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:
As a retailer, using incentives can attract subscribers to continue their interest in your emails and services. Providing a simple promotion or discount for subscribers that haven’t opened recently can reactivate a dormant user. In addition, you can send these kinds of offers to in-active users so that they have the chance to update their contact information and preferences etc. This will help gather information on their continuing needs as a customer, as well as give you current contact information.
Send an Email Asking Their Opinion:
The easiest way to find out the reason why a contact hasn’t been opening your emails is to ask them. Email marketing is great for sending out survey questions. Make sure that it is short and easy to fill out (you don’t want to scare them away!). Gathering feedback this way is very beneficial. Your contact will tell you directly what you should avoid doing, AND inform you on PRECISELY what they DO want. This will give you much better insight as to what it takes to maintain them as a contact. The survey email should include questions related to your services, but also make sure you add questions about their ‘preferred kind of message’ or ‘best time to be contacted by email’, and of course a ‘comments and suggestions’ portion.
Keep Closer Scrutiny on Your Contacts:
Bringing out the magnifying glass on your in-active contacts might reveal some connection between the contacts and why they have not been opening your emails. Finding this could mean that you put an end to their inactivity, providing that you also come up with a viable solution as to how to reach them. You may find that a portions of your contact list belongs to a certain demographic that your email marketing campaigns are not marketing to: Older women, people in a different time zone, college students, etc. Having a closer look at your contacts might provide you with that stroke of genius on how to pique this group’s interest in your emails.
Testing/Mix Things Up a Little:
There is no harm in spending a little time testing-out different ways of sending to determine if it can attract a few more in-actives to the “good side”.
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.
Another way to go about changing things up would be to change your content a bit. In your analysis of your contacts, some of the similarities that you notice might require that you redesign your campaigns so that they are geared to those particular user. You can also re-work the kind of structure of your email marketing emails. Experiment with sending out differing versions of the same email: send out a more dynamic email, with links, images etc vs. a totally text based email.
A huge consideration is your subject line. Simply changing your subject line can solve a lot of your dormant-contact-issues. Some contacts won’t open an email because the subject is the same or almost the same as all the ones sent to them in the past. The idea here is that they are assuming that if the subject doesn’t change neither does the email.
Testing out different methods of sending out campaigns will activate the pulses on some of your more zombie-like subscribers, but will also give you valuable information on what their wants and needs are.
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.
Rudy Barell is a Senior Development Executive with Elite Email, the #1 email marketing software used by businesses around the globe. Create eye-catching emails and track your success with detailed reports for your email marketingTry it free!
Tags: contact list management, email, email marketing, email marketing software, Internet marketing, list maintenance, list management, list manager, marketing, online marketing, subscriber management
