5 Strategies for Waking Up a Dormant Email Audience

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Key takeaways

• Use real‑time triggers (for example, geo‑location proximity) to send targeted, timely emails that re‑engage dormant subscribers.
• Give inactive subscribers a clear option to unsubscribe. Send a friendly reminder first; unsubscribes reduce spam‑report risk and clean your list.
• Refresh email templates and layouts to repackage content without overhauling strategy; extra templates add design flexibility.
• Optimize messages for smartphones and tablets. Most contact lists check email via mobile, unless your audience is primarily desktop.
• Keep investing in email: it remains the leading channel (62% of consumers prefer email for promotions).

Introduction

In a perfect digital world, once a consumer clicks on your subscribe button, he or she will always be ready and willing to check out your latest messages. Unfortunately, this dream scenario is far from reality. Sometimes, subscribers grow weary of your marketed emails and simply stop paying attention. To keep your target audience from hitting the snooze button any longer when it comes to your email marketing tactics, here are five strategies that will not only wake up a dormant contact list, but also revitalize your entire inbox approach.

Bringing Your Messages Into Real-time

One of the most exciting new takes on email marketing comes in the form of real-time interaction, according to Liz Rowley of Ad Exchanger. In her look at the programmatic side of email advertising, Rowley notes that some brands are using geo-location services to reconnect with disinterested contact list members.

Essentially, this process uses the viewer’s proximity to your store or shop as a trigger for custom email content. If the consumer passes within the location threshold, they’ll receive an exclusive offer or friendly reminder to stop by and see your latest offerings. When it comes to catching the attention of a wayward shopper, few strategies are as exciting or innovative as real-time outreach.

Offer Them a Chance to Unsubscribe

Yes, you read that subhead correctly. While offering your dormant contact list members a chance to unsubscribe seems counterintuitive at best and damaging to your strategy at worst, it’s actually a smart way to reconnect with users or streamline your marketing initiative. As Carol Stott of Marketing Profs explains, leaving these disinterested subscribers unattended could eventually lead to an unnecessary spam report. For any brand that wants to stay on the right side of the leading email service providers, you simply can’t let this happen.

Instead, send them a friendly reminder letting them know that they’re still members of your contact list. This could convince them to re-engage your brand and start participating in your inbox offers. If they go the other way and unsubscribe, at least you’ll have a more accurate list of contacts and a reduced chance at dealing with the damage that comes from a mistaken spam report.

Try out a New Design

Sometimes, the biggest way to breathe new life into your email marketing is to do a little design house cleaning. Even if you’re old templates and color schemes work just fine, changing things up a bit can spice up consumers relationships that have fizzled, according to Ellen Valentine of Advertising Age. This approach doesn’t mean you have to rethink your entire marketing strategy, but rather repackage your current content into a new and exciting format.

While there’s no guarantee that this will bring distant users back into the fold, it can’t hurt to build a few extra templates and layouts for your campaign. The worst-case scenario, if you can even call it that, is that your brand will have a little extra flexibility regarding design features moving forward.

Shift Your Focus to Mobile Outreach

For most brands, the vast majority of its contact list checks in via mobile devices. For this very reason, Amber Whiteman of Target Marketing Magazine suggests that you push your email marketing focus toward smartphones and tablets. By optimizing your messages for these devices, you can zero in on the platform that matters most to consumers. Naturally, if you data points toward an audience that’s primarily desktop-oriented, then this strategy really doesn’t hold much value. However, the reality is that very few brands fall into this category, and even the ones that do have plenty of other reasons to consider optimizing branded content for today’s mobile world.

Don’t Forget Who the Top Dog In Digital Marketing Really Is

The final strategy covered is a simple reminder that the best way to reconnect with customers that have slipped out of the loop is to keep your priorities in order. No business has an infinite marketing budget, so naturally certain cuts and allotments have to be made. However, getting too experimental and shifting your focus away from email marketing is never a good idea. Regardless of the latest fads or trends, the fact remains that branded emails are still the top dog in the marketing world.

To prove this point, Josh Constine of Tech Crunch highlights the fact that 62 percent of consumers prefer email marketing to other methods of receiving promotions. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with using other services and approaches in a complimentary role. However, not giving email marketing its proper due is still the easiest way not only fail at reconnecting with your email audience, but also lose whatever inbox following you still had.

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