Ok, I unsubscribe from emails almost every day. I might accept mass-marketing emails for a while, but then cyclically I go on the rampage and kill everything I can. The latest is this new fad Groupon which provides local deals not 
unlike those coupon booklets you receive from your kid’s school as a way of earning extra money for your school. Groupon negotiates discounts and passes the savings along to their customers. Well, the next time I need an herbal spa treatment, I just may have a peek, but for now, I want the emails to stop. So I go to the bottom of the email and find the word unsubscribe and click it. Usually it goesthrough a process of selecting what you are unsubscribing from and why you are unsubscribing, but Groupon does one additional thing. They apologize and tell you that Derrick is at fault and ask you to click the button to punish Derrick. So of course I did. And you can see Derrick get scolded by a superior and then assaulted. It catches you off guard and makes you think twice about unsubscribing.
How do they do this? They make it personal. They make you feel as if someone was harmed as a result of your actions. And of course, they give you the opportunity to resubscribe. This is a great way to provide an easy, non-offensive way for your audience to stay connected with you. Maybe you can’t reproduce this little video clip, but you might think out of the box and consider another ploy.
Many use Constant Contact which provides an easy way to unsubscribe, they call it safe unsubscribe. It is instant and respects the wishes of the recipient, but it doesn’t provide an opportunity to think twice. That’s all you want to try and accomplish. Provide an opportunity to reconsider without annoying.
