The best way to safely unsubscribe from email lists

You know (from the previous post), when you shouldn’t unsubscribe, but what about when you do want to leave a known email list? Let’s talk about how to safely unsubscribe from that list.

What is Unsubscribing?

It means sound obvious, but what does it actually mean to ‘unsubscribe’?

To get that interesting freebie, or results of a quiz, you need to sign up with an email address to able to receive that information.

By sharing your email address, you agreed to join (hint subscribe to) their mailing list. You’ll now received regular messages from that list.

If the information is not longer necessary, or relevant to you (or any other reason) you want to stop receiving these regular message, that’s when you unsubscribe.

All ‘legit’ companies will accept gracefully (or ungracefully) that you no longer want to hear from them.

Quick Checks Before Unsubscribing

I’ve already mentioned (in the last blog) that it can be unsafe to unsubscribe.

It’s worth taking a couple of mins to check that it’s ‘safe’ to click that link, before unsubscribing.

Check the sender

Is the sender (person or company) one that you recognise? Do you remember joining their list?

Some lists remind you what you did to subscribe – making this a bit easier.

If you’re not sure, is the name correctly spelt? Does the email address match the sender name?

e.g. you get email from me at michellektraining.co.uk – which matches my name.

What about the link?

Once you’ve found the link, hover over it.

Does the address start with one of the known Email Service Providers (ESP) – ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Flodesk, Kajabi, MailChimp etc?

If it starts with something strange, you can try googling the name (don’t use the link yet), and see what comes up.

How to unsubscribe from mail

Scroll to the bottom of the email. (I’m assuming that you already know how to open or display the full message 😉)

You’re looking for unsubscribe, it’s usually at the very bottom.

How to unsubscribe from mail - for known mailing lists, choose unsubscribe instead of junk and block.

I hope you agree that it’s pretty clear on my emails.

Some others ones that I’ve seen, the text is small or in a light colour making it difficult to see.

For example:

unsubscribe from emails free - even if they can be difficult to see the text and link.

It’s difficult to see, and this image is larger than it appears on the email message.

However, all legitimate businesses should have an option, somewhere to allow you to unsubscribe.

If you’ve followed the steps above, for the last min checks, click the link.

A webpage will open, and either confirm that you’ve been unsubscribed, you be asked for some feedback on the same page.

It’s your choice if you want to let the sender know why you don’t want to receive their emails any more.

Personal Ask

It’s completely up to you if you want to stay or leave from someone’s email list and leave a reason.

But

If you decide to pick an option “why are you leaving”, please don’t choose spam.

To receive the emails, you signed up for it – now whether it was to get the offered guide/video/thing, or because you wanted to learn more – you chose to sign up.

Spam is when you get unasked for and unwanted messages.

So next time you click on that ‘unsubscribe’ button, if you do get the option to leave feedback, we’d prefer that you ‘no longer want to receive these emails’ over ‘it’s spam’.

Would saying “it’s our blood, sweat and tears”, make you feel more kindly to us business people? Oh, well, I tried. 😊