Next Steps After a Mystery Unsubscribe Request

After identifying how a person requesting an unsubscribe that is absent from your email marketing list is receiving your email marketing messages, what should you do about it?  Typically a digital marketer will simply unsubscribe the uncovered email address and consider the matter settled. But savvier digital marketers can leverage the opportunity to minimize loss and potentially re-engage a subscriber.

Email Forwarding

If the email was forwarded from a subscriber’s old address, you should unsubscribe both the old and the new address from your email marketing list.  This will ensure that the unsubscribe request is honored for all of the individual’s email addresses and won’t result in any SPAM complaints from the unsubscriber in the future.

Former Email Address

If the message was redistributed from an old address at an organization to a new one, check your list to see if a subscriber from the same URL can provide a more suitable contact.  Sometimes, an email address is set to forward to the wrong or unsuitable person. In other cases, an email address was intended to be temporarily forwarded to a co-workers email until a replacement for the old employee was hired but never gets redirected to replacement hire.  In either of these cases, it’s possible to update your list with a new subscriber that is likely to be engaged with your content by inquiring if there is a more suitable contact.

Group Mailbox

Group mailboxes are the biggest risk of missing an opportunity because unsubscribing that address might remove an entire organization from your communications. If most of the group wants to receive your emails, it’s a disservice to remove them all.  At minimum, you can send a final email to the group email box alerting the group that the email address has been unsubscribed and provide a link to your subscription form for those that want to opt-in to continue receiving your email communications.

Once you track down how someone apparently not on your email marketing list that wants to subscribe is receiving your communications, it’s paramount to honor the unsubscribe.  But that doesn’t mean you have to cut your losses.  Analyze the situation to see if similar contacts or group recipients would like to freshly opt in to your email communications.

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