Email fatigue is not uncommon among recipients and marketers struggle to remedy their disengaged list. If you have a customer that regularly engages with your brand but then gradually disappears from communication, it is a sign that you need to do something to retain the customer. Just like you apply different strategies to get new customers, you should have savvy tactics to re-engage fatigue customers. Here, we discuss why and how you can manage your disengaged list.
Why Re-Engage?
Disengaged customers are a big part of any email list and they are still your audience. They have already subscribed to you and wanted to hear from you at some point. And you want to keep them engaged as long as you can.
In past, marketers simply removed disengaged customers from their lists in order to refrain from being recognized as spam and keep mailing lists clean. Nowadays, businesses try to re-engage with those customers before removing their names from the list.
Don’t take your mailing list for granted. Working on your disengaged list can improve your list quality and increase your conversion rates. Besides, your ROI of email marketing campaign also depends on this.
Why do customers get disengaged?
Of course, your customers can disengage with your emails for many different reasons. Maybe emails they’re getting don’t meet their needs, maybe their tastes have changed or they don’t need your product or service anymore. Your job is to find the root of the problem.
You need to go back and understand why a customer engaged with your email program in the first place. How did he/she subscribe? Going back to the very beginning will help you understand what your customers wanted when they signed up with you, so you can deliver content relevant to their needs.
Don’t automatically assume that customers disengage because they are overwhelmed with your emails. By stopping communicating with them without understanding the reason for disengaging, you could make the situation worse and lose customers.
Removing customers from your mailing list can be helpful short-term but you still need to know the reason of their disengagement. You need to find the problem and adjust your email marketing strategy accordingly. For example, some companies ask customers questions like “Are we getting it right?” to better understand their needs and provide relevant content.
Personalize Your Emails
Personalized emails are the cornerstone of effective email marketing campaigns. You should ensure the right content is delivered to the right people at the right time. Customers are more likely to stay engaged if you provide them with more tailored interactions. Combine your emails with data collected across your business, as well as other channels, to make your emails as personal as possible.
Learn Customer Preferences And Adjust Your Strategy
If customers believe that your emails can solve their problems – and when they need it – the chance of their disengagement will significantly decrease. Therefore, be honest and transparent with your customers. Ask them how often they want to receive your emails and what content they want and then provide it. If you can earn their trust, they will open your emails believing there is something interesting and relevant to them.
When you let your customers tell you how often they want to receive their emails, you can use this as an effective re-engagement tool. Just allow them to have a certain degree of control over it. Provide them with options for the number of emails and timing. Of course, you can also perform tests to optimize the performance, but sometimes asking customers about their preferences can provide the best results.
Create Visually Pleasant and Responsive Email
You can create brilliant content but it won’t do much without properly designed and responsive emails. This is especially important when customers use mobile devices to read your emails – especially those with a call-to-action that they should follow via their devices.
Test your emails many times to make sure it is mobile optimized and visually pleasant. Some of your customers may become disengaged because they cannot read your emails on their phones. Everything should not only be easily readable from any device, it should also look engaging and pleasant.
Have A Clear Call-To-Action
One of the most common mistakes marketers make is long emails with many calls-to-action and multiple pictures. The customer often doesn’t know where to look at, so they simply close the email. Confused customers don’t follow your calls-to-action. Many people don’t have time or patience to slog through long emails. As people prefer short posts on social media, their patience has worn thin.
When you create an email campaign, keep it short and simple. Think about one clear call-to-action that your customers need to take. This will help you re-engage your customers.
Set Expectations and Be Consistent With Your Emails
One of the most effective things you can do to keep your customers engaged is to set the expectations up front. When you are developing your mailing list, you can provide an expectation of how often customers will hear from you (and what information they will receive) on your landing page.
Keep your emails consistent. If you promise to send a monthly newsletter, don’t send it every week or every day. Or, if your customers want a weekly update, don’t send emails once a month.
Know When You Have To Remove Disengaged Customers From The List
While you should always try to re-engage your customers, you should remember that sometimes you have to let them go. In order to understand your customers, keep their data up-to-date. It is important to keep your mailing list clean and remove those customers who haven’t reacted to your efforts. If you ignore this, your email marketing campaign will suffer – and you will look like a spammer. Make sure you do what you can to re-engage customers, but also decide on a timeline for how often you will remove disengaged customers from your mailing list.
