Shun inactive users at your peril

Shun inactive users at your perilEmail marketers who make no attempt to win back inactive users – or who quickly stop sending emails to inactive users – are removing valuable subscribers from their lists.
That is one of the damning findings of a new report by Return Path, which claims email marketing campaigns designed to re-engage inactive subscribers, serve a vital purpose.
Win-back campaigns are a time-honoured direct mail tactic used chiefly to reduce the expense of sending catalogues to unresponsive consumers, but they have evolved into something distinctly different from their roots, says Return Path.
In email marketing, win-back campaigns separate entirely inactive subscribers from less active or seasonally active subscribers, reducing the risk of getting into inboxes across all campaigns.
That risk is real, according to the findings: The analysis of 300 million messages sent to 100 million subscribers showed a strong negative correlation between inbox placement and the volume of mail sent to inactive subscribers.
Brands sending the most mail to unresponsive subscribers had the most mail blocked or diverted to spam folders, especially at Gmail, whose inbox was the hardest for mailers included in the study to reach.
Return Path president George Bilbrey said: “As email continues to be the most powerful and cost-effective way for brands to stay connected to their customers, maximising audience growth and reaching the inbox are both critical to marketing strategies.
“Marketers with the analytical insight to balance those factors across individual mailbox providers, using tactics like win-back campaigns, simply outperform the rest. They grow faster, form stronger relationships, and generate more revenue in increasingly competitive arenas.”
The content of win-back emails observed in this study played a dramatic role in their effectiveness. In general, campaigns that re-engaged the most users tended to clearly convey their purpose in the subject line. Those containing “miss you” and “come back” performed better than conventional promotional offers. Among discounting offers, fixed amounts (pounds off) were significantly more widely read than percentages (% off), although used less frequently.