Launching Reengagement Campaigns Will Bring Your Bored Friends Back to the Party

Your email list is huge but the numbers aren't what you'd like. What's the solution? A strategic reengagement campaign can remind your inactive subscribers and get those open and click rates up. What use is the most beautiful email marketing campaign if it isn’t read? The struggle is real. We get it.

Normal Customer Lifecycle Includes Inactive Customers

For better or worse, inactive customers are part of the normal customer lifecycle. A successful reengagement campaign can encourage inactive subscribers to open the newsletter again. If they open it, they'll read it, and, above all, click on links. The advantages of reengagement campaigns are obvious: on the one hand, it is cheaper to reactivate inactive subscribers than to acquire new ones. On the other hand, tidy email lists ensure better performance values. We love high open and click rates, but we also love large lists. So, how do you balance it?

Keeping customer engagement high is one of the most important tasks for email marketers. But even the best campaign can't reactivate all recipients. (You can’t be all things to all people.) This isn't surprising given the enormous competition for consumers' attention. Anyone who opens their inbox today is virtually bombarded by emails. The first step is to understand the process and behavior behind inactivity.

How Do Recipients Become Inactive?

Every recipient has been active at least once. They deliberately subscribed to the newsletter - assuming legally compliant email marketing. How then can it happen that active subscribers become inactive recipients? There may be two reasons.

Scenario One

The subscriber no longer takes the time to read newsletters. The desire to read newsletters fades due to uninteresting content that is not relevant. Over time, new issues of uninteresting newsletters are deleted without being read. Rarely do recipients bother to cancel their subscriptions. Because that would require opening the newsletter to look for the unsubscribe link. Deleting is more convenient; et voilá! The recipient becomes inactive.

Scenario Two

The newsletter is no longer noticed. If the email address is no longer used, the newsletter disappears from view. You may lose sight of it as soon as you receive it. Perhaps the intelligent inbox automatically moved it to a tab for advertising, or you have set a filter that moves the newsletter to a subfolder. Automation, in this case, sent your email marketing campaign out to pasture.

“Emails all too frequently get overlooked in full inboxes or the busyness of everyday life. When conducting a reactivation campaign, it is wise to make multiple attempts and test out different variants.” Fleur Förster, DMEXCO

How Will a Reactivation Campaign Help?

Clearly-defined (SMART) goals before the start of the reactivation/remarketing campaign enable you to measure the success of the campaign. You should think carefully in advance about who and what you want to reach with a campaign. Have the contacts not opened the e-mails for a while or just not clicked on the links? Or do you want to win back customers who have not bought anything from the online store for a while? (You may also want to implement cart abandonment triggers, but that’s another blog post.)

Remarketing campaigns are designed to impress recipients with unusual ideas. At the same time, they encourage them to act. It is worthwhile to think sometimes in other directions than the usual email marketing strategy.

Is it Time to Say Goodbye?

Always approach inactive customers with an enticing offer. It may be great content or a promotional deal. Confirm your offer by reminding them why they signed up with you in the first place. To reengage past customers, genuinely paying attention to them is the key.

Removing valid emails from your database must always remain the last option. Even if it takes some extra effort to win back inactive subscribers, this is still much cheaper than searching for new customers.

Creating an automated solution to motivate inactive subscribers.

Marketing automation platforms are a cornerstone of reengagement campaigns. They allow interactions to happen seamlessly and in real-time. Create and store content assets in the same place you store insights on customer behavior insights. This enables you to deliver messaging with critical precision - right when customers are ready.

Learn how we can help you get the most from your email marketing efforts.