Email marketing software success hinges on the quality of you contact list. However, based on email marketing software industry research, your contacts will begin to drop off approximately three months after they initially opted in to your emails. I’ve mentioned in previous articles that a drop off should be expected, but there are ways to ensure that this drop off is greatly reduced, therefore making certain that the volume of your quality contacts is much greater. Here are four strategies to help you accomplish this using email marketing software.

“Preferred Customer” Offers:

As a retailer, using incentives can attract subscribers to continue their interest in your emails and services. Providing a simple promotion or discount for subscribers that haven’t opened recently can reactivate a dormant user. In addition, you can send these kinds of offers to in-active users so that they have the chance to update their contact information and preferences etc. This will help gather information on their continuing needs as a customer, as well as give you current contact information.

Questionnaires:

The easiest way to find out the reason why a contact hasn’t been opening your emails is to ask them. Email marketing is great for sending out survey questions. Make sure that it is short and easy to fill out (you don’t want to scare them away!). Gathering feedback this way is very beneficial. Your contact will tell you directly what you should avoid doing, AND inform you on PRECISELY what they DO want. This will give you much better insight as to what it takes to maintain them as a contact. The survey email should include questions related to your services, but also make sure you add questions about their ‘preferred kind of message’ or ‘best time to be contacted by email’, and of course a ‘comments and suggestions’ portion.

Take a Closer Look at Your Contacts:

Bringing out the magnifying glass on your in-active contacts might reveal some connection between the contacts and why they have not been opening your emails. Finding this could mean that you put an end to their inactivity, providing that you also come up with a viable solution as to how to reach them. You may find that a portions of your contact list belongs to a certain demographic that your email marketing campaigns are not marketing to: Older women, people in a different time zone, college students, etc. Having a closer look at your contacts might provide you with that stroke of genius on how to pique this group’s interest in your emails.

Testing/Mix Things Up a Little:

Spending time to experiment with your email marketing solutions strategy might teach you how to bring your ‘ghost contacts’ back to life.

If you’ve always sent out email on the same day or time of day, try a few varied distribution times; see if it produces a different response. You can also change how often you’re sending your emails. If you’re accustomed to sending once a month, you may want to try sending twice a month, or once every two months.

Also, try creating different content. In your analysis of you contacts if you’ve noticed a trend among in-actives, consider packaging the content differently for this group. You can also mess around with the format of your email marketing software campaigns. Start testing the differences between text versions vs. more dynamic looking campaigns.

A major component is your subject line. Often all that is required of you is to change the subject line to bring back your inactive contacts. An inactive subscriber might have been reluctant to open your emails because your subject line is always the same or very similar to all the other messages sent. Your in active subscriber is likely making the assumption that if the subject line doesn’t change, neither does the content of the email marketing campaign.

Testing out different methods of sending out campaigns will activate the pulses on some of your more zombie-like subscribers, but will also give you valuable information on what their wants and needs are.

Successful email marketing software users are spending time on the maintenance of their contact lists; it’s time to take full advantage of your email marketing software service by making that extra effort to ensure your contacts are still interested.

Rudy Barell is a Senior Development Executive with Elite Email, the #1 email marketing solutions used by businesses around the globe. Create eye-catching emails and track your success with detailed reports for your email marketingTry it free!