In your personal and professional life, it’s likely that you’ve had an interest in engagement, whether you’re aware or not. The picture you put on Instagram over the weekend of your latest baking creation has received 30 likes, that’s engagement. The video you put on LinkedIn promoting your latest product release has 2000 views, that’s also engagement. When it comes to your email marketing and email monetization plan, engagement is a measure of how your subscribers interact with your email campaigns. Metrics including open rate, unsubscribe rate, and click-through rate can all be used to build a picture of how your audience is, or isn’t, engaging with your email campaigns.
Review the frequency
Just as our taste in fashion, food, and music changes, so too does our interest in the content we receive. The overwhelming number of emails in the inbox, irrelevant content, or change in channel preference are all reasons audiences become disengaged. If your active subscribers suddenly become sleepy, all is not lost. Sometimes all it takes is a little reminder as to why they fell in love with your content in the first place.
Before you get to work on designing your re-engagement emails, consider how often you’re reaching out to your audience. In a world of pinging phones, constant notifications and the increase in digital detoxes, you don’t want to become the brand that makes their audience feel pressured or bombarded by messages. Consider setting up filters or pauses so they’re only getting content once a week, no matter which newsletters or alerts they’re subscribed to. You could overcome your engagement woes simply by lowering your email frequency. If you’re looking for inspiration, here are 6 ways you can re-engage your sleepy subscribers.
- Product recommendations
Analyze past purchase behavior and previous emails that your audience has interacted with and focus on products that will pique their interests. If you aren’t product-focused, send them an email that highlights the other services they aren’t using and would benefit from.
- Incentivize them
Can you provide an exclusive offer or discount? Sometimes an offer from our favorite brand is too good to resist. If you deliver a great customer experience and a product that exceed expectations, you’re far more likely to see a disengaged customer keep coming back for more.
If your annual report on industry trends is due out soon, use email to entice your disengaged audience with early access. A benefit to them, and a benefit to you.
- Celebrate a birthday
If you aren’t celebrating customer birthdays and anniversaries, you’re missing out! Birthday emails have 179% higher unique click rates than promotional emails. We like to feel appreciated on our big day and when it comes to your audience, they’re no different. Show disengaged audience members some love on their birthday with a personalized email, and throw in a dedicated birthday discount for good measure. If you don’t have your audience’s birthday, use it as an opportunity to send an email asking them to join.
- Mix things up
Variety is the spice of life. You need to monitor the metrics of your audience’s engagement to understand how their interests are changing and activate campaigns that meet those needs. Subscribers may become disengaged due to simply receiving the wrong type of content. Put the power in their hands and allow them to choose how they hear from you and on what topics. It may be that they aren’t aware of the wide-ranging topics they can receive.
- Run promotions
While open rates are a key metric to understand your email engagement and email capture process, once you’ve achieved an open from a subscriber, your job is only halfway done. Whether your goal is to have a subscriber download your latest guide, watch a webinar or visit your website, ultimately your objective is to convert. Increase your chances of generating engagement through sweepstakes, photo contests, quizzes, and other promotions to drive big engagement. Use this type of content to learn more about your audience.
- Walk in your audience’s shoes
While taking the time to analyze your email metrics is vital to the success of your email programs, it’s also important to experience your customer’s journey, just as they would. Become an ultra-critical customer and ask yourself; Are you making it easy for someone to respond? Or to buy? Do your CTAs appear above the fold on your mobile? If they haven’t provided the necessary information to take them to the next step, is it clear where there is an error and how it should be corrected? Snags in the customer journey don’t make for an enjoyable experience, therefore, you need to take the time to create an experience that leaves a lasting positive impression.
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This is a snippet from our eBook ‘Your Ultimate Re-engagement Guide’. Download a free copy today to find out how to deal with disengaged subscribers, predict subscriber churn, and maintain an engaged audience.
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Upland Adestra’s email automation software inspires engagement. If you’d like to deepen customer relationships with automated and personalized email programs, speak to a member of our team today.