How’s your open rate looking?
Is your list full of people who just don’t care?
Subscribers who are disengaged do not convert into paying customers. They are not making you money. They aren’t even generating website traffic.
Now I know what you’re wondering. Should you kick them off the list?
Should you stop wasting precious time and energy hand-holding cold leads who have shown no interest in what you have to say?
Quite simply, no. Don’t get rid of them – yet.
Something you put out there piqued their interest and got them on that list. At one point or another, they subscribed to hear more from you, and they haven’t left of their own accord.
A re-engagement campaign is always worth a shot. If it warms up a cold lead, fantastic. At the very least, it will improve the quality of your list by giving you a clear indication of who to nix.
What Does Re-engagement Look Like?
A re-engagement campaign is an email automation sequence that kicks in when people haven’t opened the emails you’ve sent them.
That’s right. They’ve barely glanced at your subject line. These subscribers are ignoring you.
They may be sat on the brink of clicking that unsubscribe button. So, the idea is to tiptoe back into your subscriber’s awareness without annoying them.
How? By attempting to push their pain points in such an effective way you win them over.
But a re-engagement campaign doesn’t look like any old email marketing campaign. Oh no. It’s got to follow a particular pattern against a particular timeline.
Gently does it now…
How It's Done
A good re-engagement campaign addresses the recipient personally to effectively trigger them into responding. Simple formatting techniques like left-aligning the body text can give the emails a hand-written feel, building up that trust between you that we know is so important.
The campaign itself is usually made up of two sequences. One cycle gets triggered at 30 days of complete inactivity, and the second at 90 days.
After 30 Days In The Desert
One month of no engagement from the recipient triggers cycle #1 – a sequence of three emails. In this cycle, 2 nurture emails are followed by 1 action email asking the recipient to engage in one way or another, for example by clicking a link.
Notice how small the call to action is.
These emails should push on the recipient’s pain points – yep, there’s that phrase again – and remind the recipient why they need you. By bothering to re-engage, you’re providing the recipient with the opportunity to unsubscribe.
But guess what?
They don’t. They usually take the bait.
After 90 Days In The Desert
If the last sequence of your re-engagement campaign still hasn’t brought your recipient out of the woodwork, a second sequence is triggered after 3 months.
This round is another 3 emails. The first two are, again, nurture emails. Include a high-value freebie within each to try and grab the recipient’s attention.
Email number 3 is the break-up email. You’ll have come across them before, often with a subject line like: ‘We’re sorry to see you go’.
It’s got to be very clear, and a little brutal. Breakup emails are designed to provoke a response. They should either trigger relief in the recipient or re-awaken the interest that was there when they subscribed.
Essentially, this step communicates to the recipient that if they don’t engage with this email, you’ll unsubscribe them.
It might sound harsh but it’s been three months. Of cold hard NOTHING. No opens, no engagement whatsoever. You’ve done your best, but there’s no point keeping a dead lead.
If the recipient engages, they’re back on your regular nurture email list.
If not?
Unsubscribe them and close the loop of communication.
A Small But Not Impossible Catch
Unfortunately, after at least 30 days of zero email engagement between you and your recipient, the spam filters are hyper-sensitive.
You’ve got to tread very carefully to get your re-engagement emails through the door of your recipient’s inbox.
Any generic spam-associated words to do with buying or selling, such as:
- 'Offer'
- 'Save'
- 'Sale'
- 'Buy'
Will be aggressively filtered and should not be used ANYWHERE. Don’t waste all that hard work!
Re-engagement Can Be Tricky
But done well it is definitely worth your time.
Mastering re-engagement can bring conversions and profit generation from leads you were going to let fall off your list.
Remember – they subscribed for a reason. Remind them why they need you, build up that trust and get that back on your regular nurture campaigns.
Want to nail your re-engagement campaign the first time round? Book a call with me and find out how I can help.
