

How To Lose 1% Of Your Customers With Just 1 Email - yoseph
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/44779/How-To-Lose-1-Of-Your-Customers-With-Just-1-Email.aspx

======
ankeshk
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.

(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?

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.

~~~
guanche01
Point well made.

I do agree with you, especially when considering the life cycle of the user.
Maybe NK never looked or calculated the average member value of his users.
Some of these users might have reached the peak of their member cycle and
decided to unsubscribe. It could have also been (as you mentioned) that the
long text had "turned them off".

Nevertheless, the important factors in which he should focus on are the
following: \- CRM - keeping a good relationship with his user base \- Sales -
number of joins/sales made by the campaign --> which would transfer towards
average revenue per email \- Maintaining a good quality list of users who are
truly interested in his product --> it's all about quality over quantity, and
not the other way around.

Lastly, the most important factor which NK did pick up, was that there was a
surge in unsubscribes. Why was there a higher than average number of
unsubscribes? He looked into it, and attempted to "win back" some of those
users by sending them a personal email. \--> I personally would have added a
question asking them as to why they had unsubscribed (to find out the truth
behind the sudden spike in unsubscribes).

------
larrik
He never really explains why the first 2 long-form emails didn't result in
such a backlash, but the third one did.

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?

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.

------
3pt14159
I unsub'd after that specific email with a comment that it was too spammy. He
got back right away saying:

"Totally agree.

Working on toning that down big-time.

Hope you'll give us another chance some day."

Me: "I'll give you another chance right now, keep it Hacker News grade, and
I'll stay. :)"

Him: "Agreed. Short and sweet."

So I resigned up. Lesson learned: You can repair damage. Some customers know
you are human and will give you another go.

~~~
georgemcbay
If I were the one sending out these mails I'd have been surprised that some
people equate message length with spam. I'm not saying it is wrong to do so,
I've just simply never personally associated email length with whether or not
something is spam -- for me the problem of spam arises when single sources
begin to email me too often resulting in an inbox with dozens/hundreds of
messages to sort through a day. The actual length of each of those emails is
basically irrelevant to me, I either care about them or I don't and I know
that after reading the first paragraph.

------
jhuckestein
"Imagine... If we sent 100 emails then we’d be out of business."

Not quite. Then you'd still have 36.6% of your initial customers.

------
edu
Does he really needed to finish the article with “Sign up to AppSumo.com to
see what our new emails look like.”?

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!).

edit: punctuation and grammar.

~~~
WillyF
I think that a lot of entrepreneurs leave money on the table because they're
scared to do something that they think feels cheap. In a case like this, it's
probably a tiny minority that would be turned off by this. I'd be absolutely
shocked if having a blurb like that at the end of the post would have a
negative effect.

~~~
edu
It feels cheap not because the blurb but the way how it's written. What _I_
would have done is providing a copy of the e-mails he's discussing and at the
end of the article add the plug. "Join AppSumo.com if you want to receive our
infamous e-mails stuffed with great deals". (Obviously I'm not a copy-writer)

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

~~~
ErrantX
I dug around my email box and I think this is the one:
<http://www.errant.me.uk/code/snip/10>

It was long. And very odd.

I'm kinda used to that from Appsumo by now so it didn't really register for
me. Truth be told, I just clicked through to see the offer straight away and
ignored the rest as TL;DR. Reading it now.. the nicest description I can come
up with is "rambling"

EDIT: Patio11 has a point about the formatting :) so:
<http://errant.me.uk/appsumo.html>

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Yikes. I suspect I'd be one of the people to consider unsubscribing after
receiving an email like that.

------
petercooper
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.

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 _do_ 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 _good_ thing.

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

~~~
Joakal
This is what the email looked like: <http://www.errant.me.uk/code/snip/10>

He also gave tips to get subscribers back.

------
delano
A few observations:

 _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._

Then why the change?

 _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._

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.

 _Usually we see < 0.5% unsubscribe rate_

A 2x increase isn't that big of a deal and doesn't warrant the urgency eluded
to in the title.

* _The funniest thing about it?

This email was our highest conversion to buy ever._ Ah, so this post isn't
about losing customers, it's about justifying and excusing the new long form
sales emails.

~~~
Alex3917
"And what are 'copywriting best practices'? Something tells me Neville is a
factitious fall guy."

They laughed when Neville sat down at the keyboard, but when he started to
write...

In all seriousness though, read On The Art of Writing Copy by Herschell Gordon
Lewis, and also Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. By reputation they
are the two best books on copy writing and advertising ever written.

~~~
jlees
Best practices these days tend to involve putting things in CAPITAL LETTERS,
and occasionally bold or italic, and BEING A COOL DUDE, and getting real, and
adding ten foot high 'Click Here To Purchase' links.

I'll check those books out to see what advice they give, though; personally, I
learnt copywriting by.. well, writing copy.

------
citricsquid
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
_wanted_ and the discount made me think I HAVE TO GET THIS. I don't read their
emails any more :(

------
austintaylor
I unsubscribed when I received the email in question. Some problems with this
particular email:

1\. Stalking people does not resonate with me. Bad lead.

2\. What are you selling? Tell me what before why. Seriously.

3\. The attempts at humor were really bad.

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.

I still follow the RSS, and sometimes click through to see the email-signup-
wall.

By the way, I did buy one of the AppSumo deals early on.

------
Murkin
So the new email has much better conversion but alienates a minute percentage
of the user base ? And you choose to go back ?

Always thought its better to have less great customers than more bad ones.
Guess I am more sales oriented that email-list-size oriented.

~~~
kgermino
They're a deal site right? So essentially their conversions are for the third
parties, not for them.

It's possible that their sales to the third party companies depends more on
their list size than on their conversion rate.

------
guanche01
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!

~~~
notahacker
How long before we see the dark pattern of an automated script emailing
unsubscribers with a "this is a personal message from Founder Name to
apologise if you found our emails unhelpful. We had a few people unsubscribe
recently and so we're working on improving our tone - feedback is welcome! If
you do ever feel like coming back..."

------
mikhaill
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.

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.

------
mikiem
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.

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.

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.

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.

------
jlees
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'...

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.

------
pavel_lishin
> 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. > Imagine... If
> we sent 100 emails then we’d be out of business.

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.

------
gohat
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...

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.

------
Geee
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.

------
dusing
What about short explanation of the deal at the top, and a long funny story
after that?

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.

------
Groxx
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.

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

