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What are your average email open rates? 10%? 30%? 50%?
Whatever they are, and the average for most organisations is around 21%, there is still a large group of people who are not opening and reading your email campaigns.
Why is this? Are you no longer relevant to them? Are your email campaigns too focussed on your organisation (and the products and services you want to sell) rather than on content and information your subscriber actually wants? If this is the case, you will probably see a steady decline in open and click-through rates as your subscribers slowly but surely switch off from you and your communications.
However, if you have a steady and constant ‘open rate’ figure, this may too be masking issues with your email campaigns.
For instance, you may find that you have one group of highly-engaged subscribers, 50% that dip in and out and a remaining 30% that may not have opened an email from you in 6 months or more. If you use third party email software, then you should be able to get this data - and I suggest if you haven’t already that you take some time to analyse your data to get a handle on your subscribers’ level of activity.
Have this inactive 30% ‘emotionally unsubscribed’? - Although they haven’t technically unsubscribed, every time your email pops up in their inbox they delete it straight away, believing what’s inside is of no value to them?
Or perhaps they are only engaging with your email and brand when they have a 'need' you can meet? This may be especially true in the B2B arena where lead-in times and buying cycles can be on a 6-monthly or yearly basis.
So what can you do to re-engage this group?
1) Remind them of the benefits of being an email subscriber with a re-engagement campaign.
Make it different from the standard newsletters you send them by sending a personalised email (perhaps with their name in the subject line as a one-off), removing all your usual HTML styling or templates. Remind them of the benefits of being an email subscriber and what they are missing out on.
2) Perhaps ask them what they would like to see in the newsletter.
Are you meeting their expectations? You may have done in the past, but perhaps over the last few months your content has strayed into ‘niche’ areas that are turning off a large group of people.
3) Include links from your popular past articles
Your subscribers are busy people and perhaps they have missed your emails due to an overflowing inbox. What have been your most popular articles/click-through links in the past? If they are not time dated, compile them together into a ‘best of’ type email.
4) Include a highly visible and strong unsubscribe link.
Perhaps in the first paragraph, rather than at the bottom footer where we traditionally include it – thus making it easier to unsubscribe. For instance, they may have moved jobs and your newsletter is no longer relevant to them – no matter how hard you may try to convince them! Incidentally, never make it difficult for your contacts to unsubscribe. If you are scared about contacts unsubscribing, then you need to look at your whole email strategy and question what you are currently sending and to whom.
5) Send the email on a different day or time.
Do you send your email campaigns on the same day every month, or around the same time? Try varying it. Try sending your email first thing in the morning at 8.00 so your email is in their inbox when they first arrive at work, or in the evening. Everyone has different email reading habits and by varying the time/day, you can discover what different segments prefer.
6) Send a postal mail integrating it with your email message
Sending a combined direct and email campaign can lift responses. What’s more people may have left their job, and their email account has been left dormant. By sending an email sign-up form with details of how you can help you can acquire new subscribers.
7) Keep the group segmented and send further targeted messages
So you have sent one email and received a good response? It doesn’t end there. Send tailored messages for 2/3 email campaigns. Monitor the opens and click throughs. Are they holding up? Merge contacts who have re-engaged with you back into your existing list, and perhaps give your other ‘inactives’ a break for a few months. Resending an email after a break may work wonders.
8) Repeat the campaign every 6 months
And keep your readers engaged. As new people come on board they may be enthusiastic about your communications and brand, but over time fatigue may set in with them too. Know who is engaged and who isn’t, and tailor your messages appropriately for each group.
I recently carried out this campaign and re-engaged over 6% of the ‘inactive subscribers’, receiving more replies to that email that any other previous newsletter I had sent out.
Although according to my email stats they were ‘inactive’, but there were actually reading my email. Which may be down to the little problem of ‘image blocking’ and the fact that people are reading your email – but it’s just not registering as an open. (Such as reading it in the preview pane)
Also don't assume that just because people are not clicking on your email that they are not engaging with you. They could be engaging with you via a different medium or perhaps like the safety of receiving your email in case a future need arises. Then you will be top of mind when they come to their buying decisions. So before culling your list (especially if you are a B2B emailer), consider that you could actually be removing highly-engaged subscribers.
ps All of this is taking into consideration that you clean your data lists regulary before every campaign. Such as removing unsubscribes and any auto replies you may get from ISP administrators that a mailbox is no longer being used.
Have you ran a similar campaign? What were your experiences?
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How are you emails performing? Latest Epsilon report on ‘open rate’ and ‘click through’ statistics.
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