I just got kicked out of a newsletter and I think it’s great

Reverse psychology & how to establish trust in email marketing

Today I’ve received an email from Schaubühne Berlin, one of the key cultural institutions in Berlin. They told me that I will be unsubscribed from their newsletter because I haven’t opened it in the past 9 months:

The following message translates like that into English:

I’m out. No more newsletter
­Dear Newsletter Subscriber,

According to our data you haven’t opened our newsletter for the past 9 months. We thus believe that you actually don’t want to receive our newsletter anymore and will therefore remove you from our list by the end of the year.

If this is a mistake and you would like to receive our newsletter in the future, please answer to this email. A simple reply is enough.

They unsubscribe me without telling them to do so. Why is this awesome?

There are several reasons why I got excited about this email:

1. I actually opened it (which I apparently haven’t done in 9 months). The subject line was unusual: Wait, no more newsletter for me? This got me curious to open it.
2. They value my time. By letting me know that they think I’m not interested in their newsletter they show that they care about their audience. It’s the opposite of most email marketing out there, which blasts messages to as many people as possible with the hope that something sticks.
3. They use reverse psychology. By telling me that they’ll take something away from me I actually want it more. I don’t want this newsletter to be taken away from me. I want it and I’ll likely open it in the future. I actually want to go and see a show there again. Sounds simple, but that’s the way my brain is wired.
4. It’s actually great for their email list. By reducing their inactive subscribers they will increase the average opening rate of their newsletters; which then leads to a higher relevance ranking on email clients and more people seeing it in their primary inboxes.

All in all this simple newsletter increased my trust in this institution and added relevance to our relationship. Well done Schaubühne!

We should now all go ahead and unsubscribe inactive people from our mailing lists. What do you think?