No matter how great social media is, the return on investment seen from email marketing still leaves Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok for dust.
Keeping your email list tidy (including by using re-engagement emails) is one of the most important things you can do to make the most of this return on investment.
Why do we need to run re-engagement emails?
You can read more about re-engage ment emails here, but quickly ....
- Having a high number of unengaged readers on your email list can cause your data to become skewed. If you have a high number of unengaged readers then your open and click rates (which are calculated based on the total number on your list) will be unrealistically low.
- Having unengaged readers means you’re more likely to have your email marked as ‘spam’ by someone, which can red-flag your emails and direct them to spam.
- Keeping your email list engaged is important if you want to monetise your list.
- If you’re paying for email services, as your return on investment will be lower if you’re trying to sell to people who aren’t engaged (especially if you’re paying per number on your list)
Why create a re-engagement segment
Before you send your re-engagement email, you need to work out WHO is un-engaged and create a segment of your audience that lists these people. Then you can send out a couple of re-engagement emails to get them back on board.
How to set up a re-engagement segment in Mailchimp
- Open up your Mailchimp account and click on the Audience tab on the left-sided column.
- In the drop-down list under Audience, click Segment.
- Go to the light grey button on the right-hand-side and click Create Segment.
- Now select the criteria for the people to be included in the segment.
Set Contacts match ALL of the following conditions.
Set Email Marketing Status to Subscribed.
Set Campaign Activity to Did not open All campaigns within the last 3 months.
Set Date Added to Is Before A Specific Date and set the date to 3 months before your last email
If you have your Mailchimp account linked to your e-commerce store, you can also add a criteria that they have not made a purchase in the past 120 days, just in case you end up unsubscribing people who have made a purchase but not through your email campaigns.
Click Preview Segment and you’ll see the number of email addresses that meet this criteria
If you’re happy, click Save Segment.
Give your Segment a name (for example, ‘Inactive’)
How to set up a re-engagement segment in MailerLite
- Open up your MailerLite account and click on the Subscribers tab on the top header.
Option 1 is to click on the Clean Up Inactive tab at the far right of the subscribers tabs.
Using this option selects all emails who have either never opened an email from you or not opened any of your emails in the past 6 months.
You can edit these details to more than 6 months or having been sent more than 10 emails.
Use the drop-down arrow next to the Unsubscribe Inactive button to save as a segment.
- Option 2 is to create a more tailored segment.
Click on the Segments tab along the top.
Click the button on the right that says Create Segment.
Give your segment a name and click Create
- Option 2 is to create a more tailored segment.
Click on the Segments tab along the top.
Click the button on the right that says Create Segment.
Give your segment a name and click Create
Set Time Inactive to have not opened or clicked any email in the last 120 days.
And
Sign up date is before - choose a date 3 months before your last email.
Save changes
What to do when you’ve set up your re-engagement email segment
And there you go! You now have a segment of un-engaged readers who you can target with a re-engagement email sequence.
So, what do you do next? You send a re-engagement email sequence to get as many readers back on board as possible.
Usually you can expect around 2-5% of your unengaged list to re-engage with you. So expect to lose some. Remember, 20-30% natural decline in your email list over a year is normal.
Download a fully personalized email re-engagement sequence template right here and clean up your list today.