A high unsubscribe rate is bad, right? Not necessarily, according to the 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, just released at the 2011 NTC by M+R and NTEN.
As it turns out, a high unsubscribe rate correlates directly with high fundraising results. People unsubscribe because they read your message and decide your cause isn't interesting to them; people donate because they read your message and decide that it is.
The key here: people are reading your message. And that's kind of the whole point -- and another reason you should keep an eye on your own unsubscribe rate. (The first being: unsub rate > list growth rate = nobody to message. Since correlation isn't the same as causation, however, we don't recommend that you start writing your messages with an eye toward increasing unsubs.)
That's just one of the fascinating drops of knowledge in the "2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study". We recommend you:
> Download the Report. It's free!
Even better, we've got a free webinar coming up on Tuesday where you can hear about the results directly from M+R -- and ask them your questions. Register now.
Other highlights:
- Across the sector, e-mail open rates experienced a 12% decline year-over-year.
- The average nonprofit in the study sent 3.6 messages per subscriber per month -- but that went up to 6 messages in December.
- For every 1000 e-mail subscribers, orgs had 110 Facebook fans, 19 followers on Twitter, and 19 mobile users.
- The average study participant saw their number of fans on Facebook grow 14% -- every month.
We at NTEN spend a lot of time comparing our numbers to the benchmarks as we try to figure out what works best. You should, too.