Marketing is a contest to get people's attention. This is how Seth Godin summed it up in a masterful way.
Unfortunately, most people who do email marketing don't win this contest that rewards the most eye-catching email marketer.
While many set up permission email lists, an average of 60% of the lists are "dead" or "inactive" email subscribers, i.e., they don't open your messages.
This is unacceptable and must be corrected. Here are 10 tactics to re-engage your inactive contacts.
Make sure your messages are relevant.
Consumers are overwhelmed with the sheer number of emails they receive on a daily basis. A recent study by the Email Stat Center indicates that the average subscriber receives 11 commercial messages each day through their inbox, 9 through Facebook and 8 through Twitter.
However, when done well, the results are very satisfying. McKinsey & Company found that email has a return on investment of $44 for every $1 spent.
Only by delivering relevant information, based on the interests and needs of your subscribers, will you notice a significant difference in the success of your email campaigns.
2. Define the inactive
Before targeting any specific actions to inactive contacts, you must define which contacts qualify or are defined as inactive within your lists.
Most marketers define an inactive contact as someone who has not responded, opened or clicked on your messages in the last 6 to 12 months.
Inactives -we insist- are a big problem in email marketing, as inactivity rates on an average list is around 60%.
This means that a list of 10,000 contacts has only 4,000 subscribers who actually read the messages. Considering the enormous amount of time that goes into building lists to send messages, if 60% of the contacts on those lists do not respond, we are looking at a huge loss in terms of time and revenue.
3. Segment your contact list
So, since not all of your subscribers are interested in the email marketing campaigns you send on a regular basis, segment your list by differentiating those who are active from those who are inactive.
If you don't differentiate between the two groups, you will be wasting a lot of resources on people who will never become customers. For those who do not participate, create another list.
For inactive subscribers, send them another type of communication, with the objective of activating them. Ask them if they want to remain subscribed. According to projections based on studies, 20% will respond positively. Remove the rest of the list.
This will definitely help you increase your metrics, such as open rates.
If you think about giving gifts to your contact list, you hardly want to give them to those who are not interested.
4. Find out what your list thinks of you.
The following is an interesting example of feedback that allows you to evaluate how committed a database is to the company that sends it communications:
Dean DeLisle's company, Forward Progress, sends more than a billion messages per month to its customers. For them, a clean list is essential to their success.
Recently, they were working with a mortgage company on reactivating their list. The bank had a large database, but had no relationship with those contacts.
The question is how to reactivate them? They focused on aspects that would benefit the people in the database. The first thing to understand is how to initiate the relationship and, in the absence of a response, it becomes clear that a new impetus is needed.
In this case, a survey was conducted to assess the relationship. In return, a $5 Starbucks card was given to those who responded. The investment was worth it, because the relationships were re-activated.
For this survey, a total of 3,268 contacts were invited, of which 322 participated, approximately 10%. They were happy as they did not usually exceed 3% with re-engagement campaigns, so this experience was considered a success.
These statistics emphasize a significant factor in retargeting: you won't retarget all of your contacts, but you will be able to determine who is interested and focus on them.
5. Rebuild the relationship
Divide and conquer. Rebuild relationships by not sending the same message to everyone, but through diversified communications to different contact lists.
The more segmentation, the more relevant your message will be. Create different lists with different messages and rebuild relationships based on relevance.
On the other hand, instead of sending a sales pitch for them to buy this or that, send useful information on how to increase their business, for example.
6. Include calls to action
Isolate subscribers who have not opened your messages, or clicked on links, in the last three to six months. Then send them a series of reengagement messages.
There are several tactics you can employ here: You can send messages that allow them to change their email preferences or force them to click on a link to continue receiving messages.
It is especially critical to have a call to action to ensure that you can separate those who are still interested from those who are not.
We suggest that you use a simple, clear and effective call to action.
7. Give them options
Not everyone wants to receive the same content, because not everyone on your contact list has the same interests and needs.
So give them choices, as we point out through the preference center.
For example, if you are a newspaper and you send news via email on a daily basis, one option for part of your contact list would be to subscribe to the featured news so as not to miss the latest national or international news. The second option would be to invite them to subscribe to technology and new product sections.
8. Move forward with care
It is common to attack via email with so much force, with so much content, that you only manage to lull people to sleep, like prey in the jungle being stalked by a tiger.
They feel overwhelmed, freeze up and don't respond to your marketing. If this is the case, consider reducing the frequency of your emails.
Most technology companies have a whole battery of messages to be sent at the beginning of a relationship, as well as regular webinars to inform about their services. Sometimes it can be too much. Let your readers rest and come back refreshed at a later date.
9. Ask your contacts to update their information.
Simply asking customers to update their contact information is enough to achieve amazing results with a high degree of engagement. This tactic gives the customer the opportunity to engage with you with a new email address if theirs has changed, personalize their needs and interests, and subscribe to app and social media updates.
10. Follow in their footsteps
For a digital marketer, data is everything; it is the footprint that customers leave behind. However, half of marketing executives in various surveys say they don't use big data to analyze consumer behavior, either because they don't have the budget for it or because they don't think they have the expertise to take advantage of the vast amount of information available to them.
These are the wrong assumptions. Data analysis doesn't have to be overly complicated and whatever costs you've incurred up front will be greatly rewarded down the road. Without proper data analysis, creating an effective email marketing strategy is not possible.
To analyze the data of inactive users, start with an audit of all subscribers in your contact list.
These subscribers can be segmented by activity level, including how often they engage and when their most recent interaction occurred.
Do you have any other suggestions for re-engaging your dead or inactive email contacts?
