If you’ve read this blog for long, you know that I’m always ranting about email marketing. But what happens if you’ve let your email list fall into shambles?
Life happens. You get busy. Sometimes, priorities change.
In other words, what if you haven’t sent a newsletter in many days, weeks, or even months?
If that’s the case, there are a few smart ways that you can re-engage your email list without annoying your subscribers. So, if you want to rekindle your email newsletter, then read this guide!
In this blog post, we’re going to brainstorm four of my favorite email re-engagement campaign ideas.
# 1 – Promote a New Email Newsletter And New Lead Capture Page To Your Existing Subscribers
Promoting an entirely new email list and lead capture page is personally my favorite method. The reality is that, if you haven’t sent an email in a while, then your subscribers may not want to hear from you anymore.
Even if someone subscribed to your newsletter a while ago, there’s a good chance that they’ve forgotten about you, or lost interest.
I know that this is sad news. But it’s the truth. Yes, it’s a harsh reality that many marketers find tough to swallow.
If your subscribers don’t want to hear from you, then don’t bug them! Everyone’s better off if you remove subscribers who don’t want your updates.
That’s why promoting a new lead capture page might be a great way to salvage your existing email list.
The idea is to advertise a new lead capture page to your existing subscribers. If they rejoin your email newsletter, then excellent. It’s a win/win.
The way I’ve done this is by sending a few emails letting existing subscribers know about my new email newsletter plan.
I’ve done this before after not sending an email to my subscribers for a couple of months. I was super busy in life and didn’t have time to produce any newsletter content.
As a result, I fell out of touch with my email newsletter subscribers. Sad, but true.
So, I bit the bullet and sent a re-engagement campaign. Only subscribers who re-subscribe remained. If subscribers didn’t re-subscribe, then they were removed from the email newsletter database.
Creating a re-engagement campaign in this way is simple. Tell your subscribers what content you have planned, and the benefits of re-registering.
The primary strategy here is only to siphon those subscribers who genuinely want to hear from you. However, if your subscribers opt NOT to re-subscribe, then you’ll eventually remove them from your list entirely.
Make no mistake about it. If you use this method, a lot of subscribers will probably abandon you because not everyone will re-subscribe. (There’s a good chance that your open rates for your re-engagement campaign will tank since a portion of your subscribers may have forgotten about you entirely).
On the plus side, and at the very least, you’ll attract only those who are still interested in your content. In my opinion, this is a significant tradeoff.
When you siphon your interested subscribers onto a new list segment, I bet you a steak dinner that your open rates for that segment will skyrocket. Only those interested are joining, so in theory, your open rates will be fantastic. Those who no longer wish to hear from you need to take no action.
Another great benefit of this method is that you get to build an entirely new email marketing funnel. Your funnel can reintroduce yourself, promote your business, or advertise affiliate links.
Building and testing email marketing funnels is a blast, so if you’re a marketing geek, then this can be a fun endeavor. 🙂
# 2 – Promote a New “Click to Rejoin” Campaign
Instead of promoting a new lead page, you can create marketing automation that segments active subscribers.
The way “click to join” campaigns works is simple. You dispatch an email to your existing subscribers to ask if they want to continue receiving your emails. If any existing subscriber clicks a link in your re-engagement email, they join the new list-segment automatically.
This method is very similar to the previous process. The main difference is a lead capture page, vs. marketing automation triggered by a click.
This method will likely yield more subscribers because your end-users don’t have to opt-in again. They only need to click in order to confirm that they wish to stay subscribed. However, you don’t get to build a fully-fledged email marketing funnel, which is a lot of fun.
In any event, segmenting subscribers with clicks is simple to accomplish using nearly any modern email autoresponder these days.
AWeber, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, and GetResponse are all easily capable of this.
In other words, you can send a re-engagement campaign that says something like this:
“Hey, you subscribed to my email newsletter a long time ago.
I haven’t had a chance to send many emails lately, sorry about that.
Anyway, if you still want to receive future emails from me, then click here!
I’ll add you to my new email list, so you continue to get updates.
If not, no big deal! Ignore this email, and you won’t hear from me again.”
It would be a good idea to add a big list of benefits for those who may decide to re-subscribe!
# 3 – Promote a Webinar
I’ve written at great length why I’m a huge fan of webinar marketing.
Webinars can help you to promote your business. Webinars can also help you to share excellent content. Most importantly, webinars are a great way to generate email leads.
The idea is to promote a webinar to your existing subscribers. Make sure that the email capture form on your webinar registration page gives the option for registrants to join your email newsletter when they register for your webinar.
Your webinar registration page is a great way to segment your most interested subscribers. You can easily add new webinar registrants to a new segment of your email list using any decent webinar/email marketing platform.
Let your subscribers know that you’ve been away for a while and that you want to return with a big bang.
Invite your subscribers to your webinar, and see how many fresh subscribers register to your new list segment.
That way, you can start to siphon your most targeted and active email subscribers, and eventually remove those who aren’t interested.
Webinars are also a great way to serve your existing audience. Share compelling content with them, and let them remember why they subscribed to your email newsletter in the first place.
Here’s a shortlist of awesome webinar marketing platforms that rock:
# 4 – Send An Apology Letter
An apology letter is a great way to get the attention of your existing email newsletter subscribers.
The idea is to let your subscribers know that you’re sorry that you’ve neglected them for so long.
Tell your story. Let your audience know why you haven’t sent many email updates.
Maybe you could take things a step further and produce a nifty video explaining what you’ve been doing.
Then, at the end of the video, you could promote your new email newsletter if you want. Or, you would otherwise let your subscribers know what to do if they wish to remain on your email newsletter.
Another fun thing about apology letters is that you can have a ton of fun split testing different email subject lines.
For fun, consider these subject lines:
- I’m very sorry.
- I failed you.
- Please… Let me explain!
- I need to tell you where I’ve been…
- You won’t believe what happened!
- I’m alive!
As you can see, these email marketing subject lines are a lot of fun, and borderline cheesy. If you know me well, then you know that these are the exact types of hokey emails that I would send (lol, yes, I’m a geek).
The Main Strategy Behind All Of These Email List Rejuvenation Methods
The main idea behind all of these strategies is to siphon those subscribers who want to hear from you. Additionally, you should delete those subscribers who don’t want to hear from you.
A small yet engaged email list is far superior to an extensive, disengaged email list.
So, consider removing those subscribers who have “fallen out of love” with you.
It’s nothing personal. These days, people have so many educational and entertainment options that it’s easy to understand why they no longer want your content.
Don’t get sad. Focus on creating more and better content so that you can entertain and satisfy your existing and future subscribers!
Why Segmenting and Pruning Your Email List is Ridiculously Important These Days
If you’re sending emails to subscribers who don’t want to hear from you, then nothing good is going to happen.
You increase the likelihood of spam complaints and dismal open rates.
That’s why it’s always a great idea to segment your email list.
If people don’t want to hear from you anymore? Then no problem. Remove them from your email database, and focus on those subscribers who DO want to hear from you.
You’ll be a lot better off, and your subscribers will be too.
One Final Tip For Your Future Email Marketing Endeavors…
One huge tip is to never fall into the trap of email newsletter neglect ever again.
Instead, try your best to maintain a steady flow of excellent content. Try to brainstorm your content weeks or even months in advance.
One of the best ways to do that is by having a content calendar. Keep tabs on what email newsletter content you want to publish, and when. Content calendars are a great way to savagely slaughter writer’s block.
Planning content consistently might seem impossible at first. However, with a little practice, it’s much easier than it looks. You’ll also put yourself in a much better position to never run out of content ideas.
In any event, I hope that this blog post finds you well.
Thanks so much for reading, and please have a fantastic day!
Cordially and humbly…
Mike “Back From The Dead” DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com