The peak-end rule goes back 32 years. So why is unsubscribing from email such a lousy experience?

We’ve all heard that ‘You only get one chance to make a good first impression.’ Always make an effort to present yourself well. But the end of an experience is often as memorable as its best moment. Researchers have dubbed this the “peak-end rule”. The TL;DR is that the most memorable part of an experience is the most intense bit (the peak) and the end of the experience.

However long the experience – it could be a restaurant meal, a vacation, a job, a romance, or customer’s relationship with a company – the moment of greatest emotional intensity (good or bad) and the final moment are what people remember. The peak and the end become the basis for judging the experience.

 

Please release me, let me go

So, why does unsubscribing from an email list suck? If you can find an unsubscribe link on a site or in an email, it doesn’t just unsubscribe you. It’ll probably take you to a page that wants you to do a survey on why you’re unsubscribing. And every one of those surveys looks the same. This example is from Hubspot:

I’m no longer interested.

I didn’t sign up for your mailing list.

I receive too many emails.

Your emails are not relevant to me.

Other.

No shade on Hubspot, though. Everyone else is doing the same thing. Mailchimp, Mailerlite and Mailpro are all singing from the same page. These companies, and many more in the same space, are providing mailing list services and baking in the ‘standard’ unsubscribe experience. A one-size-fits-none solution that antagonises subscribers and gives the user generic results.

How did this happen?

Based on years of experience in and around the tech business, the story goes that some developers were asked to build in a ‘why are you unsubscribing survey’ into some mailing list software (I’m sure it goes back to before they were called apps). Every other company in the sector asked their developers to do the same. And they did. Literally.

And when a company implements a mailing list and uses one of these applications, the marketer asks their IT person to turn on the survey because their boss wants to know what’s going on with the mailing list. So they turn on the default.

The experience is going to shape a subscriber’s impression of the company. Why aren’t companies working hard to make the breakup amicable? Instead, they’re asking you to go to work for them and do a survey. And I’ve heard that some use the opportunity to try to talk users out of an unsub. Don’t be so clingy! Let them go.

 

Try a little tenderness

There is a way to improve your relationship with your email subscribers and maybe reduce those awkward unsubscribe moments.

First, understand why unsubscribes happen. Research shows that the number one reason for unsubscribing is the subscriber gets too many emails. The numbers on this vary from 20 per cent to more than 40 per cent, but either way, that’s a lot. What’s the solution? Simple: don’t email as frequently OR give them the option to subscribe to a lower-frequency option, receiving them weekly instead of daily or every month instead of weekly.

“Not Relevant” and “No Longer Interested” came in at about 17 per cent each as a reason to unsubscribe. This is a tough one to hear. Being clear about what subscribers are getting before they subscribe might reduce this.

Interestingly, about 10 per cent of respondents said they didn’t remember subscribing. They may be forgetful, which can’t be helped. Or the company may have signed them up without explicit permission when they registered for a webinar or to download a whitepaper. Not a good practice. It gives you an unpleasant peak and a bad end.

Offering subscribers options around frequency and content can help reduce unsubscribes, but when an unsubscribe comes, maybe companies should look on the bright side.

 

Here comes the sun

Unsubscribes aren’t all bad news. Instead of fighting unsubscribers, companies should consider the benefits. Unsubscribes increase open rates because inactive users are removed. Costs go down when fewer messages are sent. And, just as an unpleasant unsubscribe process can sour a former subscriber, a straightforward process shows you respect and appreciate them and leaves things on good terms.

Unsubscribing to mailing lists is so important that the Content Marketing Institute says that having an ‘unsubscribe strategy’ is as important as having a subscriber acquisition strategy. They suggest some good ways to make the process pleasant for everyone, including proactively checking and offering to unsubscribe users that haven’t opened an email in, for example, six months. The email gives them the option to opt in and continue the sub or they will be automatically removed. If you visit the CMI page, look out for the hilarious auto-unsub email from Managing Editor magazine.

After diving down the unsubscribe rabbit hole, we know why all unsubscribe pages look the same and we now understand the psychology of why they make us feel bad. But the good news is that there are ways to improve the relationship between company and email subscriber so that everyone feels good, even if that relationship ends.