Unsubscribe Me, Please. I’m Fed Up With Your Blog

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 09:40 PM PDT

This is a guest post by Margaret Adams. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

How often do you think about what makes a blog reader decide to unsubscribe from your blog? More importantly, have you considered what you can do to keep your unsubscribes to a minimum?

I've just been through my blog subscriptions and pruned them ruthlessly. I unsubscribed from more than twenty blogs. When I did this I used a clear set of criteria to help me to decide which subscriptions to keep and which to delete.

If your blog had been on my review list, would it have survived?

Try measuring your own blog's performance against the criteria I used to make my unsubscribe decisions, if you're ready for the challenge, that is.

You've annoyed me, so I'm unsubscribing.

Like every one who reads blogs, there are things I like about blogs and things I hate. There are also some things that I just won't put up with.

For example, I don't want to be contacted every day, sometimes more than once a day by someone telling me how a deadline is approaching and that I need to take action in order to avoid disappointment or something worse. Reminders have their place, but some blog owners just keep sending last chances to buy and more information about offers that are going to expire two hours from now, one hour from now, in the next five minutes and so on.

I tend to check the email account where I receive all my newsletters daily. If I find I receive more than one sales pitch a day from someone, then I'm likely to unsubscribe.

Your subscribers might not feel the same as I do about the number of emails they receive from you, but are you doing things that annoy them in some other way?

Look at your subscription statistics. Do you see increases in your unsubscribes, at particular times? Can you relate these increases to actions you have taken, like conducting an over-zealous marketing campaign? If you can, establish what you're doing that's turning people away. Work out why people leave your list and do something about it.

You've bored me, so I'm unsubscribing.

You must have noticed that some blogs don't have a great deal to say. The blog owner probably has a few ideas and opinions, but he or she recycles them endlessly in much the same way. There's never any variety in the blog, no guest contributions, no controversy, no sparkle.

My rule of thumb is that if I can anticipate what's going to be in a blog post, and I've already heard what the blog owner has to say several times, then I'm going to find the blog boring. That means I'll unsubscribe.

As a blog owner you know you're going to lose people from your list. Businesses expect to lose at least 10% of their customers each year. Blog owners must expect the same thing to happen to them. Quite a few of your readers will be just as ruthless as I am. If you don't entertain them, they're not going to stay subscribed.

Review your own blog. Overall, is the number of unsubscribes going up? Is that figure higher than it was last year? If it is, what are you going to do about it?

You've misled me, so I'm unsubscribing.

Some blog owners make amazing promises in order to get sign-ups to their list. Many deliver what they promise. Some don't.

I've recently unsubscribed from two lists because commitments made at the time of sign-up have not been honoured. In both cases the follow-up contacts were nothing but sales pitches offering me "great" or "awesome" opportunities to buy products loosely linked to the subject matter of the blog. That wasn't what I had signed up to receive, so I parted company with the sites.

Your blog and the unsubscribe function

Blog readers are fickle. They know what they want. They know when they're getting what they want. They also know there are also lots of blogs to choose from. If people don't find what they want on your blog, they'll look for it somewhere else.

Had I been a subscriber to your blog, before I reviewed my subscriptions, would you still have permission to contact me? In other words are you actively taking steps to avoid annoying, boring or misleading your subscribers?

Don't answer the question yourself. Take a look at your unsubscribes to work out how well you're doing, and what your answer to the question really should be.

About the Author: Margaret Adams helps businesses delivering expert services to attract more clients and make more sales. She also blogs at MargaretAdams.co.uk.

Original Post: Unsubscribe Me, Please. I’m Fed Up With Your Blog

Online Profits Has Crossed The 500 Members Mark

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 11:01 AM PDT

When I decided to make the Online Profits course free back in June I was not sure how it would work out. My goal was to make the course accessible to as many people as possible, while still making some money from it, and I found an interesting model for that.

The course itself became free, but in order to join people would need to sign-up for a hosting plan with my partner (HostNine). The cost of doing that is $3.95 per month, and there is a requirement of keeping the hosting plan active for at least 3 months. So for $12 people would be able to get a lifetime member account to my course, which last sold for around $400.

It should be a win-win-win situation. Members win because they would get access to the training program almost for free. My hosting partner wins because it would get new clients (many probably staying for the long term), and I win because I would still make some money from the referral commissions.

The plan was solid, but it could backfire. I knew the quality of my course was top notch and comparable to any other online course, but making it virtually free could affect people’s perception negatively.

Luckily this didn’t happen, and last week we crossed the milestone of 500 members (and that is counting only the members who joined after I made the program free in June). This is equivalent to almost 4 new sign-ups per day, which is way above by initial expectations.

The feedback has been great too, and I am starting to see people recommend the program spontaneously around the web (i.e., not because they are affiliates and want to earn some money, but because they really believe it can help other people).

If you are one of the 500 members, thanks for joining! If you are not, well, you are missing some good stuff! You can check the details and join on the Online Profits homepage.

Original Post: Online Profits Has Crossed The 500 Members Mark

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