Having the unsubscribe button front and centre of an email marketing campaign, or at least clearly visible, might seem counterintuitive for most marketers. Surely, people unsubscribing from your mailing list is the last thing you want, right?

The natural instinct is to hold on to subscribers. Maybe even make the unsubscribe button as subtle and hidden as possible. People will look for it, be unable to find it, give up and still be consenting to your mail. A win-win.

But this attitude is where most digital marketers get it wrong.

Email marketing is essentially one robot talking to another, and you need to make sure they are speaking the same language. Just like with humans, these robots build trust through consistency and meeting expectations.

That’s why it’s important for email campaigns to send content the inbox expects to hear, with the components and aspects it can identify as trustworthy, so that they know they can trust your mail.

Large mailbox providers like Google, Outlook and Yahoo are increasingly focused on the engagement of their customers, and ensuring they are receiving the content they’ve requested.

Ultimately, if people can’t find the unsubscribe button, they’ll be more likely to send you to the dreaded junk mail. If email inbox providers can see your mail being sent to junk, they’ll start to send it there without prompting.

Therefore, adhering to the practice of acquiring consent, ensuring content aligns with audience expectations and respecting the unsubscribe button are crucial to successful email deliverability.

The two-fold of email consent

Email can have a tremendous impact on your ability to communicate on a professional or commercial level.

In fact, a recent study by Constant Contact found ANZ small to medium businesses (SMBs) are the most likely of any country to use email marketing (59 percent) as their primary marketing channel, followed closely by social media (58 percent).

In order to be effective though, you need to take into consideration the desires, needs and attentiveness of your audience. And that begins with consent.

If you want a receptive audience, you need to make sure they have elected to hear your message. You are reaching them in their homes, offices, on their handsets and at times when they may be with family, commuting or beginning their day.

Consent is two-fold. You need consent to be on the mail list, but you also need people to consent to the type of correspondence they will receive.

By starting the relationship with a clear indication of what you will send and how often, you are setting an expectation with your audience that will allow for more positive engagement with your content.

Giving the recipients the option to tell you the messaging options they are willing to accept allows you to then work within those confines and make sure they aren’t going to click that spam or unsubscribe button.

However, if you are including recipients who have not asked to receive your content, this correspondence can be viewed as a nuisance at best and an invasion of privacy at worst. 

Regardless of the perception, sending without consent is a way to not only break the law, it will also ensure you have lost the attention and respect of the recipient.

And in order to maintain a healthy and engaged audience you have to allow that consent to be revoked.

The dreaded spam folder

If people do not feel they consented to the emails you are sending, or they cannot easily find a way to unsubscribe, they will instead send your mail to the junk folder. For marketers, that’s the worst possible outcome.

Like most technologies, email inbox providers are only getting smarter. If your content has previously been flagged as spam or if people are consistently not engaging with it, the service providers will send your mail straight to the junk folder.

And unfortunately, once your email is in the junk folder, it’s difficult to escape it.

Email providers know what the content of your emails usually look like, the platform it is sent from, the IP and email address.

At this stage, recipients won’t even get a chance to decide whether it’s spam or not – email inbox providers will take the charge and do that for them. Putting the subscriber in control is the key. That way, you can gauge people’s interest better and shape your campaign to increase engagement. 

No one likes to lose the ability to communicate with a potential or current customer, but without allowing them to unsubscribe and respecting that request, you are not only breaking the law, you could be jeopardising the ability of your remaining audience to continue to hear from you.

It’s much better to have a highly engaged, small list of email recipients than to have a huge, disengaged and disinterested list.

Feedback loop

Not only should marketers make the unsubscribe button visible, but they should also prioritise unsubscribe feedback.

If you’re a business selling goods for toddlers, and you’re sending emails to someone who signed up 10 years ago when their now-teenage kids were young, then it makes sense that they might want to unsubscribe. 

But if someone unsubscribes because the content you are sending differs to what they consented to or there is message fatigue, use this information to segment out what recipients might be feeling a similar way and change your marketing strategy.

The autonomy of the audience

In recent years, it can feel that email marketing has taken a back seat to the glitz and glam of newer digital marketing platforms like social media.

But email remains one of the most effective marketing strategies, as long as you’re doing it right. The nuance with email marketing is that you’re not just communicating with your potential customer. You’re also communicating with the email inbox provider. 

That’s why the autonomy of the audience is crucial. 

By building trust with your audience, through things as simple as a visible unsubscribe button, you’re in turn earning the trust of email inbox providers.

Making it more likely the delivery of your email will be prioritised, and your message will get through to your customers.

Jonathan Marburger is the director of email deliverability at Constant Contact. With extensive experience in email deliverability and compliance, Marburger helps businesses enhance their email communication strategies, ensuring effective audience reach and engagement.

Also, read about email list hygiene tips for marketers in a world of mail privacy protection.