Your email marketing campaigns don’t stay up to date over time, the databases slowly die. 25% of your list will expire over time as people switch jobs, switch email providers, or unsubscribe.  A re-engagement email campaign will not only wake up those unengaged subscribers and raise your click rates, but it will also make sure your lists are clean and you are not throwing away your active subscribers.  Most email marketers stay up to date with which subscribers to get rid of because they usually request to be taken off, however, a re-engagement campaign’s method can focus on re-awakening those active subscribers that may or may not be opening your emails.  It is crucial to launch re-engagement email campaigns for a couple important reasons.  One is to keep your domain reputation healthy.  Emailing the same people that don’t open or read your emails will hurt your name and the word will get out to different email providers.  The second reason is to make sure you aren’t emailing old lists, which will result in high bounce rates which can be dangerous.  Also, a more obvious reason, is to make sure that you are getting your money’s worth.  A re-engagement campaign will make sure you are not wasting any time or budget on stale contacts, and therefore not wasting your money. In order to launch an effective campaign it is important to follow some important steps.

  1. Assign Ages – You need to create a way to assign each subscriber an age.  Whether it be the date they became a subscriber, or the date they last interacted, it doesn’t matter.  This just needs to be consistent as it is a way to keep them organized and a way to measure their age.
  2. Decide on Cutoff – After establishing an age for your subscribers you then must determine what the cutoff point is for engaged and unengaged subscribers.  Trust your own judgement here, it shouldn’t be hard to tell when a subscriber is unengaged.  Usually this happens between 3 and 6 months.
  3. Segment – If you choose to be specific about your segmentation then it will make it a whole lot easier when trying to determine who your stale contacts are.  Creating groups that are segmented for 3 months is better than 6 months, and keeping each list 5000 or fewer will benefit you because the volume of bounces matter when your bounce rate is determined.
  4. Design your Emails – Design the emails that you are going to send to each segment that is intended to re-awake them.  In order to establish re-engagement with your subscribers you must send something that is highly valuable.  Remember, this is crucial because it is a last chance effort before you cut loose on your subscribers.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing