Do you ever repeatedly - for consecutive weeks or months - delete emails instead of unsubscribing? Come on. Admit it. You do. We all do.
From the perspective of an email marketer, this presents a unique challenge…and an opportunity.
Purging long-term inactives (non-openers, non-clickers, non-converters) is a vital part of list maintenance. After all, if you continue to email these folks, 1) you’re wasting time and marketing dollars on people who may not care anymore and 2) you’re negatively skewing your metrics. Ultimately, you want to email an engaged list that will follow a course of action - this could be purchasing something or clicking through to visit your site.
But how do you tell if a recipient actually opens an email? Opens are often calculated only after an image is displayed or a link is clicked. So, it is possible that people are reading the emails, yet not enabling images or are reading a text version or viewing in the preview pane.
This is why I highly recommend executing a re-engagement strategy that offers readers the opportunity to stay on your list(s). Below are 5 concrete suggestions for asking your inactive subscribers to take action or get dropped:
1. Segment Non-Openers: Put all contacts who haven’t opened the last 50 or more emails into a new list. (Note: 50 is my own no-brainer “clean ‘em out” number, but you can certainly start with less sends than that.)
2. Create a 2-Part Email Series:
- Email #1 includes a strong call-to-action in the subject line (“Please confirm that you want to remain on our email list” or “Do you want to keep receiving our emails?” or “We’re cleaning up our email list: Please reconfirm your interest.”) Depending on your audience, don’t be afraid to show personality with lines like: “Are we breaking up?” and “Is it time to say goodbye?”
- In the email body, be clear and concise. Tell them that you are cleaning your list and need them to click through a specific link to re-confirm interest. (You’ll need a thank you landing page set up on your site).
- Offer the opportunity to unsubscribe within the body of the email.
- Let them know that if they do nothing, there will be one last reminder email and then they will be removed from your list.
- Send out Email #2 a week later reiterating that this is their “last chance” to remain on the list.
- Offer contact information to those who may be reading these emails too late and want to be reactivated.
3. Re-run Segment: Take all those who have clicked through the link and put them back into the main list(s).
4. Inactivate Non-responders: Unsubscribe those recipients who didn’t open/click your re-engagment emails.
5. Smile: Feel good about your list hygiene endeavors. After all, you know that size doesn’t matter when it comes to email lists, so let those Suzy Slackers off the hook.
Kristen Gregory
Account Manager at Bronto
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Kristen,
So what happens if you try a reactivation strategy and you still have non-openers/clickers. What then? Do you purge? If you suggest purging the email then do you have a good way to let the C-Suite know that we are purging? :-)
Hi Andrew,
If you still have non-openers, YES, I believe you should cut bait.
Remember, you’ve hopefully given them contact information in case they missed their chance to stay on the list and really do want to get your emails.
As for communicating to the C-Suite (when they may have the bigger list=more revenue mentality), I would recommend taking the money savings stance to best position yourself. Sending email, while less expensive than other marketing channels, isn’t free, so let them know that you’ve discovered a great way to save money without sacrificing revenue (and tell them what you’ve done to make sure of that!).
Anyone else have suggestions for successfully approaching management about list cleaning?
It can be difficult to let go of inactives, especially if they are a considerable portion of your list, but when you want to truly focus on profitability and results - dropping that dead weight is liberating.
So lets say..hypothetically speaking your DB is 10 million. Of those 10 million, 6 million are considered inactive…you have email deployment costs already budgeted for year and you have to tell your CMO that you need to deactivate and purge 60% of your DB….would it not be more prudent to rest them and try a second re-engagement strategy either using in-store/browse or propensity to purchase behavior based on data and try short but extremely focused campaigns? Or would you still blow them out of your DB?
@Andrew, you do have to cut your losses at some point. However, a second more targeted re-engagement strategy isn’t a bad idea. Often times your contacts become inactive due to a perceived lack of relevancy in your emails. If you can devise a more relevant email program for your contacts then you may win them back.
If you are able to create long-term strategic segments from your efforts that is great - because if you do win back a significant number of contacts you are going to have to continue these targeted campaigns in order to maintain their interest. So just ensure that you have the available resources to maintain that effort in the long run.
Great comment, Adam.
Andrew, I absolutely agree that a more targeted approach is worth trying, especially on an on-going basis. (And if you haven’t gone this route yet, you should.)
My advice above - the straightforward “Are you still interested?” question and campaign - is really the last ditch effort once you feel like you’ve tried your best to engage without success.
Great comment, Kristen.
I would agree that you would want to try to capture your audience on more time before cutting bait. I would like to hear how people have captured their audience again after they have lost interest.
I would try several things before purging:
1. clean your file with an email update service provider to ensure you are targeting an idividual with a valid and deliverable email address. Clear out what you cannot update or confirm is deliverable. Try obtaining postal address as well on high value prospects, customers or contacts and attempt a postcard reactivation effort with an incentive for the individual to visit your website again and to reestablish a relationship.
2. score your file for LTV potential after overlay based upon your known best customer profile. Those names that meet the profile of best customer and LTV thresholds should be retained for continued reactivation efforts.
At the front end of the conversation with clients at point of data entry, consider an authentication and validation filter to ensure you are capturing valid prospects and registrants and not bogus email addresses and names. From there, begin a process of communicating to discern preferred messaging type and frequency. If you gain some insights, and follow the input from your customers, you will learn how and when they want to hear from you to ensure a long term relationship.