23rd May 2016

5 steps to re-engage with your email audience

Cartoon man and woman on a laptop screen with a drawn map to a target

Every single day, 144 billion emails are sent worldwide. Think that’s crazy? Apparently, we delete 48% of all emails that come into our inbox daily. That’s even more crazy.

Some say email marketing is a dying breed: others say it’s as important as ever. No matter where you stand, you can’t argue with the fact that email marketing is still a powerful tool to get your brand, your message and your products under the nose of those that matter; especially those that have already expressed an interest in you by signing up or subscribing. But what if you’ve disengaged with your email database in recent times? Perhaps you ran out of time for email marketing or maybe you lost faith in the marketing medium but now want to give it some much needed attention.

Here are our 5 top tips for re-engaging with your email audience and how to win their favour once again:

Cleanse your data

First things first; have a spring clean of your data lists. We would recommend doing this on a quarterly basis to ensure no spam addresses are clogging up the system. You could even go as far as to “cleanse” your database of any subscriber or customer that’s not interacted with your product in over six months, a year, two years. This could be risky business if you’ve not been as active on your marketing recently (subscribers can’t interact with marketing messages that aren’t being sent) but perhaps you’ve been sending out regular campaigns with little take-up. Have a clean up of those that clearly aren’t expressing an interest and you’ll be left purely with those that are engaged and willing to hear from you.

Introduce yourself…again

Once you’re happy with your customer list, it’s time to say hello. Quite literally. If you’ve not sent an email campaign in a while, prepare a very general mailer that acts as a simple reminder of who you are and why you’re there. Be as blatant as you like (“Remember us?”) or not; it’s up to you and depends on what will fit your brands tone and personality. Make the mailer short and snappy; perhaps include an exciting offer you have running at the moment or encourage readers to catch up on your blog or give you a follow on social media. Whatever you do, make it compelling and inviting. This initial email will serve as your reintroduction. You might see some unsubscribes; that’s OK. That’s almost the point. You want to give your customers a choice whether or not to continue hearing from you. Having “dead data” on your records, as in, those that don’t open or respond to your emails ever, can seriously affect your open and click-through stats.

Plan ahead

Once you’ve made the decision to re-engage with your email audience, be sure to plan ahead. You don’t want to send out an initial introductory email and then let things go quiet again immediately. Plan how often you want to communicate with them; schedule the time to create the campaigns into your workload; even plan exactly what content will go in each email and what calls to action you want to include. It might sound like a lot of work at the offset but it will save a lot of time further down the line. Put yourself in your customers shoes: you receive an email from a brand you loyally followed a few months back that says there’s “lots of exciting things coming up so keep your eyes peeled”…and then nothing comes. You’d be disappointed. You’d probably unsubscribe or lose faith in the brand altogether. Excellent planning can avoid all of that.

Segmentation is key

So you’ve got your email campaign plan all sorted and you’ve sent out that reintroductory email. Now, you need to really get into the heads of your customers. Data segmentation is key to ensure your customers and readers are being sent content that’s truly relevant to them. Be it by age, location, gender, buying habits…whatever it is, ensure you’ve segmented appropriately to build faith in your reader and subsequently influence them beyond the email itself. Again, picture your customer sat at home, on the train, at their desk, wherever they are, receiving your email that, whilst it looks great in your eyes, bears no relevance whatsoever to their needs, habits, wants. That’s a sure fire way to disengage with that customer, even lose that customer altogether. Think about the message you’re sending out and what actions you want each segment to take. It could completely change the way your emails are received and acted upon.

Competitions and giveaways

Finally, one easy way to re-engage with your email audience is to give them free stuff. It might seem simple…and it is. Us consumers love a giveaway or competition, especially if we’re made to feel like we’re being given the opportunity to win something as a “thank you” for signing up to an email database. That makes it all worth it right? Use a giveaway or contest as a great opportunity to get your products into the hands of your customer and remind them why they signed up in the first place. Not got a product to give away? Vouchers always work or free advice; perhaps you have a whitepaper that you think everyone needs to read? Give it away for free! A simple, great way to build love and fondness for your brand once again.

To find out more about BritWeb’s email marketing services, give us a call on 01403 261491 or email [email protected].

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