On my contact form I have a small checkbox. While contacting me for the first time, if you want to subscribe to my email updates (lots of tips and insights on content writing and content marketing) you can click the checkbox. Many clients do that. When they click the checkbox I presume that they understand what they are doing.

99.99% of the time people use my contact form because they want to hire me as their content writer. Not every query turns into a contact. Sometimes my rates are not suitable to them, sometimes they bump into another content writer and sometimes I don’t like the nature of the work. Anyway, whatever might be the reason, only 3-4 out of 10 queries actually convert. But I’m not writing about my conversion rate. I’m writing about people who unsubscribe from my updates if things between us don’t work out.

There is no need actually. Both these are mutually exclusive things. It hardly matters to me, once you have subscribed to my updates, whether we are working together or not. If you are subscribing to my updates simply because you think it will help us work together, it’s not so. I’m totally indifferent to that action of yours. Really.

Once you have subscribed, unless I regularly check my subscribers list (which I don’t) I don’t even know whether you – someone who subscribes from my contact form and the project didn’t happen – are still subscribed or not or if you are subscribed, you shouldn’t be subscribed, or something like that. Even if I don’t work for you as your content writer, you can carry on getting updates from me. It doesn’t cost me money. There is no obligation involved.