An Unsubscribe Alternative

It's pretty much a standard practice to always include an "Update Your Preferences" and "Unsubscribe" link in every single email you send out. I, like most users, usually click on unsubscribe links more often than update your preferences links... and it's usually due to one of two things: irrelevant information or my inbox is being inundated, with way too many messages being sent my way from one company. But there is an alternative to offer: an "email me less frequently" option. This will lower your overall send totals, but it will retain your house list size.

J. Crew does it. They do it well, too. The page below comes up when a user wants to unsubscribe. The entire unsubscribe page's emphasis is on receiving less email, but still keeping you in the loop. Levi's is a perfect candidate for an option like this. I receive about 3 emails a week from them on average and I've been tempted to opt-out before, but their online discounts are just too hard to pass up. Point is, no one needs to get emails from ANY company 3 times a week. It's just way too much.


So if you've seen any other companies utilizing this tactic, comment below!

Thanks to Denise Cox via Tamara Glen for pointing this out!

Live Mail's Unsubscribe Button

Recently Microsoft has had the reputation to be a little hit-and-miss. Whether it’s with their excessive security checks when browsing with IE7, the thoroughly disappointing Outlook ’07 package or their lack of CSS support with Live Mail. But Live Mail isn’t all that bad… In actuality, there are a few features that are fairly exceptional, especially for all email marketers across the board. Case in point: the implementation of an “Unsubscribe” button.

The new unsubscribe button displays in place of a report spam button, but only if the user’s preferences are set up correctly. Instructions on how to set up the unsubscribe button can be found here.

When the button is clicked, it will take the user to a landing page, created by the marketer where they can determine what email they want to opt-out from.

This will certainly help all email marketers’ deliverability rates. Without a report spam button, users won’t be prone to mistakenly report an email (that they opted-in to receive, mind you) as spam and the sender's IP address will be less likely to be blacklisted.

This is one of the better features Microsoft has incorporated to any of their products in a long, long time. Kudos Microsoft, you’re on the right path toward redemption.