How To Lose 1% Of Your Customers With Just 1 Email

This is a classic case of paying attention to the wrong metrics. The unsubscription rate went up. But so did the sales. And yet, the author is paying attention to the unsubscription rate. Not the sales.<p>(Yes, it would make sense to pay attention to the unsubscription rate if the author shares the historical data of those unsubscribers. Did they make a lot of purchases in the past and the long salesletter is just bugging them off - which is reducing the "life time value" per subscriber?<p>But I don't think that data has been collected. (Or the author would have shared it with us in my opinion...) So - this to me feels like a decision made keeping the wrong metric in mind.

He never really explains why the first 2 long-form emails didn't result in such a backlash, but the third one did.<p>Was it, indeed, because the deal price was a lot lower than the first two, as implied by his later "solution" of using long-form emails for larger priced deals?<p>All in all, it seems that this piece was written for an audience that already knows what's going on, rather than for us. That certainly isn't a knock or a problem, though.

I unsub'd after that specific email with a comment that it was too spammy. He got back right away saying:<p>"Totally agree.<p>Working on toning that down big-time.<p>Hope you'll give us another chance some day."<p>Me: "I'll give you another chance right now, keep it Hacker News grade, and I'll stay. :)"<p>Him: "Agreed. Short and sweet."<p>So I resigned up. Lesson learned: You can repair damage. Some customers know you are human and will give you another go.

"Imagine... If we sent 100 emails then we’d be out of business."<p>Not quite. Then you'd still have 36.6% of your initial customers.

Does he really needed to finish the article with “Sign up to AppSumo.com to see what our new emails look like.”?<p>It feels so cheap. He should have added the e-mail he was talking about, I use AppSumo and I remembered the e-mail in question, but I bet many people didn't (and they will not register because of that cheap plug!).<p>edit: punctuation and grammar.

It would be good to see the email that caused the ruckus... or did I just miss it in the post?

If you change your format, you can expect some temporary attrition, but you can't extrapolate that to a constant decline until, well, it becomes one.<p>I'm pretty potty mouthed on Twitter and have lost quite a few followers over the years but I look at it as guaranteeing that the people who <i>do</i> stay following are exactly the sort of people who I want following me. In the same way, it seems like the sort of people who buy things from AppSumo's offers are the ones staying on the list.. so getting rid of the whiners and non-buyers is a <i>good</i> thing.

I didn't learn anything after reading all of this, somewhat disappointing.

A few observations:<p><i>I dread each time my inbox lights up but recognized that 60%+ of our business is driven through our email list. Our AppSumo.com emails for the most part were always short and sweet, just the way I liked them.</i><p>Then why the change?<p><i>I wanted to hire a real copywriter so I can focus on other things in the business. My friend Neville is a funny writer and had been extensively studying / practicing copywriting best practices.</i><p>Doesn't being a writer imply having studied and practiced writing? And what are "copywriting best practices"? Something tells me Neville is a factitious fall guy.<p><i>Usually we see &#60; 0.5% unsubscribe rate</i><p>A 2x increase isn't that big of a deal and doesn't warrant the urgency eluded to in the title.<p>* <i>The funniest thing about it?<p>This email was our highest conversion to buy ever.</i> Ah, so this post isn't about losing customers, it's about justifying and excusing the new long form sales emails.

I stopped caring about appsumo because the deals started to suck and be products using appsumo to make sales, whereas before it was products I <i>wanted</i> and the discount made me think I HAVE TO GET THIS. I don't read their emails any more :(

I unsubscribed when I received the email in question. Some problems with this particular email:<p>1. Stalking people does not resonate with me. Bad lead.<p>2. What are you selling? Tell me what before why. Seriously.<p>3. The attempts at humor were really bad.<p>But the reason I was ready to unsubscribe is that I'd been noticing for a while that the AppSumo deals were more like extended free trials than actual cheap stuff. The spammy email pushed me over the edge.<p>I still follow the RSS, and sometimes click through to see the email-signup-wall.<p>By the way, I did buy one of the AppSumo deals early on.

So the new email has much better conversion but alienates a minute percentage of the user base ? And you choose to go back ?<p>Always thought its better to have less great customers than more bad ones. Guess I am more sales oriented that email-list-size oriented.

One thing I definitely have to say, is that NK really had some courage in trying to re-email the users who had unsubscribed. It is common best practice in email marketing to not contact unsubscribed users again, but kudos to him for testing out the concept of re-engaging unsubscribed users and specifying in his email that he made a mistake and would like to get a 2nd chance. Risky business, but I call it a success when he managed to win back some of the customers who had initially unsubscribed!

So essentially what we have is a 1% unsubscribe rate for an e-mail, which is above his .5% average but it's still within the range of error and many things could effect the unsubs except the email content.<p>Maybe his e-mail list is growing and after getting a few e-mails people realize that this isn't what they expected. Or the expectations they had for the content weren't set properly. Saying that funny/longform e-mail is that what caused the sudden unsub spike is jumping to conclusions.

I wonder how many of the unsubscribers from message number three had just had enough of it... Having forgiven the first two... a cumulative effect.<p>I know that I have been very happy on several mailing lists of entites wanting to sell me stuff, but when the messages get too frequent, too long, too spammy or too far from my stated interests... Unsubscribe. I forgive a few indiscressions, but when I see this abuse is a pattern, I unsubscribe.<p>We use paper and toner, etc. We can buy extra on a good deal, so I was on Staples list. Started out a message every few weeks, then weekly, then daily... Unsubscribe.<p>I was on NewEgg's list. We use cases of disks and RAM and other commodities, so we can take advantage of exceptional pricing if the chance presents itself. We also sometimes must go to alternate sources if our primary suppliers are out of stock. I am on their list, and even told them what I wanted to see. However, they still tell me about microwave ovens and watches... Much less frequently now that I have told them my preferences, but they are still in danger of losing my subscription. They are on the line... But I'd have canceled already if they sent me offers on microwave ovens more than once in a very great while.

I found this interesting timing, as I just unsubscribed from AppSumo today. Today's email was a huge dive into web-copywriting-drive-conversions-awfulness with all the stuff I really loathe about that corner of the Internet. Even when the product in question is 'free'...<p>I understand the value in trying new stuff, but it's the old early-adopter problem: if you have a certain loyal userbase, do you risk doing stuff that they are too savvy to pick up on (and might backlash over), or do you pander to the huge new userbase you got from a recent promotion? Eventually you have to leave the fluffy world of appealing to HN readers, but there are ways and ways.

&#62; On the morning of March 2nd we sent out an email to 40,000 people and subsequently lost 1% of those people over the next 24 hours. &#62; Imagine... If we sent 100 emails then we’d be out of business.<p>Without knowing the context of the e-mail, or why that 1% quit, this is basically the equivalent of news hosts saying, COULD YOUR CHILDREN DROP DEAD TOMORROW? Tune in at 11 to find out.

I've learned (well, maybe) the hard way that if you say stupid things, it damages relationships. Now the reason one might keep doing so is that usually it's a lot more fun to say questionable things...<p>Alas. But yes, you have to be very careful with what you say. It's many times harder to overcome a negative impression than to create a positive one.

I certainly noticed the changes in the emails and honestly thought that they are A/B testing with different formats. I actually remember giving a thought of if this format (really long and nonsensical) really works, and whether they cut back a bit in the next email. That 2nd March email was quite exciting read nevertheless.

What about short explanation of the deal at the top, and a long funny story after that?<p>I too found the long emails easy to dismiss. I don't even know where to look to find out if I need this real quick - and I'm not going to invest the time to read it to only find out its not of any interest to me.

Why not have two mailing lists, one tweetable in content and the other funny? Start people off on the tweetable one, and give them a link if they'd like more info. And give them a link back, if they choose to do so.

I wonder what % of customers will be gained from this article?