How do I sell more without annoying my email list?

Here's something slightly unusual I like doing during promotions:

I give people an escape route.

Not from my email list.

From that particular promotion.

If I'm promoting Emailtopia and you're not remotely interested in Emailtopia right now, why should I force you to receive every email in the promotion?

Instead, I can essentially say:

"Not interested in this? Click here and I won't send you the rest of the emails about it."

You stay on my email list so you'll still receive my normal emails.

You're just saying:

"Not this one, Paul."

And that's completely fine. In fact, I argue that it's a good thing.

Because your subscribers' attention isn't something you're entitled to just because they gave you their email address six months ago.

(^ read that again)

Of course, this works best when you've already built the right foundation.

If you've spent months sending rubbish nobody wants and then suddenly add an opt-out link to your promotion, that's not going to magically fix your email marketing.

The relationship comes first.

Then, when you promote, give people more control over the emails they receive.

That means the people who are interested can continue hearing about the offer.

And the people who aren't can politely leave that particular conversation without leaving your world completely.

You don't have to choose between:

making sales

and

respecting your audience.

You can do both.

A promotion opt-out is an extra choice, not a replacement for a proper unsubscribe option. Google's sender guidelines explain its unsubscribe requirements for subscription messages.