Email marketing software success hinges on the quality of you contact list. However, based on email marketing software industry research, your contacts will begin to drop off approximately three months after they initially opted in to your emails. I've mentioned in previous articles that a drop off should be expected, but there are ways to ensure that this drop off is greatly reduced, therefore making certain that the volume of your quality contacts is much greater. Here are four strategies to help you accomplish this using email marketing software.
"Important Client" Incentives:
Whenever you have something to sell to a customer, employing special promotions will keep your contacts' attention on your newsletters and services. Giving a discount to your contacts that have not responded by opening emails in recent months can bring them back to the active column. Plus, sending offers to recently unresponsive contacts needs to provide them the chance to update their contact preferences etc. Gathering more data on what they are looking for as a customer and getting more current information will help you know your customer's needs better.
Questionnaires:
The best way to discover why a customer hasn't been opening your emails is to ask them. Using email marketing software you can create a survey (that is quick and easy to fill out) so that in-actives can provide you with feedback. This is valuable information on things to avoid, but more importantly will tell you EXACTLY what particular users need from you so that you maintain them as active contacts. The survey will have questions relevant to your services, but be sure to also include things like a "preferred kind of message" section, or "best time to contact by email" section and of course a "comments and suggestions" section.
Take a Closer Look at Your Contacts:
By looking a little closer at your contact list you will notice some similarities with certain of them. By identifying the commonality you might discern what it takes to get through to them. You might find they all belong to a specific demographic previously un-targeted through your past email marketing campaigns. They might all be in a different time zone, or all older males, or teenage girls. Scrutinizing more closely may trigger an idea of how to get through to this previously unresponsive group, and give you an easy solution for getting them back.
Change Your Emailing Strategy:
Spending time on testing will help you find out if you can bring some of your 'inactives' out of hiding.
Knowing that you are always sending out your emails at the same time might mean you need to change the time of day you are sending out. If you normally send emails to people in the morning, then try changing that to the afternoon or evening. Then watch for the results and compare them to previous email marketing campaigns. Also, play around with the frequency that you are sending out your campaigns. If you are used to sending once every two months, then try sending it out once a month. Then try sending it out every two weeks.
Additionally you can modify the content of your emails to discover more about how your campaign's effect your contacts. After you've taken a closer look at your contacts you may have discovered a commonality between them that requires you to change the content of the email to match the needs of those subscribers. Another way to experiment is to send a campaign in a different format. If you normally send out all text emails, then send out a more dynamic campaign; or vice-versa.
A major component is your subject line. Often all that is required of you is to change the subject line to bring back your inactive contacts. An inactive subscriber might have been reluctant to open your emails because your subject line is always the same or very similar to all the other messages sent. Your in active subscriber is likely making the assumption that if the subject line doesn't change, neither does the content of the email marketing campaign.
Experimenting with alternative methods of sending out emails will recharge your dormant contacts, and more importantly will provide crucial information on what that user needs as a customer.
Experienced email marketers put the time in to work on their contact list. Now is your opportunity to ensure that you are getting the most out of your email marketing campaigns by putting in that added elbow grease so that your subscribers are aware of and listening to your messages. - 29941
"Important Client" Incentives:
Whenever you have something to sell to a customer, employing special promotions will keep your contacts' attention on your newsletters and services. Giving a discount to your contacts that have not responded by opening emails in recent months can bring them back to the active column. Plus, sending offers to recently unresponsive contacts needs to provide them the chance to update their contact preferences etc. Gathering more data on what they are looking for as a customer and getting more current information will help you know your customer's needs better.
Questionnaires:
The best way to discover why a customer hasn't been opening your emails is to ask them. Using email marketing software you can create a survey (that is quick and easy to fill out) so that in-actives can provide you with feedback. This is valuable information on things to avoid, but more importantly will tell you EXACTLY what particular users need from you so that you maintain them as active contacts. The survey will have questions relevant to your services, but be sure to also include things like a "preferred kind of message" section, or "best time to contact by email" section and of course a "comments and suggestions" section.
Take a Closer Look at Your Contacts:
By looking a little closer at your contact list you will notice some similarities with certain of them. By identifying the commonality you might discern what it takes to get through to them. You might find they all belong to a specific demographic previously un-targeted through your past email marketing campaigns. They might all be in a different time zone, or all older males, or teenage girls. Scrutinizing more closely may trigger an idea of how to get through to this previously unresponsive group, and give you an easy solution for getting them back.
Change Your Emailing Strategy:
Spending time on testing will help you find out if you can bring some of your 'inactives' out of hiding.
Knowing that you are always sending out your emails at the same time might mean you need to change the time of day you are sending out. If you normally send emails to people in the morning, then try changing that to the afternoon or evening. Then watch for the results and compare them to previous email marketing campaigns. Also, play around with the frequency that you are sending out your campaigns. If you are used to sending once every two months, then try sending it out once a month. Then try sending it out every two weeks.
Additionally you can modify the content of your emails to discover more about how your campaign's effect your contacts. After you've taken a closer look at your contacts you may have discovered a commonality between them that requires you to change the content of the email to match the needs of those subscribers. Another way to experiment is to send a campaign in a different format. If you normally send out all text emails, then send out a more dynamic campaign; or vice-versa.
A major component is your subject line. Often all that is required of you is to change the subject line to bring back your inactive contacts. An inactive subscriber might have been reluctant to open your emails because your subject line is always the same or very similar to all the other messages sent. Your in active subscriber is likely making the assumption that if the subject line doesn't change, neither does the content of the email marketing campaign.
Experimenting with alternative methods of sending out emails will recharge your dormant contacts, and more importantly will provide crucial information on what that user needs as a customer.
Experienced email marketers put the time in to work on their contact list. Now is your opportunity to ensure that you are getting the most out of your email marketing campaigns by putting in that added elbow grease so that your subscribers are aware of and listening to your messages. - 29941
About the Author:
Rudy Barell is a Senior Development Executive with Elite Email, the #1 email marketing solutions used by businesses around the globe. Create eye-catching emails and track your success with detailed reports for your email marketingTry it free!
