What Should I Do About Unverified and Inactive Subscribers?

As promised from the post: Increasing RSS Count - Inactive and Unverified RSS Subscribers, the following is an example of the actual email correspondence that Source Blogger personally sends to Feedburner subscribers who have not verified their subscription.

When the confirmation email is sent by Feedburner, there is a link in the email that must be clicked, thereby completing the subscription process. It's meant to be a simple process. (coughs loudly)

Ask any blogger about his Unverified subscribers and watch the look of both frustration and bewilderment appear on his/her face over this problem...no, epidemic!

The following is our template. Please make any/all changes you see fit. This merely gives you a starting point of how to structure your letter.

(---Begin Letter---)

Hello, from Source Blogger!

We see on 12/5 you submitted a request to start receiving Source Blogger by email, but have been notified that you have not confirmed your subscription. (Hopefully, the date will help the validity of your correspondence to the subscriber - as opposed to them simply disregarding you as SPAM.)

A confirmation email from Feedburner has been sent in order to verify your subscription to Source Blogger. Clicking on the link in the email would be the final step in the process. (The email may not have been sent to a primary email or perhaps the email's subject line was seen, but the subscriber honestly forgot there was a final step. By advising them that clicking the link is all they need to do, hopefully, they will go right over and take care of this. I can't imagine readers intentionally wish to become Unverified, can you?)

Please double check your email to see if you still have this. Perhaps it is buried in your spam / junk mail?. (Likely suggestion)

If not, use this link - http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=SourceBlogger to submit another request. We have some exciting articles on tap for you and we don't want you to miss them! (Entice them to ACTION - Make it convenient to reapply)

And remember your subscription is a free service. (Free is still the most sexy, intoxicating word in the English language. Plus, the reader will feel more obliged to confirm the email when they see the time you took to pursue them - well, hopefully they should!)

Thank you for interest in Source Blogger.

Let us know what else we can do to help.

Yours truly,

Source Blogger

(---End Letter---)

So, by now after reading so many articles about RSS, you're probably wondering the success rate of recovering the Unverified subscriber?

For us, it has been rather low. Perhaps you may not usually comment on blogs, but if you feel compelled, please share with our readers any tactics and/or strategies that worked for you. We would all (yes, including Source Blogger) like to know your secret!

I hope you have enjoyed this miniseries on Unverifed / Inactive RSS subscribers. Please consider becoming a subscriber to Source Blogger and joining the Source Blogger Community.