They’re on your list. They registered a while ago, and since that time, you feel they don’t bother to read any offer you send their way. They haven’t unsubscribed, but they never click on your offers, or give you any feedback. You can’t tell if they’ve really viewed your emails, or if they’re using a browser that doesn’t display images, and are excluded from your stats. Here are several ways to try to regain contact with them:

In “12 Ways to Target Inactive E-mail Subscribers” from Target Marketing, Joe Boland summarizes some tips from a whitepaper recently published. Here are a few:

• Change format, modify frequency, time of day, subject line or even content of your newsletter.
• Tickle them with a special offer, free shipping or any incentive that could motivate them to update their profile.
• Conduct a survey to find out why they’re not interested. (This last idea may be tough to put in place with people who already show a lack of interest.)

Jeanne Jennings, from The ClickZ Network uses a 3 phase method in her article “Really Simple E-mail Segmentation: Reengaging Inactives”. Here is her first phase, which we could call the «cleaning step». It’s the most cost-effective, and sends a clear message to subscribers. She suggests the following:

“ … add language that will appear (only in e-mails sent to the inactive group!) in the preview pane of whatever standard e-mail communications you send. Here’s an example from Union Plus:

Would you like to continue receiving e-mail from Union Plus?

Yes, I would like to continue to receive e-mails from Union Plus
– link

No, please remove me from the Union Plus e-mail list
– link

After a few mailings like this, the intro should be changed for the last mailing:

“Would you like to continue receiving e-mail from Union Plus? If we do not hear from you, we will remove your e-mail from our list.”

We’ll soon follow up with more on Jenning’s ideas (and others) to provide further help in dealing with inactives. Don’t hesitate to share your tips with us.