My shameful love life
Back when I was a freshly-hatched teenager, I was no good with girls.
In fact, I was so terrified of being rejected, that I never spoke to girls if I could avoid it. I simply pined for them from afar. When, with hindsight, the best thing obviously would’ve been to talk to them and find out if they felt the same way about me.
Thankfully I’m older and wiser these days…
But I was reminded of my teenage dating woes because you might be going through something similar in your business.
You see, I’ve recently spoken to a bunch of pet business owners who only email their list once a month or so. They know they’d make more if they emailed more often… But they’re too scared to.
Why?
In case their subscribers think they’re “spamming” them, and unsubscribe from their list. (i.e. They reject them like a girl rejects a pimple-faced boy)
And I totally get that…
Cause when somebody unsubscribes from your email list, it can feel like a personal attack. You start thinking “What did I do wrong?” and second-guessing yourself.
But in reality, even the most perfect email list has some degree of churn.
And it often has nothing to do with you.
Maybe they found out their pet has special dietary requirements, and your pet food isn’t best for them anymore… Or maybe they recently lost their beloved pet, and seeing emails from you is a sore reminder of that. Or any number of things that are completely out of your control.
So you shouldn’t take it personally.
More:
The purpose of a business is, obviously, to make munny. And an email list can be a big part of that. But when you only email once a month, so that you can keep as many subscribers as possible, you’re not using your email list anywhere close to its full munny-making potential.
It’s like having a bunch of nails you want to knock into some wood… But you’re afraid to use your shiny hammer to do it because you might get some scuffs and scratches on it.
At some point you have to decide – what’s more important to you?
Having a slightly bigger email list…
Or bringing in way more of the green stuff?
Truth is, unsubscribes are not the boogeyman. They are merely a symptom – a warning sign – of the REAL boogeyman:
Your audience being disengaged.
And the problem is that when you’re emailing your list every month or so, you’re actually making your disengagement problem far worse.
I sometimes get emails where I’m like “Whoa, who is this? I don’t remember ever signing up for this guy’s list…” And then I check their website, and I remember that, actually, I did sign up. But they email me so infrequently that I clean forgot about them.
Meanwhile, I’m signed up to other lists who mail me every day, or sometimes even multiple times a day.
And the reason I don’t consider them “spammy” because the emails they send me are highly interesting. They’re not blatant pitches. They’re entertaining, and use stories, and talk about things relevant to me. I can’t get enough of them. And if they sent me more, I’d read more.
So you see, people leaving your list is probably not because you mailed them too often.
It’s because you mail them too often with emails that don't interest them.
And if you’d like to know how to write engaging emails (which are less likely to trigger a flood of unsubscribes), a great place to start is my newsletter: