will subscribe to a list because, they get a free lead magnet or, you know, to them it's not a lead magnet, but to us it is. But, to them it's a free giveaway or free gift. For me it's Ebooks The Smart Way and there are other ones that have come out over time that have helped incentivize people to subscribe. But, sometimes people will subscribe just for that. And then immediately unsubscribe because they don't want the emails. They just want that free thing.

So, a good thing you can do is make sure that giveaway, that lead magnet that you have is superb. Is just fantastic quality. Actionable, memorable, noteworthy, all those types of adjectives. You want your giveaway to make an impression on those who subscribe. So that, a) They wouldn't think twice about unsubscribing, because that thing was so good that they're going want to hear what you have to say after that. Or, if they do unsubscribe and are going through your free giveaway, they might regret unsubscribing and come back. And, in your free giveaway, you should absolutely have, even though you tell people, you know, “subscribe to my email list to get this.”

There's going to be a handful of people who get that, without subscribing, perhaps through people sharing or giving it away to their friends or family or colleagues or followers. So, you want to make sure that at the end of this giveaway, that you have, and that you’re giving away to people who subscribe. You still talk about subscribing to your list. Somewhere at the end you can mention something like, “Hey, if you somehow got this and you’re not on my list, I would love for you to subscribe. Go to this link.” And they can subscribe.

Now, for a lot of people who are subscribing to your list, that's not going to matter and it's not going to be a big deal that it is there. But, to the people who either unsubscribe, and then find their way there, after seeing everything that you had to offer in that free giveaway and then reaching the end. Maybe, having them think twice about what they did and they will re-subscribe. And again, like I said, some people will land or download that thing that you're giving away, without having to go the through email list anyway because people share. And, you want that to happen. But again, you want to make sure you capture those people who feel like they should be on your list who aren't in that giveaway.

So, that's how I would follow up as I'm using air quotes there. “Follow up with people who unsubscribe.” I would let my content and word of mouth do that for me. I wouldn't go out there immediately after people unsubscribe. Even, if it's to get feedback. You know? This has happened to me in the past too where I unsubscribe to a list and I get, not an email back, but even a page, a redirect to a page that says, “Why did you unsubscribe? It would be helpful if you told me.” And, depending on the person, sometimes I'll let them know. And, sometimes I'm just like, no. Please, like I want out, I want to move on with my life.

So, you'll have to play it by ear. And you can test, you can test. But I feel like when people unsubscribe, you know, that's it. You know, you have better things to focus on and more people who are subscribed and are loyal to you and your list that you need to focus your energy on.

So anyway, those are my feelings on it. So Jon, thank you so much for your question. For those of you listening, if you have anything add on this, I would love to hear your thoughts. And I'm sure Jon would to. So use the hashtag on Twitter: #AskPat211. Again, that's #AskPat211. I'll be following along and it'll be really interesting to see what people say. You can also tag me @PatFlynn if you want, to make sure I see those. So, Jon, thank you so much for your question. An AskPat t-shirt is going to be heading your way. Keep up the great work. Keep playing video games. I wish I had more time to play video games.

Anyway, for those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page, through the Speakpipe widget. And I thought it was really cool because I noticed that in the back end of Speakpipe here that Jon actually asked this question through the Speakpipe app for the iPhone. So you can do this on the go too. If you have a question you'd like to ask, you can ask on the go as well. And your phone has a microphone, most likely, I mean, obviously it does or else how would you talk to anybody on the phone.

But anyway, thank you guys so much for listening, I really appreciate it. I also want to thank today's sponsor: ZipRecruiter.com. With it you can post up to 50-plus job sites, to help find the right candidates for your business. Whether you are a business of one and looking to expand to two, or a business of 100 looking to expand to 200. To check it out go to ZipRecruiter.com/Pat. You can try it for free. ZipRecruiter.com/Pat.

Thanks so much. And as always, I like to end with a quote. And today's quote is from none other than Walt Disney: “The way we get started, is to quit talking and begin doing.” Ain't that the truth. So, I'm going to stop talking, you can stop listening, and let’s both start doing.

Cheers, take care, and I'll see you at the next episode of AskPat.