Halloween is a month away, but today I want to get a little spooky with you.
Let’s talk about reviving the dead…
…subscribers on your email list, that is!
If you have an email list that isn’t very engaged, there are some super simple things you can do to re-engage them and subsequently purge the folks who aren’t responding. Watch this video and/or read below.
It starts by identifying the dead.
A general rule of thumb is that if a subscriber hasn’t opened email from you in 6 months, they’re unengaged. If you send email weekly, however, this is going to look different than if you send email monthly or more sporadically.
Once you’ve picked your dead zone, save an email segment in your email service provider of the unengaged. You don’t have to call them dead. 🙂
Treat them differently.
From now on, your strategy with the unengaged is going to be different. You are going to keep them out of some mailings, send them DIFFERENT mailings, and adjust your overall strategy with the end goal of getting these folks BACK ON BOARD.
Some ways to adjust your strategy include:
Subject line – Use personalization, super short subject lines or emojis to capture their attention.
Content – If you usually go long-form letter style, try a shorter postcard style to see if they respond.
Offers – If your offering price point is typically high, why don’t you try and entice your unengaged subscribers with an offer that falls into a more entry-level price point.
Offerings – Do you have a different KIND of product or service to showcase in your emails? Mix it up.
Day of the week – If you always send offers on weekdays, try a weekend approach with your unengaged.
Re-engagement triggered emails.
You could set up an automatic re-engage sequence subscribers right when they hit that 90 day or 6 month threshold (whatever you picked when identifying the dead). Send a “Hey Erica, do you still want to hear from us?” triggered email with a “Click to confirm your interest” link in it. This is a great way to automate keeping folks out of your dead list.
Dispose of the dead.
After a while, despite your best efforts, some folks just aren’t going to engage. Either they changed email addresses or they simply don’t notice you anymore. Don’t take it personally, but don’t keep them on the list just to pad your engagement numbers. It’s important to remove unengaged email addresses after a certain period to avoid getting on a spam list and improve your overall deliverability metrics to keep you in good standing with your email service provider. Once a year or so, archive email addresses that haven’t opened despite you taking the steps above. It’s a simple way to keep things clean, so you can focus your energy on the VIBRANTLY ALIVE, totally engaged REST of your email list.