How bad is my unsubscribe rate? 😬😬😬

Let's talk unsubscribes. This week's episode of the Do The Brave Thing podcast is brought to you by the Email Marketing Fairy, which has pretty much every single email that you are going to need to send your email list with examples so that way you know that you can add your voice. And no, these are not AI generated. These have been helping people make thousands of dollars for years.

They are based off of principles that have never gone out of style because they are rooted in sales psychology. And while people's attention spans might be a bit smaller, trust me, what gets them to buy has not. So we've got everything from a welcome series to funnels to a newsletters all waiting over for you. Just head on over to katedoster.

com forward slash EMF. That's katedoster.com forward slash EMF. What is that?

I'm going to do the right thing listeners. So I figured for February, we were going to kick it old school and talk about some email marketing. It is one of my favorites is my passion. I know that we haven't really chatted about it too much year, we've been talking a lot about mindset and getting back into it.

And I do think that for a lot of us in 2026, and especially in 2025, a lot of people were really struggling with being able to connect to their audience because they just felt like everything was oversaturated. The world has been burning down around us. It's just like, how can I show up? How can I be that late in 70s and backs?

How can I talk about knitting and crafting when the world is burning around us and when social issues that I am very much really passionate about are occurring and injustices. and it's just been, it's been a rough year for a lot of people. And so I do want to acknowledge that. And I figured that we would sort of kick off our little email month, if you would, by chatting about unsubscribes in particular, because this is something that comes up a lot.

I actually got asked this question recently. And so I'm like, let's do a podcast episode. Let's kick off some email marketing month with talking about unsubscribes. So the first question is always, what is a good unsubscribe rate?

And anywhere from 0.5 to 1% when you're sending newsletters, is pretty typical. Now, I always say this with a grain of salt, because if your email list is smaller, mathematically, every single person is going to disproportionately throw off what you have. So you want to spend a lot of time growing your email list.

So that way, if five people unsubscribe, that's not technically 25% of your email list because you've got, you know, 25 people, right? So we do want to make sure that we're looking at this, and this is why most people just say base things off of a thousand. But I don't want you thinking like, oh my goodness, you know, should I not email my list then because I only have 57 people and my unsubscribe rate will be too high and then everything will hate me and blah, blah, blah. No, you want to be sending your emails regardless of your list size, because I don't know about you, but if I'm practicing and building a new skill, a new muscle, I'd much rather do it in a room full of 57 people than like a hundred thousand people, right?

Or even a thousand. So go ahead and still send these emails, but just realize if your list is a bit on the smaller side right now that your numbers are going to be a little bit disproportionate and for you it's just sort of looking like oh is something completely outlandish and so for you it might be looking at the actual sort of raw number okay I sent this to 60 people 30 people opened which is really exciting a 50% open rate and I had five people leave so out of 30 it like okay not actually awful obviously if we got to like 10 15 that would be really bad But for you you might have to look at the raw numbers For people that have their email list that are you know approaching four figures or higher maybe from a bundle, maybe not, then you're really looking at that 0.

5 to 1%. I would say that especially in this day and age, I feel like 1% is all right. Anything over 1%, especially if you're not doing any hardcore selling in it, and consistently, like if you are getting over 1% every single time you send, and it's been, we'll just say like for the last month, then yeah, we need to look at what is going on and where the disconnect is. Now you have to realize that, especially during say Black Friday, which I know is a while away for right now, you are going to see higher than average unsubscribes and complaints slash spam complaints.

We actually had a student and I was in a membership that accidentally walked into our eyes as a spam. I was like, why aren't I getting your emails? You unsubscribe and call the spam. She's like, oh my goodness.

It was because if anyone said anything around Black Friday, I didn't even look, I just unsubscribed. It's like, I was telling you that we were having a meeting to come. So keep in mind, November or December, you are going to see higher. If you are somebody who has not emailed your list in a while, then yes, those first couple of emails, you are going to see a higher unsubscribe rate.

Same thing that if you host a bundle, you are going to get some slightly higher unsubscribe rates when you send that first sort of broad email newsletter to everyone that was in the bundle and now on your email list. which is why especially for those first couple after the bundles anyone who signed up for the bundle I try to be able to filter them out and like we talk about inside of collaboration cash and I'll drop a link to that below on the bundle course I like to mark all of my old subscribers before I open the doors to the bundle so that way I know brand new fresh people I have not seen I'm going to send them a slightly different version of the same exact newsletter that I would send to the rest of my list it's just going to be reminding them of where they saw me potentially if they got my gift or not.

So I make them a little bit more personalized, probably for the first two or three, especially say if I'm doing a launch or sales campaign, which normally after a bundle, I do like to be able to follow up with one of those. So that's just a little something, something to help keep those unsubscribes lower. But what I want you to remember about unsubscribes, and I alluded to this earlier, that just means that you're actually taking action because yes, there are some people that are gonna join your newsletter, they're gonna get your freebie, and then whether they go through your welcome series or they get that first freebie email, they're gonna unsubscribe automatically.

That happens. But you're only the majority of the time going to get unsubscribes from actually sending emails. And guess what? That's also how you make money.

That's also how you build connections. That's also become how you really build a connection with your audience because you don't always have to sell in your emails, but technically you are selling the fact that you get them, that you want to connect with them, that you're a person that they want to have hanging around in their inbox, not necessarily always opening their dollars for. So like I said, anywhere between 0.5 and 1%.

But definitely if you are consistently, like if you say 1.5 and like the math maths, if you will, you have a larger email list, definitely something to be looking at with one of these things. So the first thing to be looking at, you might be thinking like, oh, sell less in your newsletters. Obviously, if you are repeating yourself constantly, then yeah, people are going to unsubscribe because you're boring and everyone wants to do this.

You can indeed sell a product in your email every single time you send an email if you are talking about it from different angles. So don want to display you and be like oh never sell But if you constantly saying you need to get this it save time You need to get this it save time Why haven you bought this yet You wasting hours and hours and not coming up with new fresh angles or not tying it into a casual style, not tying it into a case study, not tying it into, say, like a different, like maybe you throw together like a little PDF that could have been a blog post for people, right?

If you're not doing those certain things, then obviously you're going to see higher than normal unsubscribes. The second thing to be looking at is anytime you are doing a bigger launch or say you're doing a flash sale. I 100% always like to give people an opt out link so that way they can stay on my email list, but they're not going to get all of the sales emails. They're not going to get all the launch emails because people, you know, I think they're going to be able to be like, oh yeah, you know, I definitely like Kate, but you know, I don't, I don't, don't want her own bundles.

I have no interest in doing that. So they might want to hang around for myself, hear about more of the other things we've got, the ADHD tips, all those, you know, hidden dragons that love to help you slay. So they're just going to click, yeah, I'm set with bundles for right now. So then you get a tag and I make sure in all my sales emails about bundles that they are not getting them.

And then obviously you should make sure that if you're trying to sell a product, people aren't getting the sales emails, which then people are like, oh, but like if I'm trying to send an email, then like all those customers aren't going to hear from me that week. We had something like Kit and we are actually looking more into Flowdesk because we didn't get that sweet deal on them. You can send definitely in kit conditional messaging blocks where essentially you can send them in the same exact email, but just like if they don't have this tag, then, you know, go ahead and add the pitch.

If they do, then you can just have them do different messages. If your email service provider doesn't have conditional boxes, because they know it's kind of a more advanced thing, you can very easily just filter out the people that have purchased your email. And then guess what? Send out an email to the people that are purchased first, which is your newsletter minus the pitch.

After that email goes out, email the one with the pitch to everyone he didn't buy. So that way it's not like somebody just bought it like automatically for your email. And then you're like, I got the same exact email from you. So always email the buyer's version first or your current customer's version first and then the sales pitch second.

So we can keep it really simple. So again, number two, opt-out links. Make sure that you are not pitching to people that already bought your product. If you have a membership, of course, you could do a reignite, to come back and join us type of a thing.

I don't think that that is a problem when we're chatting about it there. The next thing to be looking at when it comes to unsubscribes is actually looking at your freebies. So you need to be asking yourself, especially if you've been hanging out with me for a while, if you have sort of changed your tone or changed your attitude, or you have freebies that aren't really talking about the things that you're currently really focusing on, then you might need to go back and be like, oh, like there's a disconnect here.

I need to retire this freebie or I need to be able to sort of change it. Or maybe it turns out that you created something and it was geared more towards beginners, but you actually want more advanced people now. I'm not seeing this leading to unsubscribes. It could be if you're over people's heads, but if they're not interested in those topics or it doesn't necessarily make sense, sometimes with your freebie, it is actually just cannibalizing sales where it's just like, why do you have been trying to sell me this Pinterest course?

I already got this amazing freebie from you that solved all my Pinterest problems. I'm over it. And that's sort of the The other thing to realize when it comes to unsubscribes is that people lose steam really easy And they lose focus really easy Meaning they could be like all right this is a year I gonna master Pinterest I all about it And then they sign up for 17 different Pinterest influencer stuff, they get burnt out, they don't see the results, and then they unsubscribe from everyone because they were over-consuming.

And so when people do unsubscribe, I like to think to myself, oh, I helped them as much as I could, right? And not like, I suck, I'm the worst. It's just, oh, they're over it, right? Like, and that's just what happens with people.

Everyone changes and evolves and your audience can change and evolve as well. So you can like to think of unsubscribes as that you did your job. Like their house is so organized. They don't need to know about new containers that hit Amazon because they already have the old set that you were talking about and they love it and they have a great system and they just, they don't need you anymore, which is great.

It is sad. Again, and this definitely comes into coaching. I think about this with the Inspired Action Takers too. I was like, there's gonna come a point where they don't need me and they don't need to lean on me.

And that's always the best, but it's always kind of hard because you develop great relationships with those audience members and you want to be able to keep them and have them. So that's really important. I'm going to tie in this next one. So like I said, we have our opt-out.

We have making sure that our freebie is aligned. Again, that is very important. We have not sending emails to people that have already purchased it or getting the multiple emails sent to them. Notice how I didn't say like only send an email once a month.

That's going to get you just as many unsubscribes as you send every day. Again, you can send every day. If you do, you need to make it crystal clear on your website and in your welcome series, you email every day so people are aware. Are you going to get higher unsubscribes?

Probably because you're popping up people's inboxes more. If you are somebody that just wants to try it out for a month, because I always love running experiments where like, yeah, maybe you do want to email once a month. You can have, again, those update links where people don't want emails from you. So maybe you give them like, say, a weekly roundup email so you can put them in a different sort of fashion, which I think is actually great.

thing, or just be like, hey, at the bottom of every email, be like, hey, in the month of February, I'm going to be coming out to you every single day with an email to help you do X, Y, and Z, especially if you are A, B, and C. Not into that. Click here and get one for once a week. Or of course, you can always unsubscribe.

So that's really what I would do there. So again, I don't think that you are going to see a huge influx of unsubscribes going from emailing once every single week to emailing twice a week. I think you're going to be fine. Again, if you decide to switch to every single day and you haven't been, and even if you're running it as an experiment that you're going to be doing, tell your audience ahead of time, give them away to hang out with you still, but at a different frequency that they can enjoy.

So do not worry guys, if you are getting unsubscribes, that just means that you are actually putting out content. It means that you're brave enough to hit send. Always make sure that we are aligned. And yes, you yourself are allowed to evolve and change, but make sure that if it's a big pivot, that we go ahead and sort of change those freebies that we have going on.

If you guys have any email marketing questions and things that you would like me to tackle for the month of February, you can always send me a DM over on Instagram, k underscore doster. I'll be honest, your girl took a bit of a social break, although I'm not one to be like, oh, I'm a no, sing it, right? But if you send me a DM, I will definitely see it. And it is the fastest way to get a hold of me.

I would love to be able to answer your email marketing questions for February. And next week, I think we're gonna chat a little bit more about some list building. And the week after, we'll chat about some sales email stuff. Bye, everybody.