Professionalize email Unsubscribe process and let us change opt-out instructions. In many ways the opt-out process is incomplete (at best) and (at worst) amateurish. Professional marketers would be embarrassed at the omissions, awkwardness and inconsistencies as things stand now. And WA wants us to look as professional as it does, right?

UNSUBSCRIBE LINK TARGET PAGE:

We can add custom language explaining that we have "two lists" and that the button applies only to the type of email they clicked on. But then the system concludes by saying, "do you want to unsubscribe from email blasts?" Huh? For starters, some of us hate the word "blasts." Would you really want any customer to feel like they've been "blasted" (in any sense of the word), let alone someone who is not satisfied by having received your email? I suggest something like, "from this type of email?" or "the type of email you clicked on?" But most of all, we would like to customize this system text ourselves.

Why no text-box form field or other form of feedback, so we understand why people leave our list? This is Marketing 101. Although apparently we can add a third-party survey or form, my understanding is that it would take them away from the page. If you make something harder for a user, fewer users will do it. Please get us feedback, without setting up user roadblocks!

PROFILE PAGE (EMAIL INSTRUCTIONS TAB):

This, too, is in dire need of explanation, so that people know what they're (un)subscribing. But if we add text above the Edit Profile button, it's there on every tab. As you see, I don't mind long text where it is helpful, but not when it is irrelevant to the user's objective. We want to explain email ONLY when viewing the Email Subscriptions tab.

The system descriptions of the two email types are not only inconsistent with our custom explanation, they are inaccurately worded, and thus confusing:

"Automatic event announcements. Receive advance announcements about upcoming events
Mass emails from administrators, such as newsletters and other important notifications"

• We call them "routine event announcements." This describes them more from the user's view. That they are "automatic" is relevant only to us. (Same is the situation regarding the word "manual.")
• We also use manual email to send advance announcements of events, especially major events. So that sentence is a bit misleading, too. And, personally, I hate the word "upcoming" as unnecessarily wordy and corporate-sounding. It's like "use" and "utilize" -- as any high school composition teacher will tell you, they mean the same thing. And when did movie theaters ever show "Upcoming Attractions"? But let's let these two issues slide for now.
• "Mass emails" -- aren't Automatic Event announcements "mass emails," too?
• If the point is that these mass emails are from administrators, okay, you know that, but the reader doesn't. And the word "administrators" is wrong -- our manual emails are from our Financial Secretary, or our President, or Corresponding Secretary, or one of our other managers, or simply from the club. "Administrators" do not send newsletters, and are anonymous, impersonal and scary.
• We'd like to customize these lines, too, which would be better than a big, long preamble above (even if that preamble were limited to the Email Subscriptions tab). For one thing, we would expand the list of examples. (e.g., "... such as newsletters, announcements of very special events, policies and club issues, non-event news, dues notices and reminders, schedule changes, etc."
• Somewhere (currently only possible in our monster preamble) we need to remind Members that they should not opt out of custom emails. Luckily not many members have, and I suspect the few who did unsubscribe were confused. But ideally, it should not even be possible for a Member, unless they are warned of the consequences, or have to ask an admin or something.

Yes, it would also be nice to offer a greater range of email options as others here have wished for (such as only one email per event, or a consolidated list of coming events once a week, and a Submit "action" reminder to check our event calendar often, since they won't be learning of events by email).

But first let's finish the basics?