How to Win the Email Inbox Battle

Posted by joe in Email Marketing on July 25, 2010

Keeping your current subscribers happy while also acquiring new readers are the biggest challenges for most email marketers. It’s hard work building your list, and even harder to maintain it.

Here are three common problems with list-building and retention, and along with suggestions about how to overcome them:

• Problem #1: Attrition. The churn rate has remained at about 30 percent for the past decade, according to industry experts, which means that nearly a third of your list is in flux at any one time. It can happen for any number of reasons: people change email their address, lose interest in what you have to offer, or perceive your email as spam.
• Solution #1: Be Flexible. Make changing a subscriber’s email address easy – include the option on every email and on your website. Give readers the option to stay on your list by giving them greater control over the content their receive.

• Problem #2: Disengagement. Surveys say that open rates for subscribers on a list for more than two years goes down by 40 percent. That can be a problem for ISPs, many of who don’t like over-mailing, which could hurt your online reputation. It’s also expensive and a wasted opportunity to deploy mail to unresponsive addresses.
• Solution#2. Be Accommodating. Identify subscribers who seem to have become dormant and develop a campaign specifically for them, asking what information they would like to receive. You might ask them to re-opt in, or steer them to your social media sites, if that’s what they prefer.

• Problem # 3. Being Too Shy. The marketplace is crowded out there. With so many opportunities — social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, mobile apps, and other new media competing for consumers’ attention with speed and immediacy, you can’t sit back and wait for people to find your opt-in form.
• Solution #3. Be Everywhere. Make sure your opt-in form appears front and center in every marketing channel that reaches your audience.

There is no magic formula for keeping your email list fresh, but paying attention to these three areas will go a long way to keeping subscribers happy and engaged.