A company’s greatest asset is its customer base. When we lose a customer or a newsletter reader, it’s a tough pill to swallow, particularly when we don’t know the reason why.
The good news is that e-mail provides us with the opportunity to re-engage customers and to learn valuable information from those that are about to opt out. Here’s how.
Be Proactive: One of the many benefits of email is the real-time nature of the medium. E-mail enables us to ask customers why they are opting out, and also lets us reengage them before they do.
By utilizing a Web-based unsubscribe process vs. a blank e-mail that auto populates, marketers can ask (operative word here is ask) their customers if they are sure they want to unsubscribe. If you have multiple newsletters and e-mail programs, you can use this page to offer additional choices in communication.
When a customer is in the opt-out process, give them the option to unsubscribe from specific communications rather than a global unsubscribe, which would include all communications. Marketers often find that subscribers might not be interested in one type of communication, but may still be interested in others.
By providing your subscribers with more options, you’ll help to reduce list attrition and keep your subscribers actively engaged.
Learn All You Can: Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of messages daily, so they expect more from the brands they’ve grown to trust. That means they expect newsletters, special announcements and offers to be relevant. Disobey that rule and they will most likely decide to employ the dreaded opt out.
Take this opportunity to show that you value them and want to find a way to improve your communications with them. Many marketers are finding that a survey in the opt-out process helps them understand why customers are unsubscribing. For example, ask your customers if they prefer to be mailed less frequently or if they would prefer to receive other types of offers or newsletters. Subscription centers provide a great way for users to manage these preferences.
The effort you make in improving your customer contact strategies will prove to your customers that you value them.
Use Your Brand Equity: Customers sign up to the brands they know and trust so continue to market to them through other channels. Maximize all customer touch-points by encouraging a re-subscription through your website, direct mail, call-centers and in-store sign up.
Another Chance: One of the most overlooked customer touch-points is operational and transactional messages—for example, order confirmations, event registration confirmations, password reminders, and warranty updates. With the passing of Can-Spam, marketers cannot send e-mails to subscribers who have previously opted out. But operational and transactional messages are exempt from this requirement.
These messages create up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, and they can be used to encourage re-subscription to their e-mail programs.
Of course, your top priority should keeping readers, not reengaging them. The more you know about your customers, the better you can market to them and keep them loyal.
Ashley Johnston is director of marketing for CheetahMail, an Experian Company
Network
