Calm down before you start sending out a press release about the sudden downturn in list retention. Now if you took a 20% hit, then maybe we do need to start looking at what is going on, but generally a 1% loss over the course of the year is considered to be typical.

What causes people to unsubscribe? Is it something you said? Did you email them too often, or not often enough?

There are many reasons why people will choose to unsubscribe from a mailing list, and most of the time it isn’t personal. We grow and change in our needs, and that typically means we change the information we are interested in. Many unsubcribers are simply saying, I no longer have an interest in the information you have for me.

If you have not regularly emailed your list, the subscribers probably have a very fuzzy recollection of who you are and why they joined the list at all. There are many companies that have a list, somewhere along the line they heard something about list fatigue, so to avoid it, they just avoid emailing their list.

I am here to say, I don’t believe in list fatigue. If you have a list that really wants to hear from you, and if you are making sure to provide content that is valuable to the readers, you can email a list as often as you need to. List fatigue is an excuse for not providing your readership the content that they are looking for. Sometimes you are providing too much, sometimes not enough, and maybe your topics are not quite what the readership is looking for. These are problems that are all tied back to the content, not the readers.

So, how do you know if your readers like your content? Besides waiting for the 10% drop in readership if they don’t like it. You ask! Simply ask your readers if the content that your are providing in you daily tips, newsletter, or ezine is hitting the mark.

What about those that choose to quit your list? You ask them as well. You can put together a short little form on the unsubscribe page with a few questions, and it may look something like this:

Now of course you would have an unsubscribe button, instead of submit. This allows you to gather some very valuable information. Keep it simple, no more than four choices, one sentence each, and use clear concise wording. If you show that you are willing to listen to the readership then maybe they will delay the leap off the boat and let you know what they would like to see from you.

If you have listened to any SEO Professionals, Internet marketers, or online business owners you have heard that building a list is the lifeblood of an online business. The list is gold! Just treat it like gold and respect the needs of the list members. They are interested in what you have to say when they sign up, you job is to keep them mentally signing up each and every time they read a message from you.