Email Delivery – Email Marketing Blog

Proven Ways to Re-Engage Inactive Email List Subscribers

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon April 12, 2023April 12, 2023in Email Engagement

Introduction

Even the most engaged email list subscribers may become inactive over time, which can significantly impact the success of your email campaigns. These inactive subscribers can cause your email engagement rates to plummet and negatively affect your overall campaign efficiency. However, the good news is that re-engaging these subscribers is not only possible, but it can be a highly effective strategy for improving performance.

In this post, we will discuss the importance of re-engaging inactive email subscribers and provide you with proven strategies to bring them back to your brand. We will also explore best practices and effective tactics for crafting and implementing win-back campaigns, measuring success, and continuous optimization.

Understanding Inactive Subscribers

Inactive subscribers are those who have not engaged with your emails over a certain period. The definition of inactive varies by company and industry, but it typically includes those who have not opened or clicked on an email in the last three to six months.

Unfortunately, inactive list members can have a significant impact on your email marketing campaigns. They can reduce your overall open and click-through rates, decrease engagement metrics, and increase the likelihood of emails being marked as spam. These metrics have a direct impact on your email deliverability.

Re-engaging inactive subscribers is essential in helping you maintain a healthy subscriber list. It also has the potential to increase revenue by bringing back subscribers who may have lost interest or moved on to other brands.

Proven Ways to Re-Engage Inactive Subscribers

Segment Your List

By creating segments based on subscriber behavior, such as engagement levels and past purchases, marketers can tailor their messaging and offers to better resonate with those subscribers. Best practices for segmenting email lists include regularly reviewing and updating segments, using data-driven insights to inform segment creation, and testing different messaging and offers for each segment to optimize engagement.

Personalize the Message

This can be achieved by including the recipient name in the email greeting, referencing their past purchase or browsing history, adjusting the email content based on their demographics or location, and a number of other strategies. For example, sending a birthday or anniversary email can make inactive subscribers feel valued.

Conduct Promotions and Discounts

Offering exclusive promotions or discounts to inactive subscribers is another powerful tactic to encourage re-engagement. These offers can include free shipping, a percentage discount on their next purchase, or a gift with purchase. The key is to make the offer exclusive and time-sensitive, so subscribers feel motivated to act quickly.

Run Win-Back Campaigns

These email campaigns are specifically designed to prompt inactive subscribers to engage with your brand and typically involve sending a series of personalized emails to your inactive segment with a clear call-to-action and a sense of urgency.

Crafting Effective Win-Back Campaigns

The first step in crafting an effective win-back campaign is identifying the inactive subscribers. An easy way to do this is to segment your list based on activity or inactivity, or use automation to identify subscribers who have not opened or clicked on your emails during a specific timeframe.

Compelling Subject Lines

Your subject line is the first thing your subscribers see, and it can make or break their decision to open your email. Make sure that your subject line and email content is clear, engaging, relevant, and personalized to each subscriber to achieve an effective win-back campaign.

Timing and Frequency

To determine the timing and frequency of your win-back campaign, it is critical to follow email marketing best practices. You do not want to send too many emails too often, and risk annoying your subscribers, but you also do not want to wait too long to re-engage them. The optimal timing depends on your industry and audience, but here are some tips that can help you get started:

Set a timeframe for when you will start your win-back campaign. Generally, it is best to start within 30 to 60 days of subscriber inactivity
Determine the frequency of your win-back campaign. Will you send one email or a series of emails? How often will you send them? Typically, it is best to start with a series or two or three emails sent a few days apart
Adjust the frequency of your messages based on the response you receive. If subscribers are responding positively, you may want to increase the frequency. If they are not, you may want to decrease or change your approach

Measure Everything

Analytics are essential for measuring the effectiveness of any digital marketing campaign. By tracking key metrics like open rates, CTR, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates you can determine what is working and what is not, then make informed decisions to adjust your strategy.

See: Email Subject Lines That Work

Other Tips and Best Practices

Avoid spam filters and email bounces

When sending re-engagement campaigns, make sure to follow email best practices to avoid being flagged as spam or having emails bounced. Some tips to keep in mind include:

Avoid using spam trigger words in subject lines and email content
Ensure your email lists are clean and up to date
Test your emails for deliverability before sending them out

Provide Valuable Content and Relevant Offers

To encourage subscribers to engage with your emails again, provide content and offers that are tailored to their interests and needs. This could include personalized recommendations, exclusive content, limited-time offers, or surveys and feedback requests based on your analysis of subscriber behavior and preferences. Try different subject lines, email content, or calls to action to see what resonates best with your audience.

Maintain a Consistent Sending Schedule

Consistency is key when it comes to effectively re-engaging inactive subscribers. Be sure to maintain a regular email sending frequency, but do not overwhelm subscribers with too many emails. Consider sending a series of emails spaced out over a few weeks instead of bombarding an inactive list member with too many messages at once.

Offer Easy Opt-Out or Opt-Down Options

While the goal of re-engagement campaigns is to encourage subscribers to engage with your emails again, it is important to offer an easy opt-out option for those who no longer wish to receive messages and an opt-down option for those who want to adjust how many messages they receive from you. Including this unsubscribe link in your emails can help keep your email list clean and prevent list members from marketing your emails as spam.

See: Create Lasting Value with Evergreen Content in your Emails

Conclusion

Re-engaging inactive subscribers can be a valuable way to improve the performance of your email marketing campaigns. By segmenting your email list, personalizing your content, implementing win-back campaigns, offering opt-out or opt-down options, and tracking your efforts, you can encourage dormant subscribers to take action.

Top 10 Best Email Marketing Practices to Implement Now

Posted by Alyssa Riceon June 17, 2020June 16, 2020in Email Marketing Best Practices

Do you want to increase engagement, sales, and conversion rates?

Setting goals for your email marketing campaign and deciding how to achieve them is a tough task. By following industry best practices, your company will be positioning yourself to completing said goals. Our 25+ years in this industry has taught us a thing or two about email marketing strategy.

Here, we list our top ten best email marketing practices that your company needs to begin now.

Top 10 Best Email Marketing Practices to Implement Now

1. Build your email campaign with a specific goal in mind – decide what you want to accomplish with this email marketing message, then build the message from there.

2. Engage your busy reader immediately with a powerful subject line. The email subject header is your first and best chance to catch the reader’s attention, so be bold, not bland.

3. Keep the email subject line short and sweet. Get your message across in 30 characters or less (including spaces between words).

4. The first line of your email message – what your readers see as snippet text or a pre-header in their email “In” box – must get right to the point and reinforce the headline message included in the subject line.

5. Include a strong, specific call to action in the email – and do it at or near the top of the message. If you ask the reader to visit your web site, provide a clickable link to the relevant landing page(s).

6. Make your message concise and relevant. Send information or an offer that your customer needs and wants, based on past purchasing behavior or other actions.

7. Personalize your message, and match the right offer to the right person. Don’t send the same promotional message to previous buyers as you do to prospects.

8. Limit your use of images, and don’t use audio, video or Flash unless you’re sure they will work or display properly in the email programs your recipients use. A safer bet is to simply include in the email a clickable link to rich media content on your web site.

9. Test – so you know what works and what doesn’t. This allows you to improve response rates in future email campaigns.

10. Get permission to send email to clients and prospects alike. Don’t sabotage the goodwill you’ve built by failing to ask recipients to opt-in.

How To Make Sure Your Emails Get Through To The Gmail Primary Tab

Posted by Steven O'Brienon April 27, 2017in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing Content, Email Marketing Testing, Email Marketing Tracking & Reporting, Sender Reputation

Okay, I’m just going to put this out there: the “Gmail issue” – that is, the ever increasing challenge of getting marketing emails to land in the Gmail Primary tab — is super frustrating! There. I said it! And I know I’m not alone on this. However…

Do you know who doesn’t hate the Gmail issue? Gmail, that’s who! And thank goodness for that, because they’ve given us all a reason to pause and consider how we think about our email campaigns, and what our subscribers want to know, receive and read.

That said, from a delivery and compliance perspective, senders can do a lot to ensure they get the best possible results in terms of where they want their mail to land at Gmail.

Prohibited Content: The Shark in the Email Marketing Waters

Posted by Steven O'Brienon August 4, 2016August 4, 2016in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing Content, Sender Reputation

As you dip your toes into the waters of email marketing, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that some of your email might contain content that people don’t want to receive. This is what ESP’s refer to as prohibited content. When you send a message with content like this — snap! — you’ll feel the jaws of compliance bite down on your email program!

Hello…Is it my email you’re looking for?

Posted by Steven O'Brienon June 30, 2016July 14, 2016in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email List Maintenance, Email Marketing Best Practices, Subscription Management

Lionel Richie asked this question (well sort of) back in the ’80s, with his heartstring-tugging hit song Hello.

And you could ask the same question of your subscribers. You know, the ones who haven’t opened one of your mailings in a while. Or the ones who haven’t engaged with you in a way that shows they’re still interested.

The Biggest Benefit of Email Testing

Posted by Karen Frascaon June 16, 2016in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing Content, Email Marketing Testing, Email Templates, Email Templates, Design & Layout, Marketing Strategy

In our last post, we explained why it’s important to test your emails before they go out. There are many benefits to incorporating this practice into your email marketing program, from catching typos and grammatical errors to ensuring optimal image display and maximum delivery.

But the biggest benefit of all is a little more abstract.

Take Time To Test!

Posted by Karen Frascaon June 9, 2016in Design & Layout, Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing Content, Email Marketing Testing, Email Templates, Email Templates, Design & Layout

Picture this: you’ve created a phenomenal email. One of your best ever, in fact. It’s got highly compelling content that’s relevant to your subscribers, gorgeous images, and a call to action that’s practically irresistible. This email is so good, you can’t wait to put it out there and watch the clicks and conversions start rolling in. So you’re really tempted to just pull the trigger and skip the whole testing phase. After all, you know your email is practically perfect.

What could possibly go wrong?

Fear the Walking Dead…DOMAINS

Posted by Steven O'Brienon May 19, 2016in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email List Maintenance, Email Marketing Best Practices, Sender Reputation

Addresses from dead domains are like zombies. They exist in your list and look kind of like the real thing (i.e., valid addresses that you can send to). They may have been on your list for a long time, maybe since you started collecting addresses way back when. But, like zombies, they are mere shadows of their former selves.

When compliance folks like me talk about dead domains, we are referring to addresses within a sender’s list that are from domains which are no longer in business, or are no longer providing mail client services. Having addresses from these domains on a mailing list is an indication to any good compliance specialist that the list is in dire need of clean-up, or that the list owner may have purchased addresses. Neither of these scenarios is good for the client’s sender reputation, nor the ESP’s overall reputation.

The Email Multiverse – or, How Multi-Part Messages Are Like Comic Books

Posted by Steven O'Brienon April 28, 2016in Design & Layout, Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Marketing Content

As you know by now, I’m an email nerd and – surprise! – I’m a comic book geek, too. I’ve been collecting comics since way before it was cool – long before tattooed specialty shop clerks (who try to make me feel like I don’t know the history of the Justice Society) were even born! I love the golden age heroes, like Earth-Two, Dr. Fate and The Helm of Nabu – heck, he was even based in Salem, MA (just like Net Atlantic)!

So what does this all have to do with email? Aside from the fact that I’d love a shout-out from @dandidio1, @JimLee or @geoffjohns – KAPOW! – quite a bit! Take the idea of the Multiverse. Comic book authors use the Multiverse as a way to tell stories about different versions of the same hero. And each version of the hero is interpreted differently by the readers. This is similar to the idea behind sending a multi-part email message. How?

Double Down on Double Opt-In

Posted by Steven O'Brienon April 14, 2016in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email List Maintenance, Email Marketing Best Practices, Subscription Management

Blackjack is a staple at any casino, and it’s a game in which skill and luck both play equal parts. Skill and a little bit of luck are needed in email marketing, too. For example, why take a chance on your email address collection process when you can improve your own odds by using a double opt-in sign up method whenever you can? See what I did there…cards and contacts? Tricky!

Seriously, though: The definition of doubling down is “to become more tenacious, zealous, or resolute in a position or undertaking”. And this is how everyone should approach email address collection. Why?

Introduction

Understanding Inactive Subscribers

Proven Ways to Re-Engage Inactive Subscribers

Crafting Effective Win-Back Campaigns

Other Tips and Best Practices

Conclusion

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