Subscriber reactivation is a critical and under-utilized digital marketing practice. Whether you’ve seen your subscribers fall off or just want to get those old subscribers back on board, a thoughtful reactivation campaign can revitalize your email list. In this article, we’ll show you how to easily reactivate your subscribers step by step.
Step 1: Analyze Your Data
Before executing a reactivation program, the first step to ensure that you’re prepared is to take a look at your subscriber data. This baseline will help you determine which areas of your list are no longer being used. Search for readers who haven’t opened your emails in the last three to six months.
Key Metrics to Consider:
Open Rates: Understand which emails the subscribers opened earlier and what patterns they exhibit.
Click-Through Rates (CTR): Know the rate at which these subscribers clicked links, giving you an idea about their interest.
Purchase History: Search back for previous purchases to tell the difference between initial purchases and repeat purchases.
Timelines of Engagement: Track the history of subscriber engagement and identify the moment when subscribers began to unsubscribe.
Identifying these will yield insights that will guide your re-engagement efforts and enable you to create more specific campaigns.
Step 2: Segment Your Audience
It isn’t the same for unsubscribers. Segmenting your audience based on their previous experience with your brand allows you to implement personalized reactivation strategies. Consider creating the following segments:
Long-Term Unsubscribers (6+ months): Create re-engagement strategies that highlight any major change or updates within your brand.
New Exit (3-6 months): These folks might remember your brand fondly, so a kind reminder of what they’ve missed out on might help.
Churn (1-3 months): Reach out to these subscribers with offers that are on time and prompt them to re-subscribe before it is too late.
You can divide your groups into different categories and focus your messaging around what each group needs and wants, thus increasing the chance of a successful reactivation.
Step 3: Craft Compelling Content
Once you’ve segmented your audience, it’s time to write powerful re-engagement messages. What you share must align with the beliefs of your audience and remind them why they are subscribed to begin with. Here are some effective strategies:
Personalize Your Message
Based on the information gleaned from Step 1, personalization has a big impact on engagement. Call subscribers by name, reference their purchases, and mention content they’ve liked. This personalized model builds more intimacy and makes recipients feel special.
Offer Value
Give an exclusive, like a coupon, trial, or download. Value offers subscribers an attractive reason to stick around. Make sure that the offer will appeal to the audience you are marketing to, so that they will take action on it.
Highlight New Changes
If your brand has made significant improvements or changes, let your subscribers know about them. Inform them about the transformation of your products and the impact this transformation can have on them. This might be in the form of new releases, new services, or better customer service. By sharing great news you can bring attention back and encourage long-distance subscribers to discover your brand again.
Step 4: Select the Right Time and Frequency.
Email marketing can be all about timing. Every audience is different, so testing multiple days and hours is the key to understanding when your subscribers are most likely to be open to receiving your message.
If you want to learn when your re-engagement campaigns work best, try A/B testing at different time windows. Analyze open and click through rates to discover the sweet spot that elicits maximum interest.
It is equally critical to determine the frequency at which you send emails. Suffocating your subscribers with emails will frustrate them and get them unsubscribed, and you won’t be able to communicate effectively if it makes your brand appear distant or fake. And a nice, slow arc that begins with a gentle reminder and ends with a more interesting re-engagement offer can work quite well. This is not only a way to keep interest, but it gives subscribers multiple opportunities to come back to your brand.
Step 5: Use a Multi-Channel Strategy.
Don’t limit your reactivation to email alone. Multi-channel marketing is the best way to reach unengaged subscribers. Email may be your preferred medium, but you could also incorporate social media, retargeting ads, and SMS marketing.
For example, if a subscriber has not opened your emails, you can use targeted social media ads to remind them of what your brand stands for. A great ad will trigger their memories and get them to come back to your site or check out your newsletters. If you position your brand on multiple platforms, you’re setting up a solid framework for reaching more audiences and reconnecting with them.
Step 6: Make It Easy to Reconnect.
When you have content that gets them back on board, and they’re interested again, you need to make it easy for them to re-engage. The experience should be frictionless and enable subscribers to do something as effortless as possible.
If possible, consider incorporating some very easy things such as clickable specials, an easy-to-manage preferences panel, or even a “reply” button to help give it a more personal touch. The less things stand in their way, the more subscribers are likely to choose to come back to your brand. If it’s easy enough, that can mean the difference between a subscriber sticking around or not.
Optimize Your Landing Pages
If your reactivation plan involves sending subscribers to a landing page, optimization is essential. You want your landing page to be conversion-driven. A few key considerations when developing a landing page are:
Clear Calls to Action (CTAs): Make your CTAs eloquent and powerful. Communicate using “Claim Now” or “Join Us Again” language that invites immediate action.
Minimal Distractions: Eliminate all the useless distractions on your landing page. Keep it clear and make the design direct the user’s attention to the primary objective: re-engagement.
Personalized Content: Customize your landing page content to match the expectations and interests of your re-marketing target. Personalization is an excellent way to bring out the best in your users, enabling them to feel important and cared about.
Step 7: Track and Monitor Impacts.
After running your reactivation campaign, you should monitor and analyze your results. Expect higher open, click, and engagement rates. Did your tactics appeal to your readership? Did you see a large increase in re-engagement within specific audiences?
A/B Testing
Use A/B testing to compare different emails and deals to see which ones work best. This will provide you with feedback for future campaigns.
Step 8: Keep Managing Your Subscribers.
Reactivating subscribers isn’t just about sending them a new one, it’s about relationships. Once they’re reconnected, continue to deliver value through curated content and communications. Take suggestions and refine your approach as subscriber feedback comes in.
Conclusion:
Repatriating your subscribers is a critical step in maintaining a happy email list and making sure you are getting the most use out of them. By understanding your data, segmenting your audience, creating valuable content, and keeping accurate track of the outcomes, you can get lost subscribers back on board and re-engaging them. Remember, not only are you trying to get them back, you want to create long-term connections with them because active subscribers are the blood of every marketing campaign.
