Confessions of an Unsubscriber

A guest post by Beth Earle.

This is a great ‘list user’ response to my post about Mailing List Freebie Seekers.

15 Reasons Why I Clicked to Leave a List

There are many reason why I have chosen to unsubscribe from an online marketer’s list.

Here are the main ones:

1. Unprofessionalism.
2. Dishonesty, unethical, or a clash with my personal values.
3. Pushy, too “salesy”, or not enough content in proportion to the amount of sales pitch.
4. Difficult to read format or font size.
5. So many graphics it takes too long to load the page with my internet connection.
6. It was not what I was expecting or looking for.
7. Inundation- numerous emails on a daily basis so that I can never catch up.
8. Total turn-offs such as continuously being whiny and negative, putting the competition down, or bragging about themselves too much instead of thinking of ways to help their readers.
9. Bad fit- either I was not in their target market, our personalities clashed, or the material presented was either too advanced or not advanced enough for me.
10. I have outgrown the interest or finished the project I was working on.
11. Poor customer service.
12. Services and products were either over-priced or higher than my budget allows.
13. The free offering interested me and came with an automatic sign-up but I either didn’t find value in that free sample, or didn’t resonate with the emails that followed.
14. Some emails have no way to change to a new email address, so the only way to do that was to unsubscribe and then re-subscribe.
15. Time constraints and a commitment to myself and my husband- I get hundreds of emails each day, so to add myself to a new list I unsubscribe to one giving me less value.

This system has worked very well for me. I get fresh perspectives on a regular basis, plus high-quality content and motivation.  Amazingly, I am still on some of the original lists that I signed up for years ago! These are lists that continue to keep things exciting and informative.

In 2009 I will be starting my own online business. Every list I have ever been on has been valuable to me in researching for this, even if it is only to learn what I should never do. A big lesson has been that it isn’t the size of the list that matters most, but having subscribers who are the best fit for the particular niche and who are eager for what is being offered. Having said that,on an on-going basis it is imperative to market, to build relationships with clients, and to generate visability for your business in order to grow the list successfully and earn larger profits.

Wishing all list-owners who read this article a growing, quality subscriber list in the New Year!

Respectfully yours, Beth Earle