A few months ago, I blogged about what political texts taught me about marketing. And then a recent article crossed my social media feed that basically said that consumers are opting out (as many as 40% a week) from marketing communications due to a few reasons. The good news, I realized as I read the article, was that author newsletters are uniquely positioned to keep their subscribers, and this echoes things I’ve been saying for a long time about your author newsletter.
Let’s start with some stats
- 52% of customers feel that it’s difficult to prevent marketers from using their personal information
- 53% who unsubscribe do say it’s due to the volume of the messages they receive. (Keep reading though!)
- Most people say they receive high volume of emails that are irreverent, unwanted, and too commercialized (That last one is important!)
(source for those stats if you want to read some geeky marketing stuff)
What does this mean for authors?
Current trends in marketing mean that it’s more important than ever to stop treating your readers like an ATM machine that you can extract money from.
The good news is that we know readers love our books. They buy our books. They subscribe to your author newsletter because they want….wait for it…. MORE BOOKS!
That fixes the emails being unwanted. How about too commercial or using their information? Well, don’t make every newsletter an advertisement for your books WITHOUT providing some value. Maybe this is a book by an author friend (newsletter swaps), some stories about your pets or a cool photo you took in the park. Be human. Ethical marketing is human marketing based on human connections.
Finally, if you don’t have news, don’t send a newsletter. I still recommend at least once a month, probably two to keep your name in their minds, but every week? Only if you have real news to share that’s meaningful to them.
And the bottom line is don’t be spammy or misleading with their information. When they opt out – opt them out. Don’t add them to a million segmented lists and make them opt out of each one. And if you’re going to be heavily promoting something like a class or a retreat, make sure they can opt out of just that list too, if they want. Treat them like a friend, and they’ll stay subscribed to you.
Oh and PS those political texts? All sending 20+ texts a day do was piss me off and make me unsubscribe and think even worse about the people sending them. You know why? Because they didn’t follow these rules about being relevant, personal, and making that connection. They treated me like an ATM, and I treated them like the trash they were.
Looking to get more out of your newsletter? Reach out and let’s talk about how to make your service work for you. Or, if you want to cut your author newsletter costs, check out Epona Mail. It integrates with most major providers, like Bookfunnel or Story Origin, and can save you money. Stop breaking the bank just to email your subscribers and work with a company that says NO to AI, NO to outsourcing, and YES to authors. We use it here at Epona Author Solutions AND use it for all of our author newsletters and want to share it with you.
