The importance of recipient engagement
A typical mailing list has more than 50% of recipients that are inactive. By inactive, we mean those recipients that have not opened and/or clicked on your emails in the last 3 months or longer.
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In this document, we will look at how you can accomplish all of the above in MailUp.
Step 1: locating inactive recipient using activity filters
Under Marketing+ > Filters > Activity, create an activity filter to locate recipients that did not open or click on a message in the last N days. N can vary depending on how frequently you email to your customers:
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Before you actually send the messages, though, let's step back for a second and think about what kind of message you may want to send to try to re-engage inactive recipients.
Step 2: Plan your re-engagement email campaign
The goal of the campaign is to win-back and try to engage the inactive recipients. Effective "win-back" emails include:
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So, let's look at what kind of content these messages should contain.
First re-engagement message: how's it going?
The first re-engagement message should be one that re-establishes a relationship with the recipient. It's often referred to as the "win-back" campaign.
Our friends at Email On Acid found a good one from L.L.Bean, for example.
Second re-engagement message: you're going to miss out on...
The second message should be one in which you once again remind the recipient of all the great content, offers, news, etc. that you provide in your email communication, and then indicate that - unless you hear from them - you will stop emailing them.
Third re-engagement message: sorry to see you go!
The third re-engagement email (i.e. the ultimatum email) is actually a notification of the recipient having been unsubscribed. However, it represents a final opportunity for you to try to convince them to come back by subscribing again!
In MailUp this third message is the Email to inactive recipients that can be found under Settings > List settings > Notifications
Step 3: Execute the campaign
MailUp gives you access to flexible tools to execute a re-engagement campaign.
Sending the first two messages
You can send the first two messages of the campaign:
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- Create a new triggered message
- Give it a descriptive name (e.g. "Re-engagement campaign | Message 1")
- Set it to run every day and set the event trigger as a match on the first Activity filter that you had set up (e.g. in this example, No click or open in the last 180 days)
- In the Action tab, select the first re-engagement message that you prepared for the campaign, enter From name, From email, etc. and save the triggered message
- Use the simulation feature to see how many recipients would be a match if the triggered message were executed right then
- If everything looks good, enable the triggered message
- Repeat the same steps to create the second triggered message of the campaign, making sure to select the second Activity filter and the second message prepared for the campaign
Sending the third message (and unsubscribing)
The third message is a special one in that it automatically triggers a change of subscription status. For this reason, it is handled separately in MailUp by using the Inactive recipients management area of the Settings > List settings > Preferences page. See managing inactive recipients for details on the settings found on that page. This is an important feature as it allows you to gradually remove from your list recipients that you have not been able to re-engage.
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Make sure that the settings for the third message have been configured compatibly with the Activity filters created for the first 2 messages of the re-engagement campaign: in other words, make sure that this third message is not sent before the other two  |
Reducing the mailing frequency
While you are running your re-engagement campaign, you could consider reducing the mailing frequency of your "regular" campaigns sent to inactive recipients (the same recipients that you are trying to re-activate). This will have a positive impact on your average engagement as inactive recipients will be "skipped" in some of your regular campaigns.
- You can do this manually by excluding one or more groups of inactive users (created by using activity filters) from one or more mailings.
- You can also allow active recipients to reduce the mailing frequency on their own (before they tune out and become inactive) by activating the Preference Center.
Step 4: Evaluate your re-engagement campaign
Did it work? Re-engaging inactive recipients is not an easy task. Typically, between 5-15% recipients re-engage and remain in your mailing list.
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