Have you ever wondered why most people on your list never respond back to your emails? Well, it’s because 70% of email lists are normally inactive. And, such an inactivity could be because of multitude of reasons (a.) they no longer want to receive your emails, but haven’t actually unsubscribed (b.) you send them too many or fewer emails (c.) their preferences aren’t really catered (d.) their primary email contact has changed (f.) your offers aren’t appealing them anymore. There are just so many more reasons for having an email list without life.
So, how should you actually re-engage these subscribers before calling off your divine relationship?
In this article, Uplers will walk you through some holy mantras that will help you in re-engaging your idle subscribers.
(a.) Develop a dialogue and action
Go back and have a look at your emails! Are they really calling for an action? Are they talking to or speaking with the subscribers? Is it a promotional monologue or an informative dialogue? Re-check on the preference centers and ensure catering to subscribers as per their preferences. Go the extra mile and take a monthly personalized feedback about what else would they love to hear about. Do some past analysis from the previous campaigns and chalk out campaigns that drew highest opens and clicks. Also, figure out why? Resolving these questions and sending action oriented content would surely add helluva sense to your re-engagement email campaigns.
(b.) Who are you re-engaging?
Great that you have an action plan to re-engage, but who are the lucky sleeping saints who will be approached? Draft your inactive list, but before that define what accounts inactivity? Go through the types of behavior, opted preferences, life-cycle of all your customers vs. one individual subscriber. Once you decide about the inactive subscribers, create re-engagement email campaigns based on action and behavior or time lapse. Remember, if you haven’t defined inactivity properly, you might encounter higher spam rates or unsubscribe complaints.
(c.) Creating re-engagement emails
It’s that awkward moment when you actually scribble your notepads and flex your copy-writing muscles. Drafting a powerful re-engagement email is a daunting task to most marketers. The main area of focus while creating re-engagement email or email series should be instigating action, as mentioned previously. This could happen by brilliant piece of copy, a master stroke of subject line, an appealing image or simply incentives like free giveaway, off on the next purchase, etc. You can also consider changing the design aesthetics of your email and transform from a HTML to plain text or even snail mail sender. Also, let them know about what they have missed all these days while they were away. Make them feel value, but at the same time communicate importance of acting on your emails. Make sure your support team is well-equipped to support the responses. When you don’t like inaction, your users don’t like it either.
(d.) Track and be bold to say bye
Yes that might be the last thing on the list, but embrace bravery. Track your email metrics well and measure the difference if any. If you find you haven’t heard from a few of them after your reply spell is over, be bold and bid them goodbye. Fare well! For an e.g. “We never wanted to leave you and move ahead, but seems you are exiling and we don’t want to disturb. We will unsubscribe you from the list in next 24 hours if there is no response.”
A lot of companies don’t act on their inactive subscribers list. This not only hurts the domain reputation, but also the brand image. Hope the above tips help you to re-engage with your sleepy saints, just like a pro!
Here are a few good examples of amazing re-engagement emails:
