It can be really frustrating to get your email address or phone number removed from electronic mailing lists. Sometimes it’s hard to know who to contact or how to find the unsubscribe information in a message. Some lack an unsubscribe facility altogether!
If you’re sending commercial electronic messages, it is important to make it easy for subscribers to leave your mailing list. It’s best practice and helps you comply with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (the Act).
Keep it simple
Unsubscribe functions should be clear and conspicuous, free, and likely to be functional 30 days after the original message is sent. While many messaging services provide unsubscribe buttons and hyperlinks, it is still ok to include a simple plain-text sentence such as:
-
Please reply by return email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line if you do not wish to be contacted again.
-
Click here to unsubscribe.
Providing each unsubscribe request is actioned within five days, these meet the requirements of the Act.
A simple confirmation message saying ‘thank you for unsubscribing’ is okay, provided it is sent within five days.
Keep your list up-to-date
A functional unsubscribe facility means that your distribution list can be kept up-to-date and that only the people who want your messages will receive them.
People who are effectively removed from your list will trust and have confidence in you or your company.
More than one list?
Sometimes people will be signed up to more than one of your distribution lists.
Someone might unsubscribe from one list, believing that they have unsubscribed from all lists, and get annoyed or confused when they continue to receive messages from you.
As part of your unsubscribe process, make it clear exactly which lists people are unsubscribing from.
How often do you check your unsubscribe facility?
Our advice is to try it out for yourself - sign up to your own list and use the unsubscribe facility. See if it works for you, and what the result is. Get a colleague to try out the process too. Remember, it is just as important to remove someone from your list, as it is to put them on.
An unsubscribe facility that demands a lot of process and input will annoy and frustrate recipients, and cause friction between you and them. An angry recipient may spread bad words about you or your company and complain to the Department.
More about unsubscribing.