Anyone who has been involved in email for the last couple years knows all too well that open rates are going down. Much of the blame has been attributed to one of the following:
- Images being turned off, by default, by most email clients
- More emails getting caught in spam filters or junk folders
- Not enough compelling content
One more reason (but most often overlooked) is list burnout or churn – that doesn’t get correctly cleaned up on a regular basis…often referred to as list hygiene. This “best practice” has almost as much, if not more, to do with lowering open rates.
Let’s talk about how this happens, and what you can do about it. I promise you MUCH higher open rates and list quality…not to mention the potential to save some money while you’re at it!
Is that a boat anchor attached to your leg?
Most lists are full of, from the get-go, people who have no interest in your company or message. You have had them in your list forever. This pollutes your list, of course, and drags down your open rate – obviously. Additionally, industry norms suggest that every year up to 10% of your subscriber base converts into this category, for a variety of reasons:
- They WANT to unsubscribe, but simply don’t. Maybe they label you as “spam” and force your emails to go straight to their junk folder. They don’t trust your (or any for that matter) unsubscribe links.
- They get burned out. The first 1 or 2 emails they get will likely dictate how active they are longer term. If they take the time to read your first or second email, and there’s nothing relevant or interesting for them – they bail. Again, they don’t unsubscribe, and likely just keep receiving your emails but don’t read them.
- They change email addresses, but don’t close out the one YOU have. Your emails continue to pile in an unattended inbox. Many people open several email accounts, and eventually look at 1 or 2 of them as their “spam addresses”….they get so much spam there that they’ve basically given up on it…and keep it around to use as an order confirmation address, for example.
It is believed that as many as 7% of your list will change jobs, and therefore their primary email address. Most of those eventually turn into “hard bounces” (e.g. “This user does not exist. Please delete from your records”). But, many don’t – and you’re hanging on to them in the hopes they’ll come back.
So what’s a marketer to do?
I’ve seen industry pundits declare that the ultimate best practice is to find the dead wood, and regularly purge them. I only half agree, and think there’s a much better “conservative” strategy that can prevent you from throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. I believe so strongly in the following approach, that we designed several tools in TailoredMail to ease the management of it all:
A. Find out, and create a list of people who match (roughly…you feel free to adjust as you see fit) the following criteria:
- Users who have been on your list for more than two years
- Users who have NOT opened or clicked anything in the last 12 months
B. People who fall into the above group, store them as a separate “Inactive List”, and resend your most recent broadcast to them as a TEXT-only message. The key here is to identify if anyone in this list is NOT getting your emails because of a spam filter…and perhaps the HTML version is getting caught up in the filter. Anyone who clicks anything in that broadcast should be moved back into your regular list, and reset their profile to receive TEXT only.
C. Plan out a quarterly email strategy for the remainder. Make these quarterly messages POP with your best stuff. Focus heavily on the subject line. Make it short, compelling and action oriented. Again, anyone who triggers an open or click, move them back into your regular list. You will be VERY surprised to find as many as 5% of this inactive list will reawaken (we call this the Wake-Up Percent). If you had followed the pundits’ advice and purged them from the get-go, you would lose these folks forever.
D. Eventually (after one year of quarterly messages, or when the Wake-Up Percent is at about 1-2%), you should try sending an email to the Inactive List with the subject line, “We Want You Back”…along with an article asking them to confirm their continued interest – or unsub altogether.
E. Update the Inactive List each year, and do this all over again.
The key benefits to this approach are numerous. First of all, your actual regular list will now give you a MUCH MORE accurate assessment of the success of your campaigns and newsletters. The results won’t be adversely affected by a chunk of users who will NEVER open your emails anyways. Secondly, you will create a process/program that allows you to try and win subscribers back – without inadvertently getting rid of them forever. Finally – you’ll likely save some serious money!
The entire process above is a great example of why email marketing is such a valuable component of your mix….because you can test, measure, improve and convert customers by simply using the technology that’s already available to you. So don’t panic over lower open rates….just roll up your sleeves and go fix your most valuable asset….your customer list!
