What is a re-engagement campaign? It sounds complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple. It’s mostly about de-cluttering your email list, kind of in the same way you might declutter a closet. A cluttered closet has a lot of old clothes that you never wear. They’re just taking up space. As soon as you declutter your closet and throw out the old clothes, your closet works better because you can actually get to the clothes you want to wear more easily. A re-engagement campaign works in kind of the same way. It helps clear out your email closet so that you can reach the email subscribers you like (the ones who are actually reading your emails) more easily.
A re-engagement campaign is a series of emails that you send to your email subscriber list that helps you identify people who aren’t responding to your emails and then subsequently gets those people (cold subscribers) off of your email list. Getting people off of your email list may sound counter-intuitive. You probably worked hard to earn those subscribers. The fact is, if those subscribers aren’t opening your emails, they aren’t worth keeping on your list. They’re probably more likely hurting your list. They’re like a bad boyfriend who really just needs to go away.
Cold Subscribers Hurt Your Email List
Cold subscribers hurt your email list in a few ways. First, they drive your costs up. Most email service providers (ESP) charge per subscriber. The more you have, the more you pay. You don’t really want to be paying to send email to people who aren’t reading your emails.
Second, and more importantly, cold subscribers hurt your sender score. If you are sending email, you have a “sender score” attached to your domain name. This helps the big email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo decide whether your emails are worth putting in the inbox or if they should go into the spam box. Domains with low sender scores land in the spam box more often. One of the main ways your sender score is calculated is by your open and click rate. You want both numbers to be high. If you have a lot of cold subscribers on your list who aren’t opening your emails, those people are bringing down your average open rate. If you can get them off your list, you might see your open rates climb, and then your sender reputation will climb as well.
You also run the risk that a cold subscriber might get fed up with seeing your emails in their inbox. Then, instead of unsubscribing from your list, they’ll mark you as spam. Being marked as spam hurts your sender score. On the flip side, if you can use a re-engagement campaign to get a cold subscriber to start opening your emails again, your open rates will improve. Those cold subscribers will be “re-engaged” with your emails because they are opening again and (hopefully) clicking again. If you can’t win a cold subscriber back, then you have to be prepared to cut them loose because they will only hurt your overall email performance.
Steps to a Basic ReEngagement Campaign
The steps to a re-engagement campaign vary depending on who your email provider is (i.e. MailChimp, ConvertKit, Active Campaign) but the principals are essentially the same.
1. Identify people on your list who have not opened your emails in the last 60 days
The 60 days number can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Longer means you might miss some cold subscribers. Shorter means you might accidentally purge some subscribers too early.
2. Send the re-engagement email to your cold subscriber list
This is an email with a super compelling subject line to try to get the user to open the email. Inside this email, you reference the fact that you’ve noticed they’re not opening and clicking and ask them if they want to stay on your list. Sometimes you can offer them something amazing to try to keep them around. (Check out this article for some specific ideas.) Give them a chance to unsubscribe. Move anyone who opens the email but doesn’t unsubscribe off of your list of cold subscribers before you send the next email.
3. Send a “Last Chance” email
Send an email to the people who still haven’t opened any email from you that says something to the effect of, “I’m sorry to see you go! Click here if you want to stick around.”
4. Remove the people who haven’t opened from your list
This is the hardest step for some people, but it ensures that people who aren’t even reading your emails aren’t bringing down your open rates. If you’re the optimistic type, you may find yourself thinking, “But what if they’re just really busy? What if they’ll are going to open the next email I send?” The truth is, most cold subscribers don’t ever reengage. You just aren’t offering them things that they need right now. And that’s OK. It doesn’t mean that your emails or bad or that you’re bad. It just means that they aren’t your ideal customer or reader at the moment. Letting them go frees you up to go find the right customers and readers.
Running a re-engagement campaign can improve your email results. If the idea overwhelms you or just seems like more than you can take on right now, you don’t have to do it on alone. I’ve helped my clients purge their email list of cold subscribers and watched their open rates climb. I’d love to help you too.
