Gmail is making it easier to unsubscribe to newsletters by scraping code within promotional emails and putting a button near the sender’s name. You might think that’s a bad thing for marketers like us, but it’s actually way effing better.
It’s always better to have interested and dedicated people following your brand than the passer-by who get’s annoyed by your message. If you’re sending your newsletters to people who didn’t opt in or who can’t find the elusive “unsubscribe” button, then you’re simply damaging your brand by creating negative interactions. Everyone has that one brand that they will never buy from because they are sick of their marketing vomit (AOL anyone?).
Marketing in the past was always about quantity over quality, but thanks to the internet lords, that is finally changing. We don’t want 8 million poorly targeted impressions anymore; now it’s about 50,000 highly-targeted measurable impressions that lead brand advocates down the sales funnel, get them to share content, donate, engage, whatever it is you want your following to do. That is the difference between an ’audience’ and a ‘following.’
“But my newsletter just lost 80% of it’s list due to the Canadian Anti-spam legislation!“
Well, hate to say it, but maybe you shouldn’t have built a spam list of unwilling recipients. This is just now finally biting spammers in the behind and everyone should be happy about it. What’s funny is that there is so much more return with a small dedicated following versus a catch-all list. Props to Google and Gmail for making it easier for all of us to trim out the good from the bad!