Effective Ways to Bid Farewell



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Effective Ways to Bid Farewell
By Janet Roberts

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Everybody writes reams of advice about the right way to launch an email newsletter, but who's around to help you shut it down in the most effective manner? This is, sad to say, a relevant query these days as newsletter after newsletter goes dark or attempts to switch to paid delivery.

In this week's email alone I've gotten notices about the pending or immediate demises of five or six newsletters that I look forward to reading. The announcements vary, from a curt "This newsletter has been discontinued" to heartfelt explanations from the publisher.

The right way to say good-bye depends so much on the kind of newsletter you publish and why you're shutting down. Do you run a personal, home-based publication that developed a strong interaction with readers, or is it a utilitarian list? If you have built a strong rapport with your readers, let them know in your last issue. Otherwise, you might leave them feeling a little abandoned.

(This sounds like an obvious thing to do, but about half of the discontinue notices I've received fall into the "curt" category.)

Forgive the mercenary tinge to this tip, but a good good-bye message will also leave the door open to other contacts. If you're leaving newsletter publishing entirely but still running a business with a Web site, post the link. If you are shutting down one newsletter while maintaining a few others, mention those in the message and link to a description or subscription page.

Topica uses this tactic when it sends out a standard discontinue notice:

"The email list you were subscribed to, (name), has been discontinued by the list owner. You will not receive any more messages from this list, except for any that were already queued to be sent at the time the list was deleted.

"Don't fret. Topica's site has thousands of other great lists you can join. Or you can start your own list here: http://www.topica.com/create?system1

"And don't forget TopOffers -- our exclusive savings alerts for computers, fashion, music, travel products, and more! http://www.topica.com/partner/sysmes1/channels/offers/"

The good-bye message, while not serving the publisher's interest, helps out Topica by keeping the customer in the store, so to speak. This message repeats the theme in the "goodbye" message that goes out to unsubscribers, linking to the service's newsletter index. Topica also is looking for another way to turn subscribers into clients.

This advice also works in your standard unsubscribe message. Do you merely send an automated form telling the reader he/she is unsubscribed? You can attempt to maintain contact by sending a gracious good-bye message, asking for a reason for the unsubscribe or listing other publications that might be of interest. This is a key step for publishers who do all of their subscriptions transactions at their Web sites and don't do email confirmations.

Just make it clear that the reader has indeed unsubscribed and won't be getting further mailings from you. Remember Kozmo, the company that was successfully sued for spamming because its good-bye message, containing instructions for subscribing to other services, was misinterpreted. Check it out here.

Ezine-Tips for September 27, 2001

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Effective Ways to Bid FarewellBy Janet Roberts

Effective Ways to Bid Farewell
By Janet Roberts