Over time subscribers may lose interest in the content they receive or may abandon their email addresses. When this happens, we recommend reaching out to these subscribers to see if they're still interested in remaining on your list. If they are, great! If not, remove them and send them on their merry email way.
This practice keeps your mailing list healthy, and your engagement rates accurate! At FeedBlitz HQ, we call this list hygiene.
Now you can easily delete these subscribers from your list based on their last engagement with your emails, however, we recommend working through a re-engagement campaign to see if any subscribers are still interested in remaining on your list.
Key Steps Steps in Creating a Re-Engagement Campaign:
1. Create a Group of the List's Inactive Subscribers
2. Create a Thank You Page
3. Create a Single Mailing Campaign, Using a Filtered Audience and a Link Action
4. Repeat Step 3 One to Two More Times (Content suggested.)
5. Use the Inactive Subscriber Group to Delete Members from Original List
Let's get started!
1. Create a Group of the List's Inactive Subscribers
To get started, select Subscribers > Groups from your Left-hand menu.You'll notice our dashboard is blank right now because we don't have a group created just yet. To start a new group, click New Group.
When you click New Group, the Group Editor will appear:
Give your new Group a name and brief description. Reminder, subscribers are not notified when they're added to a Group, so they will not see this information.
Using Feedblitz's Engagement Filters, you can quickly add inactive subscribers of a particular list.
Choose first Active Subscribers, then select the mailing list from the drop-down menu.
Next, choose Inactive from the engagement options and enter your date. We recommend no less than 60-90 days here for inactive subs.
The last step is to hit Save Group to see your updated Groups dashboard.
2. Create a Thank You Page
We're going to pause working in FeedBlitz to create a Thank You page for subscribers who choose to remain on your list.
You'll need the link to the page before continuing on to Step 3 and creating your single mailing campaigns.
Log into your website and add a page thanking those who have chosen to stay on your list, even possibly offering a surprise download (not mentioned in your emails) as a token of your appreciation. This page doesn't need to be listed in your site menu, but it does need to be live and public.
Grab the URL for this Thank You page and hop back over to FeedBlitz.
3. Create a Single Mailing Campaign, Using a Filtered Audience and a Link Action
For Step 3, start by creating a Single Mailing Campaign. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to get started with a Single Mailing Campaign.)
The Audience tab is where we will apply the Inactive Subscribers group created in Step 1 to filter the audience.
On the Audience tab of your campaign, your groups will be listed in the filter and follow-up drop-down menu:
Here you can select the group of inactive subscribers.
When your filter has been applied, you will notice the audience number will adjust accordingly. (Ours doesn't, because this is a test list that doesn't actively send emails.)
While sending your Single Mailing campaign, the next item takes place when you are working with the template. We've added content suggestions below on what to send in your email(s) and here we will cover the importance of your CTA button. Be sure to have the Thank You Page URL on hand that you created earlier.
The content and purpose of this first email is to warm the inactive subscribers up a bit.
Let them know you've noticed they may not be interested in your content anymore and gently ask if they are interested in staying, let you know by clicking the below link. (Possibly offer different mailing schedules if you have the lists in place to offer that.) Be sure to mention you'll be cleaning out your list at the end of the week and only subscribers who let you know they want to stay (by clicking the button below) will remain on the list.
The Call to Action (CTA) Button
The goal of this campaign is to remove inactive subscribers from your list automatically. To do this, we'll set up an action for those who click your CTA, i.e. when a subscriber clicks your button saying something alonge the lines of YES! I want to stay on your list, they're automatically moved out of the Inactive Subscribers group.
The link people can / will click in your emails is the link to the Thank You page you just created on your site, so have that ready now.
After adding a button to your mailing and editing the text, you will choose Custom URL in the Destination Link tab and enter the Thank You page URL. Here is where you will add an action to the link, meaning when a subscriber clicks X, Y will also happen. In this case it will be to remove them from a Group:
After selecting Remove from a group from the dropdown, another selector will appear. This allows you to choose which group will be changed.
Your CTA is now ready to go!
Continue sending or scheduling your campaign as you choose then move on to Step 3 below.
4. Repeat Step 3 One to Two More Times (Content suggested.)
Since we already know these subscribers are not very active, odds are pretty high that many of them missed your initial email. This is why we recommend sending a few more emails to get their attention before deleting them from your list. Below you'll see suggestions on when to send these additional emails ad what type of content to include in each one.
*If you'd rather stick to one email notification and be done, skip this step and move to Step 5.
Email 2 - Send 3 days after the first email. Urge them to heed the warning. Offer a second chance for subscribers to click to stay on your list or choose a different sending schedule. Maybe they missed the first email? Maybe they got sidetracked? Remind them you'll be removing subscribers at the end of the week who don't click the link to stay.
Email 3 - Send 5 days after the first email. The farewell email. For the remaining subscribers, let them know they're being removed from your mailings. Mentioning you don't want to clutter their inbox if they're no longer interested in your content is always a great way to phrase this. (This is the email version of It's me, not you.) Thank them for their initial interest and direct them to your website if they decide in the future to rejoin your mailing list. It never hurts to offer the link to stay one more time in this email for any stragglers.
You can create all 3 emails in the same sitting and schedule the remaining two emails for future dates, or you can create and send one email at a time.
Save and re-use these mailings by saving them each as a template while working in the VME. Once your content and button are in place, choose Save As then name your new template accordingly. They will be available in your template library for future use.
5. Use the Inactive Subscriber Group to Delete the Remaining Members from the Original Email List
After your emails have been sent, whoever is left in the Inactive Subscriber group can be deleted from your mailing list. (Those were were interested in staying on your list would have clicked the CTA button and been removed from the group.)
To use the Inactive Subscribers group to delete the subscribers, navigate to the main mailing list and follow the below steps:
On the following screen, ensure your settings are correct and select the group of Inactive Subscribers from the drop-down menu:
Choose Next Step: Review and proceed with completing the bulk action. This will permanently delete the Inactive Subscribers from your mailing list.
And that is how to create a re-engagement campaign to remove inactive subscribers from your mailing lists. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let us know. You can find all of our great support resources and how to get in touch with us via email, chat or phone on our Support Page.