A Step-By-Step Guide To Deal With The ‘Unsubscribtion’ Obstacles

Subscription businesses have seen a sudden boom ever since the world has been hit by the pandemic. This forced many types of businesses to enter the subscription market and offers a variety of virtual and physical subscription services. It is believed that, if you can think of a way to channel your product or service, then you can surely initiate a subscription and charge your customer on a recurring basis.

Today the most used and subscribed form of subscriptions available are services-based, usage-based, tiered based, and product-based subscription boxes. Despite that, the availability of dozens of options, ease of unsubscription process, offering of free trials, and giving subscribers the option to pause their subscription, has become one of the major reasons for subscription churn. However, many unforeseen variables navigate the decision of an unsubscriber.

Here in this article, you will find answers to some pressing questions and reasons behind the decision of unsubscription and will also find the number of ways to re-engage unsubscribers. We will also discuss what things you as a subscription provider needs to avoid and lastly, some tips to help you optimize your un-subscription re-engagement strategy.

Also Read: Subscription Software And The Scope Of Recurring Billing Management

Reasons For Unsubscription

To understand why subscribers opt-out of the subscription plan, you had to put down a business or marketing lens and start seeing things from subscribers angle. Some of the most cited reasons by the subscribers are as follow:

1. Too Many Promotional Emails, Notifications And Messages

When a customer subscribes to a subscription they are provided with a portal known as ‘customer portal.’ This not only empowers subscribers but also provide businesses with the opportunity to send messages, notification and reminders to the subscriber directly. Thus, receiving dozens of promotional messages, even by mails infuriate the subscriber and they hit the unsubscribe button.

2. Technical Problem

Another reason behind the unsubscription is related to the UI and UX design of a system. Suppose, a subscriber is in search of finding specific content or product on your platform, and the navigation is making the journey difficult, hence this becomes one of the reasons subscribers left.

3. Irrelevant Content

Subscribers are bombarded with dozens of emails and among those only 60% of email that is personalized are able to get subscribers attention or open-rate. So, if you are sending promotional content, product utility and recommendation by following one fit for all inbound strategies, then, consider this as one of the reasons too.

4. Pricing

Subscribers or customers have lots of cheaper options to turn to, this means if you are changing your pricing frequently but not levelling up the quality of your product or service then you have to face churn. There are three ways that you can use to price your subscriptions fairly, first competitors, product cost, and by introducing usage-based billing.

5. Quality of Product, Service and Content

One of the reasons why subscription boxes are famous is, they offer access to products or services that otherwise seem impossible. And, a single miss calculation or product recommendation that doesn’t resonate with the interest of subscribers can result in subscription cancellation.

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How To Re-Engage Subscriber

Engaging subscribers is not that difficult as one think. There are several strategies one can use and mix and match multiple strategies to entice the customer. The first one on our list is offering exclusive re-subscriber incentives either in the form of coupons, discounts or freebies. Secondly, offering unsubscribes bonuses in the form of extra products, access to premium services and gifts. The third thing you can do is to offer the re-subscribe option in the email. Fourthly, you can initiate email win-back campaigns and social campaigns targeted toward specific subscriber segments. Lastly, the very important thing is the personalization of everything from the service to user experience and product recommendation to special discounts.

Things To Avoid While Drafting A Re-Engagement Strategy

1. One Fit For All

The first thing that you need to avoid on the part of the strategy developer is to send generalize content, either in the form of email, notification or messages to all subscribers. Since every subscriber is different and has opted for a different subscription plan, therefore, it is recommended to opt for creating a content or marketing strategy by creating segments and persona.

2. Broken Or Unresponsive Unsubscribe Process

The second thing is many subscription businesses intentionally makes the unsubscription process difficult, just to retain subscriber. But in real life, this strategy backfires. The more you provide ease to the customer the more they are likely to return in response to the re-subscription campaign.

3. Segment Error

While creating segments or persons of the customer, many marketers tend to group two different groups under one, based on the fact they have subscribers to a certain tier or a subscription box. However, there are many other things that you need to comprehend e.g. demographics, interest, profession, and age, etc.

Also Read: How To Segment Your Recurring Customers & Unlock The Door To The Success

4. Email Frequency

It is different then sending promotional notifications and messages to the subscriber. Here you need to know is when a customer subscriber to services they expect fewer or customize promotional content. Hence, if you increase the frequency from 01 emails to 5, then it can become a nuisance, and hit unsubscribe to the email newsletter. This later contributes to the email churn rate and affect the credibility of the domain.

Tips to Optimize Subscription

1. CAPTCHA

2. Confirm Opt-in or Double Opt-in

3. A/B Testing

4. Survey to know “WHY”

5. Content, Product Or Service  Quality

Also Read: Uncovering The Facts About Subscription Ecosystem To Find The Best Entry Point For Entrepreneurs

Conclusion

Tackling the unsubscription right when the first subscriber opt-out or when you witness en masse unsubscriptions require instant investigation. Otherwise, it has the potential to affect business KPI, MRR & ARR estimates, and also cause a business to lag behind the competitor. Some of the major reasons cited by the subscriber include personalized content, technical issue and bombardment of promotion emails. However, you can take a proactive step to mitigate the subscription churn.

To know more about how to efficiently manage subscription and subscriber experience through subscription software, contact SubscriptionFlow.