In the world of cyberspace, where all companies are trying to get noticed, it is often that one will become bombarded with emails on a daily basis from any company they have ever even thought about. The updates, weekly deals, new blogs, etc. can become overwhelming for someone that is not all that interested in a company. Recently, HubSpot did an experiment about the effectiveness of NOT taking this route anymore. The end result: open rates, clicks, clickthrough rates, and email notification opens all increased. You may wonder exactly what this process of “giving the customer space” looks like in order to be successful. That is where I can fill you in.
The first step HubSpot took was essentially unsubscribing any person that has not opened an email from them in the last six months. Out of their nearly half a million email subscribers, half of those had not opened an email in that time. Now there are 250,000 subscribers that at least have enough interest to open an email twice a year. This automatically helps the chances of future emails being received well because the email is being sent to only people whom actually have a chance of opening it. The rule of six months continues past the initial clearing out of subscribers. If at anytime someone does not open an email for six months, they will receive an email saying they are about to be unsubscribed, and there they will have the option to click a “re-subscribe” button if they choose.
Then, rather than just clicking a “subscribe to email list” button on the page, HubSpot created a few options that might suit different people better. You can either get daily emails or weekly emails. By doing this, the open rates automatically increased. If a person is getting one email per week rather than five or more, they are more likely to be interested in it. If a person is dedicated and wants a daily email, but they get more than just their one daily update, they will likely be turned off. It is simply because those extra emails turn into graymail and end up losing their value.
Although more than half of the initial email list was kicked to the curb, the subscribers now show an even higher interest in the mail they are getting. Quality over quantity is definitely something HubSpot focused on with this experiment, and it could be a good idea for many companies that want their subscribers to be more engaged as well.
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