Blog posts tagged email list

Four ways to reduce the dreaded email churn

Email list churn could be considered one of the few “givens” in life (next to death and taxes that is). No? OK fine, it’s not that dramatic but it is something that most marketers have to deal with on a regular basis.

Email churn refers to the number of subscribers who are lost to your list over a given period and it’s measured by the number of hard bounces, unsubscribes or spam complaints you receive. On average a marketer experiences 20-30 per cent of list churn every year, but you can work out your rate with this simple equation:

Tally up your hard bounces, unsubscribes and spam complaints for the time period you’re interested in and divide this total number of lost subscribers by your current list size. A quick example looks like this: 3,000 (lost subscribers) / 10,000 (current list size) = 0.3 x 100 = 30% list churn rate.

It is inevitable to a certain extent but there are steps you can take to reduce list churn. They aren’t quick fixes, but if you make a concerted effort to employ these tactics you’ll start seeing positive results:

1. Be honest with your subscribers

When your subscribers first sign up, tell them exactly what they can expect to receive from you, and stick to your word. If you have a few different newsletters, then set up an email preference centre where they can update their profile and change their preferences whenever they want. This is also a good time to disclose your privacy policy, in layman’s terms, which means letting your subscribers know that you aren’t going to sell, rent or disclose any of their details to anyone else.

2. Learn from your mistakes

If someone unsubscribes, politely request feedback about why they’re opting out and what you could do better, and then do what you can to implement the suggestions into future campaigns. It all helps with customer engagement and you should use the constructive criticism to adapt your strategy and help ensure you meet the expectations of the next customer who signs up.

3. Make things easy for your subscribers

Initially, they want a quick and simple opt-in and unsubscribe process along with reliable contact details, so make sure these aspects of your campaign are optimised for this. Incorporating a simple preference centre also makes for a better user experience. Not only is this a good way of engaging with your subscribers, but the data is hugely beneficial to you too, because you can use it to segment your audience and target them more effectively.

4. Re-engage inactive subscribers

Inactive subscribers (those who haven’t opened or clicked on any of your emails in the past six months) also affect your list churn. Don’t despair! Rather see it as an opportunity to re-engage and get them interested again in what you have to offer. Assuming these subscribers are bored with your email offerings, your reactivation campaign needs to jump out at them and offer something truly irresistible that’s going to guarantee a high open rate.

Georgia Christian is the editor of the online email marketing service Mail Blaze.