How do you handle negative feedback or unsubscribes from your email follow-up?

Feedback that is positive or negative, is a gift to be unwrapped and cherished. When someone isn't happy and they make the time to tell you so, then my advice if there is still an opening, a connection point, is to reach out and to listen generously. And if it makes sense then act upon it as the feedback from one is often the sentiment from many.

Receive feedback as information you can use to improve your outcome. If you're online long enough, you will upset some in today's environment. Don't take it personally. Ask yourself: - Is it true? - Can I improve? - Do I need to take action? - Do I need to adjust the creative process? Feedback allows your creative process to develop and learn what you're creating and who it is you're creating it for. People who are unhappy are not your audience if you're talking about the content. Create and work on creating the content you want for your community and understand that audience and community are two different people. Create a community that cares about the topic and a place they can access it.

When it comes to negative feedback or unsubscribes, I like to think of it as a "quality control" mechanism. It helps me refine my content, ensuring I'm delivering value to those who truly appreciate it. Plus, I'm a firm believer that every unsubscribe saves me from sending my carefully crafted emails to the digital abyss. After all, a leaner subscriber list means a more engaged audience!

Handling negative feedback or unsubscribes in email marketing requires a positive and professional mindset. Listen to and acknowledge concerns, respond promptly, offer solutions, respect their decision to unsubscribe, and learn from the feedback. Remember that negative feedback and unsubscribes are normal and not personal. Approaching these situations professionally can improve relationships with subscribers and strengthen overall email marketing strategies.

By embracing feedback, you demonstrate to your audience that their opinion matters, and that you value their input. Responding to both positive and negative feedback shows that you're actively listening and taking action to improve their experience. This helps nurture relationships with your most engaged customers or followers, as well as creates a culture of trust and transparency. By incorporating feedback into your strategy, you'll not only improve your performance, but also build stronger connections with your audience.

Definitely show empathy. Often follow up is viewed as an intrusion or interruption marketing. I’ve tried to be graceful, take blame and thank the negative person for their time.

As a marketer, I absolutely love negative feedback. While it's not always easy to hear, it presents a unique opportunity to engage someone on a personal level and turn them into a lifelong advocate for your brand. Unfortunately, many brands and marketers shy away from negative feedback, missing out on the chance to connect with their audience and build lasting relationships. So, embrace negative feedback with open arms, and use it to create meaningful 1:1 conversations that will turn your detractors into your biggest fans.

This depends on the feedback, moreover its important to understand the responses. That said, if its a generic response to unsubscribe I don't see a need to engage. However, if there is constructive feedback, then a quick note thanking the user is a good way to engage.

I don't want to be disparaging to any of the comments by expressions like showing empathy seems forced or procedural. As I said earlier, feedback is a gift to be unwrapped and cherished. Listen with intention, listen with generosity, and listen to understand how your customer is thinking, feeling and behaving. Then act upon the feedback by feeding it into your operations. One negative sentiment is often the voice of many.

I have written personal emails to people and they responded with 'unsubscribe'. When this happens, I will usually write back to inform them they weren't part of a list and share why I chose to reach out to them directly. After a clear explanation of my unique interest, I always kindly ask, 'would you still like me to not contact you?'. In all of my experience, not one person has a person responded with 'yes, please unsubscribe me'. It also reminds me to keep my communication with that person sharp and poignant, not to ask for meeting too soon and to take my time earning their time and attention.

I look at every unsubscribe this way “they aren’t my people, they aren’t getting value from it so they are saving room for the people who do get value from it.”

Unsubscribes also increase as the list gets old. So you need to continue to add new people if you want your email list to continue to deliver results

Proper list hygiene would be the first thing on my mind: clean and trim those email lists until you're down to basics. If you're unsure about certain users, just send them a simple email, asking them if they still want to be a part of your mailing list. Other than that, the best way to prevent unsubscribes is to not send unsolicited mail in the first place. Consent is king.

I don't take unsubscribes personally. I would rather people unsubscribe to my emails rather than have them sitting in their inbox or deleting them without even reading them. That way you are not second-guessing if people aren't reading them because the subject line isn't catchy enough etc. I would rather have a small engaging list than a large list that will never buy from me.

What NOT to do after a negative feedback: ?? Don't overreact and repeatedly call/interact with the customer ?? Don't flood him with messages ?? Avoid being rude or asking him to account for his opinion, the number of stars on Facebook or Google. ?? Trying to opine or assume what you think happened will only hurt you more. ???? How do you behave after a negative or "do not recommend" review? ????You are apologizing and not trying to fabricate your version of the story. ???? It is preferable to respond quickly and in an honest manner "I'm sorry for your negative experience."

At the end of each calendar year, take a look back at the content in each of your organization's monthly newsletters. Using the simple, built-in analytics tools in your email marketing platform, track what content garnered the most clicks to determine what your audience is most interested in reading. Try to identify commonalities among the lowest performing content. For example, if all of your feature stories are underperforming while Q&As do well, consider adjusting the balance between the two types of content and producing more of what the audience is reading. If the content feels more relevant to the reader, the less likely they are to unsubscribe.

I'd suggest reading the email back to yourself - would it stop you in your tracks? Is it easy to read and understandable? Would you reply to it? If the answer is no, then why would your prospect bother to reply. They receive a huge amount of outreach and it's harder than ever to get a response - so make sure your content is relevant and personalised to them, offers something of value, and includes an easy action for them to take. Look at unsubscribes as data - it's showing you what works and what doesn't. Next time, the results might be different.

Sometimes unsubscribes happen because a user just feels overwhelmed by their inbox and simply want to remove as many subscriptions as possible. This may have little to nothing to do with the cadence, content, date/time or any other logical reason. I’ve done it and am in favor of thinking it happens more than we can calculate or measure in any metric. Unless you have an exit poll where you can catch some of these possibly.

Negative feedback is instructive. About changing, especially thoughtful negativity. Use it. I always have and it has led to important pivots.