The success of your email marketing is dependent on how good your list of contacts is. Email marketing industry research has revealed that three months after signing on to your mailing list your contacts begin to disappear off of your radar. This reduction in contacts' interest should be anticipated with any contact list, however there are a few methods to ensure that this downsizing is kept to a minimum, subsequently making sure that the size of your high quality contacts is far larger. The following will provide you with four useful tactics that will assist your email marketing efforts.
"Preferred Customer" Offers:
Whenever you have something to sell to a customer, employing special promotions will keep your contacts' attention on your newsletters and services. Giving a discount to your contacts that have not responded by opening emails in recent months can bring them back to the active column. Plus, sending offers to recently unresponsive contacts needs to provide them the chance to update their contact preferences etc. Gathering more data on what they are looking for as a customer and getting more current information will help you know your customer's needs better.
Send Out a Questionnaire:
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.
Go Over Your Contacts with a Fine Tooth Comb:
By looking a little closer at your contact list you will notice some similarities with certain of them. By identifying the commonality you might discern what it takes to get through to them. You might find they all belong to a specific demographic previously un-targeted through your past email marketing campaigns. They might all be in a different time zone, or all older males, or teenage girls. Scrutinizing more closely may trigger an idea of how to get through to this previously unresponsive group, and give you an easy solution for getting them back.
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".
If you have made a routine of sending out your contacts at lunch (because that's when you've found the time!) try varying blasting times. Keep track of if the different time of sending produces a change in reaction. Another suggestion is to modify how frequently you are sending out your email marketing solutions campaigns. If you've been sending once every two weeks, trying sending once every two months, or once a month.
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.
Mixing it up by employing differing ways to send out your email marketing solutions campaigns can kick-start some inactives to active, but will also give you more info on what they really want.
Successful email marketing software users are spending time on the maintenance of their contact lists; it's time to take full advantage of your email marketing software service by making that extra effort to ensure your contacts are still interested.
"Preferred Customer" Offers:
Whenever you have something to sell to a customer, employing special promotions will keep your contacts' attention on your newsletters and services. Giving a discount to your contacts that have not responded by opening emails in recent months can bring them back to the active column. Plus, sending offers to recently unresponsive contacts needs to provide them the chance to update their contact preferences etc. Gathering more data on what they are looking for as a customer and getting more current information will help you know your customer's needs better.
Send Out a Questionnaire:
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.
Go Over Your Contacts with a Fine Tooth Comb:
By looking a little closer at your contact list you will notice some similarities with certain of them. By identifying the commonality you might discern what it takes to get through to them. You might find they all belong to a specific demographic previously un-targeted through your past email marketing campaigns. They might all be in a different time zone, or all older males, or teenage girls. Scrutinizing more closely may trigger an idea of how to get through to this previously unresponsive group, and give you an easy solution for getting them back.
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".
If you have made a routine of sending out your contacts at lunch (because that's when you've found the time!) try varying blasting times. Keep track of if the different time of sending produces a change in reaction. Another suggestion is to modify how frequently you are sending out your email marketing solutions campaigns. If you've been sending once every two weeks, trying sending once every two months, or once a month.
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.
Mixing it up by employing differing ways to send out your email marketing solutions campaigns can kick-start some inactives to active, but will also give you more info on what they really want.
Successful email marketing software users are spending time on the maintenance of their contact lists; it's time to take full advantage of your email marketing software service by making that extra effort to ensure your contacts are still interested.
About the Author:
Rudy Barell is a Senior Development Executive with Elite Email, the #1 email marketing solutions used by businesses around the globe. Create eye-catching emails and track your success with detailed reports for your email marketingTry it free!
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