How many email messages did you send out in your last email marketing campaign? Really? That many? Wow! Now, how many of your recipients actually opened or clicked on your email? Yeah, that's a different story. Remember that with email, size doesn't really matter.

Performance is what counts, not just for your email program and its bottom line but also for your sender reputation.

An email reactivation campaign is the answer here, and it's just as important as any acquisition campaign. It will help you clean out the dead wood, re-energize your email list and reclaim some of the money you spent acquiring and engaging those email addresses in the first place.

Why Reactivation Works

Your email service provider might be thrilled that you send out millions of messages in each email marketing campaign, but you could actually hurt yourself and your sender reputation and spend money you don't have to when you send to people who never bother to open or act on your messages.

Sure, maybe they did sign up with you once upon a time. Since then, though, they abandoned those mailboxes, and you never noticed. The internest service providers (ISPs) are noticing, and they'll treat your email accordingly.

Many use these long-dead email addresses as spam traps to monitor your list hygiene and measure your sender reputation. The dirtier your email list, the more likely they'll route your email messages to the junk folder or block you.

Just by looking at your database, you can't tell which email subscribers actually abandoned their mailboxes, who deletes your messages without opening them, or who still is sort of interested in you but hasn't seen any reason to open.

A reactivation campaign will identify which email addresses you can safely drop from your email list without killing off live ones, and re-establish connections with past customers.

Think of it as going on a second honeymoon. Just like a tired marriage needs a spark to keep it going, your email subscribers who take you for granted need a fresh, new reason to keep opening your email marketing.

You know you get the most action from your newest email subscribers. Apply the tactics you use on them to re-engage the inactives on your list instead of spending more money to replace them.

Ready with the virtual flowers and candy?

Identifying Your Inactive Email Subscribers 

This takes a little database work. Create an email list segment for anyone who hasn't opened or clicked on an email message in, say, six months or longer. Send an email with a pleading subject line, such as "We miss you! Please come back!" Go ahead, grovel a little. Include a special offer or invitation to update their profile, or encourage them to unsubscribe once and for all.

Keep all responding addresses on your active list. Send the email message again, this time saying you'll take them off your list if they don't respond in, say, a week. Then, stick to your word - remove them from your email list if they don't respond. It might kill you to do that, but a smaller, more vital list will do you more good than one where nobody's home anymore.

Keep Email Subscribers Interested

These tactics will keep your whole email list engaged and energized:

1. Ask them what they want to get. It could be you have lots to offer, but your email subscribers aren't getting what they really want. For example, if you're a book seller it may be that someone subscribed to your general list is really only interested in mysteries. Ask recipients to take control of what they want to get, and you may see renewed interest.

2. Make them an offer they can't refuse. Discounts, new products, samples and free shipping can work wonders for retailers. B2B marketers can renew interest with a special whitepaper or discount on a conference or webinar.

3. Incentivize! Ask users to update their profile, and give them a chance to win a big-screen TV.  Be careful to keep the focus on the email, though. If the prize is too good, people will re-engage, only to click the spam button when your email marketing actually arrives.

4. Threaten to break up. Tell email subscribers if they don't click, you're going away. It's possible that your heavily texted message is in fact being read, but you can't know it because recipients don't enable the images. It's fair to say that if recipients don't let you know somehow that they're still there, still breathing, that you'll drop them from the email list.

5. See what's on their minds. Simple surveys, sweetened with a little incentive (see No. 2), can help you find out what's going on. Maybe you're sending too often and they turn a deaf ear. Or, you're not coming around enough and they drift away.

6. Change your format. Are you sending long, chatty email messages to people who read them on their phones and don't get down to your offer? Or, do you stuff all your content into a single large image that won't show up? Offer a text format to people who read email on alternative platforms and make it short and sweet.

Trust me, the effort you spend now to wake up your email list and re-engage with them will pay off in better deliverability and a higher return on investment.

###

About the Author

Wendy Roth is senior manager of training services for Lyris. She works closely with marketing professionals to help them use Lyris' solutions to achieve their highest online marketing objectives, and she collaborates with product development to ensure Lyris' products are based on marketers' changing needs. This article was originally published on iMedia Connection.

Related Resources:

• Subscribe to Inside Lyris HQ our monthly online-marketing newsletter.
• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.