My unsubscribes went up by 3x - what happened?
(This originally appeared in my newsletter. Sign up now to get content like this, for free, every two weeks.)
A few months ago, I wrote a newsletter bragging about some results I helped a client get.
Bad idea. My unsubscribe rate tripled. Where most of my newsletters have 0, 1 or 2 people unsubscribe, this one had six.
I'm probably a bit biased, but I don't think the content was actually that bad. Rather, it was just targeted at the wrong stage of awareness. Here's what happened, and what I learned from the experience.
(Also, if you don't feel like reading, you can get the same information on Linkedin, where I told this story in a four minute video. Check it out and drop a comment - it's good for my reach.)
But if you'd rather read, let's press on:
Usually educational
This newsletter is usually educational. It doesn't try to sell people on my services, or brag about the results I can get for clients. Rather, it just generally talks about copywriting.
The thinking behind that is that most people aren't actively considering hiring a copywriter on any given day. And the things that would drive them to consider hiring a copywriter are largely out of my control.
So all I can do is be consistently useful, provide good content about copywriting, demonstrate my knowledge and point of view, and when the day comes that someone needs a copywriter, hopefully I'm top of mind.
A deviation from the norm
But in February, I decided to change things up a bit. Here's a snippet from the newsletter I sent out:
Not very educational! Rather, it's more of a brag.
This type of content is useful if you're a marketing manager trying to justify budget to hire me. Or if you're comparing me to another copywriter, and you want to see what kind of results I've helped create in the past. And so on, and so forth.
But most of the people on my mailing list are not in that position. So they're not going to benefit from content like this. Rather, it's just going to look like me pointlessly bragging (which is exactly what it is).
And six people unsubscribed. That's six people I can never contact again. Six people who may well have had good opportunities further down the track, but now we'll never know.
Ouch.
I'm not the only one
The reason I'm highlighting this is because I'm not the only one to make this mistake. I see this in the wild all the time.
For example, have you ever downloaded an eBook, white paper or other lead magnet? Then, three days later, a salesperson starts blowing up your phone trying to get you to commit to a meeting.
I bet you quickly hung up, started ducking subsequent calls, and never did schedule that meeting.
And the reason is pretty clear: downloading an eBook and being ready to buy a product are really not the same at all.
Downloading an eBook on the problem a company solves doesn't mean you're thinking about working with that company. In reality, you're probably months away from actually wanting to buy that product - if you ever end up wanting to buy it.
Stages of awareness, again
It comes back to the drum I'm always banging on in this newsletter: stages of awareness. People need different types of information at different points in their buying cycle.
People who aren't even aware of the problem you solve need to be educated about that problem, and the cost of not solving it. People who are super aware of your product, and are ready to buy it, only need to be told the details of your offer so they can do so today.
Then there are some stages in between. I whipped up a graphic to show you. You can apply this to anything, but today I applied it to lawn mowers:
As you can see, someone in a low stage of awareness at the top of the funnel needs different content from someone at a high stage of awareness at the bottom of the funnel.
Someone at the top needs to have the benefits of a tidy garden explained to them (or just shown to them). Someone looking to buy a specific lawnmower just needs a competitive offer. These are really different content requirements!
Let's talk lawn mowers
I'm not just being silly when I use lawn mowers as an example. International garden tools manufacturer STIHL do a great job of targeting their content to the right stage of awareness.
Every now and then, I get a six-second ad from STIHL while I'm watching YouTube video.
Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the video, but since it's only six seconds long, I can describe it. It's a sped up time lapse of someone mowing their lawn with a STIHL battery-powered lawn mower, then a couple of shots showing me how tidy their lawn looks.
It doesn't tell me any technical details, how much it costs, nothing like that. This is (I expect) deliberate. I'm not far enough down that funnel to be interested in anything specific.
Rather, I just need to be sold on the wider benefits of a STIHL battery-powered lawnmower.
And the really interesting thing about this is that there's not really much STIHL can do to push me down to a further stage of awareness.
There are a million things that could push me to a point where I need detailed information about a STIHL mower. Maybe my petrol lawn mower breaks down. Maybe I have environment guilt. Maybe I come into some unexpected cash and want to treat myself. Maybe I move to a larger section. Maybe maybe maybe. The only thing these things share is that they are environmental influences that are completely out of STIHL's control.
All STIHL can do is make sure I'm aware of the high-level benefits of one of their battery-powered mowers, so that when the day comes that I need one, STIHL are the first people I call.
And the same is just as true for copywriting services, software - or anything else you can imagine. Most of your leads aren't ready to buy, so don't actively sell to them.
(And guess what - later today I'm picking up a weed whacker. It's battery powered from (you guessed it) the STIHL shop).
When to stop educating and start selling
Once someone is in a position where they want more specifics, that's when you can start bragging about the results your product or service gets.
If you look at your existing customers' behaviour before they bought, you can probably figure out how to identify these people.
A good example from the SaaS world is when people ask for a demo or sign up for a trial. These people are giving you a really strong indicator that they are close to making a buying decision. But people who haven't done one of these things are probably not that close to a buying decision.
And if you try to force them into one, you'll end up with unsubscribes that you can never contact again.
So have a look at your content. Are you selling to people who aren't ready to buy? If so, you should probably stop that immediately - it's burning leads out of your database who could have become customers in the future, if you'd just sent them the right content.
As for that high unsubscribe rate? Two weeks later, I went back to my usual educational content - and the unsubscribe rate dropped back to normal. Phew.
See you
Sam
PS: You know the drill. Book a copy review for $599. Most people use these for their website home page or specific landing pages. You can also get one for free if you let me do a video review and post it publicly (but be warned, it will take me forever to get to it). And yes, I know this is a sales message. That's why I put it in the PS bit of the email.
PPS: I'm going absolutely hog-wild producing videos on Linkedin. Here's three of my favourites from the past couple of weeks:
Three things your home page needs to communicate (with examples!)
What content marketing managers prioritise vs what they SHOULD prioritise
Check them out and drop a comment letting me know what you think.
PPPS: I'm also putting together a few more "productised" services, as the copy reviews have been very successful. Let me know what you think of:
Case studies for a fixed rate of $2,000. This is the whole thing - identifying customers, interviewing them, writing the case study and (arguably most importantly) the usually very long process of getting them to approve it.
A one-hour Zoom consultation where we talk through a specific problem and I give you advice immediately, for $500.
An email strategy review, where I look at the wide angle lens view of a bunch of emails you're sending, and give you advice around making the entire thing more effective. This isn't really about the copy, but more about who gets what and when. I think I'd charge $1,000 for these.
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