How to Re-engage Your Email Subscribers

by | Content Strategy

how to re-engage email subscribers

 

What percentage of your email list is inactive?

You might be surprised to discover that 60% is a pretty average number for most businesses.

If inactive (aka cold) subscribers make up such a high percentage of your list, you might be “average” — but you’re also in trouble.

Inactive subscribers lead to …

  • Higher spam complaints
  • Skewed open and click-through rates
  • Higher bounce rate
  • Wasted $$ if your email marketing service charges by subscriber numbers

On the flip side, cleaning up and re-engaging your email list can make a HUGE difference in the results you’re getting from your email marketing program.

So how do you go about that?

Email Monks posed this question to me and 23 other email experts (including Ann Handley and the ever-elusive Ry Schwartz) — and got a pretty wide range of responses. To sum it up: There’s no one strategy for email list hygiene. How you approach it really depends on your business, customers and goals.

BUT the post has some amazing ideas to get you started, so I highly recommend you check it out.

>> 24 Experts Speak: How to Improve Engagement with Your Email Subscribers and Re-Engage Inactives

For the record, when I sent my own answers to Email Monk, I was talking about The Content Lab — and that’s not clear in the post. I’m actually in the process of redoing my entire email strategy for Horizon Peak Consulting. So if you’re not on the HPC VIP list, get on it right here!

 

Consider how your content is getting created

This is what I believe in:

  1. Content equity. Everyone deserves good, valuable, soulful content. Followers, leads, prospects, customers, employees — everyone.
  2. Discernment. Using AI isn’t bad — as long as it’s used with discernment.

Founders: Keep up the thoughtful content you’re creating. It’s valuable, and it’s so needed. But if your company is generating gobs of customer-facing content with AI, think about why that is, and why you’re okay with it.

Startups: Treating content production as a numbers game means you’re getting lumped in with everyone else. Swimming in the sea of sameness means your customers can’t tell you apart from the competition.

This goes beyond differentiation.

Your solution might be groundbreaking. Your founder might be the next Fortune cover story. But if your content doesn’t stand apart … your company doesn’t stand out.

Human-driven and human-written content (even with an AI assist to make it better) stands out because it serves.

Come talk to me about how your content is getting done. Let’s find opportunities to add humanity to your writing process so the customers you’re trying to reach will sit up and take notice.