4 Best ways to re-engage inactive email subscribers

4 powerful ways to re-engage inactive email subscribers

Establishing connections with subscribers is essential for email marketing. But establishing relationships with customers is only the first step in the process, and marketers who stop will see the size of their audience decrease.

Email marketers must perform double tasks: maintain and encourage relationships with active subscribers and re-engage users with lower levels of participation

Here are four great ways to re-engage inactive email subscribers.

1. Define inactive users

Surprisingly, inactive users constitute 60 percent of the average email database. Therefore, before you can develop your strategy to re-engage inactive email subscribers, you must identify who is inactive on your lists.

The first step is to review the historical data to determine who has not clicked, opened, responded or interacted in any way with the email campaigns in the last six to twelve months (even 18 months, depending on your product). Once this segment is identified, it is tempting to eliminate these users from the database. Having! It is not a good idea to remove inactive email subscribers. The fact that subscribers are not opening or clicking on emails does not mean that the campaigns do not affect their behavior.

Consider the complete trip of the buyer and how email could influence the behavior of a subscriber in other channels. For example, a subscriber can not participate in an email, but the message can cause them to go directly to the application store to download the company's application. Or as the email kept the company in mind, the user can click on one of the company's social media ads.

2. Use data to segment inactive users

Once you have identified the inactive users in the email database, it is time to decide how to segment them.

A good idea is to use email activity metrics to see how active the person is in general. Ask yourself: "Does this user interact with our brand on other channels?" Remember: the lack of commitment to email does not amount to a total lack of commitment.

You should also consider the user's life stage and then adapt your message accordingly. Sending recommendations for products designed for pregnant mothers to a woman who has already given birth or offering discounts on expensive vacations to low-income recipients is unlikely to yield positive results.

3. Adjust the strategy according to the type of commitment

Inactive subscribers are divided into two different categories:

1. Users who have not been committed to the emails of a company but who are committed to the brand in other channels

2. Users that no longer interact with the brand in any channel.

Those in the first group represent a high level of potential value. To re-activate them, A / B test for high frequency and low-frequency communication. These emails must contain messages and content, such as ...

Special promotions related to subscriber behaviors in other channels.

An invitation to adjust the mail frequency of the subscriber.

Reminders of the value of being an email subscriber, for example, "Did you know that by being an email subscriber, you get access to exclusive email-only offers?"

The benefits of joining your loyalty program.

The users who at the same time were committed to the business but who no longer offer a moderate level of potential value, since they interacted with the brand in the past. The frequency of email with this category of inactive users should be low and include content such as ...

Messaging that takes advantage of the FOMO (Fear of getting lost): "Here are some discounts that you have missed".

A friendly acknowledgment of his inactivity: "We have not seen you in a long time!"

A short survey asking why they stopped committing to the brand.

4. Fill in the data holes with Email Intelligence

One of the main reasons why subscribers become inactive is because they no longer consider the company's emails relevant or interesting. This is a signal to look at the data and investigate what may have changed for the subscriber.

If there are gaps in the data that prevent you from making the most informed decision, the Email Intelligence service can help you. Email Intelligence provides demographic data, purchase intent and browsing behavior in 80 percent of the email addresses in a company's database. With this information, you can customize the content on an individual level, which can help facilitate the re-entry of inactive email subscribers.

Keep in mind that you can take more than one email to retrieve inactive subscribers. Plan to send a series of emails over several weeks or months and test the approaches to see what inspires the greatest interaction among subscribers.

Do you have inactive email subscribers? Here are 10 ways to get them involved again 

Like most marketers, Brian struggles to keep his subscribers engaged. No one takes measurements of their emails.

Some do not bother to open. Others do it but they do not click.

Brian scratches his head. How could this be possible when they signed up? Why do not they respond? He asks himself.

Have a list of uncommitted subscribers: it is a distressing experience if email marketing is one of your strategies to boost the business. Returning them is like rekindling a broken friendship. Or save a failed marriage.

Sometimes, the solutions that you assume work are the ones that most alienate people. You can also decide that the issue is too difficult to handle and that you let go.

Can Brian do something to solve his problem? Of course.

He can, without starting a list building campaign again. Because finding new prospects requires more time and resources than keeping the ones you have.

Do you find yourself in this situation? I have good news for you ... The people on your list are willing to commit to you again. You just need to take advantage of new and creative strategies.

Next, I share 10 ways with you.

1. Identify the possible reasons for the withdrawal.

The first step in addressing a problem is knowing why it existed. Once you understand, you can move forward and avoid repeating the same mistakes. Take a step back and look at all the probable causes.

Consider these reasons:

People do not need your help anymore.

You send emails too often.

Change in email addresses.

Bad synchronization

You always try to sell them something.

They hear the same things over and over again.

They had a different expectation.

Your content is irrelevant.

Your emails look strange.

The reason for a disconnected list is not always about you, as in the case of a change in the email address. Or it could be that people no longer open their emails for some reason.

Even so, his focus is on recovering those inactive subscribers.

2. Set the correct expectations on your registration form and comply with them.

When people join your mailing list, they expect to get something from you. Be sure to tell them what this is and fulfill it. If you do not move forward, you will lose confidence and interest.

If you promised to send weekly tips, send them tips and non-promotional emails. People should not ask themselves why they are receiving something else.

Setting expectations begins with your email registration form. Your registration form should indicate to subscribers:

The type of email you will send them.

How often will you send emails?

What they are going to get

The benefits of subscribing.

You may be disappointing your subscribers by not meeting your expectations. If you are disappointed, it is your fault.

Now, I ask ... Go to your web form to see if you have set the right expectations.

Did you find that you sent irrelevant emails? Change them. It's not too late!

3. Calculate the best times to send your emails.

I know that I know. You searched on Google "the best moments to send emails" and you got different answers. You're tired of hearing the same things over and over again. It's frustrating.

But while you want an exact answer that I would love to give, I can only tell you that it depends. The best times to send emails vary because many factors come into play.

Divide your list into 2-3 segments. You will find the necessary segmentation when you are working on a larger email list. The next time you create an email, send it to each segment in different hours and days. Do not just rely on these findings; do a real division test.

Take note of his response. Does your morning group get involved with your emails more than your evening group?

Professional advice: make sure you keep your variables consistent, except for the days and hours when you send emails. Since you are learning what time works, focus on time as the constant variable.

4. Ask them to answer a survey and use their answers to improve their campaign.

Many times people do not like what you send them. Your messages may be too windy or annoying. In any case, find out what they want. Run a survey! It is an easy solution but something that only a few sellers use.

Ask open questions.

Open questions give you more information to work on. You have the opportunity to get the exact thoughts and feelings of people on a subject. However, the drawback of these questions is that not all subscribers will bother to answer them. It is also difficult to analyze the answers provided by people who can not express themselves well.

Create an opinion poll.

An opinion poll differs from an open question in that it summarizes a list of prepared responses that subscribers can simply choose. Find the most convenient surveys to complete. These results are more precise and easier to process.

Keep your survey short.

Nobody wants to answer long surveys. The longer the survey gets, the less likely it is that subscribers will complete it. How short should your survey be? AWeber recommends a period of 1 to 5 minutes. That covers 1-10 questions. Mention in your subject line that your survey is short.

Encourage your subscribers.

The incentives of the survey motivate people to take action. In doing so, make sure the incentive is related to your product or service. The most common incentive is a discount. Be careful, because not all surveys need an incentive. Do not waste your resources in very short surveys.

5. Improve your email subject lines.

Subject lines create a first impression. You've heard this too many times. But to this day, you still never master the skill.

Well, let me tell you that you do not have to be the best editor to write subject lines that click and read your emails. All you need are the right advice and formulas to structure your headlines.

But first, let's explore the characteristics of the wrong email subject lines:

All the caps that make it look like you're screaming.

Many exclamation points

Spelling mistakes

Simple but boring

You become the focus of the subject line, not your reader.

Now, how exactly should you write your subject lines? What are the things that make them interesting?

The formula of ROT

Neville Medhora uses this tactic and introduces it into his writing course. He suggests that if you lack creativity in the headlines, just use ROT. It means Results-Objection-Time. You can change it as RTO or TRO.

Here is an example:

Results: Master Facebook Marketing

Time: In 30 minutes.

Objective: even if you are not an expert

Headline: Facebook Master Marketing in 30 minutes, even if you are not an expert

Numbered lists

When we rush to work, we look at our watches to see how much time we have left. When we fall in line to buy tickets, we check how much longer we have to wait.

You see, the numbers make something more predictable, real and logical. People are naturally attracted to numbers. This explains why number lists work as e-mail subject lines.

In what situations can you use numbered lists? Use them to reflect the title of your blog. For example ... "10 simple tricks to make your hair grow faster" or "9 ways to build your career as a freelance writer".

6. Show them a Facebook ad using email retargeting

Through repetition, something sticks in your mind. Most of the time, we make a decision based on how familiar something is to us (for example, how often we see it, how often it is mentioned, etc.).

Repetition breeds familiarity. Familiarity breeds confidence.

Now, apply this principle to re-engage your inactive email subscribers. How do you do that?

Facebook retargeting. It is a technique that allows you to show relevant ads to people who have previously committed to you. Yes, these people include those who subscribed to their newsletters.

This is how the Facebook redirect works: go to Facebook and upload your subscriber list. Facebook will match your email list with your current user profiles. Then a personalized audience is created. If your subscribers are on Facebook, they will see your ads.

How to increase Facebook's retargeting potential

Of course, Facebook's retargeting is an effective strategy to re-engage its subscribers. But with more and more business owners using the same method, it is less likely to stand out.

What would happen if you could base your retargeting campaign on Facebook on the specific behaviors of people? Behaviors like ...

If they opened or did not open their email

If they clicked on the link within their email

If they received or did not receive your email

We have created a tool called ConnectAudience that tracks the behavior of your email list. Those behaviors will be the basis for creating super specific Facebook ads.

7. Make an email reactivation campaign.

An email reactivation campaign involves sending a special message to inactive subscribers, telling them that you want to retrieve them. It's different from the usual emails you send. In a reactivation campaign, email marketers often use subject lines like "We miss you".

Marketers usually send reactivation emails when they want to identify inactively and remove them from their list.

The email encourages subscribers to return and may include incentives such as discounts, free shipping or other free stuff. Then, it gives people the option to cancel the subscription, either in the same email or in a second email if they still do not respond.