Email lists are sacred territory for small businesses, because in an online landscape it’s the one place where we own customer data.
Facebook fans, Instagram followers, and even Facebook group members don’t mean anything if Facebook were to close it’s doors tomorrow.
And where every one on your list is a potential lead, or the friend of a potential lead, it’s so important to be engaging your subscribers – and then re-engaging them!
A re-engagement sequence is the fancy name for an automated email series you put in place, that is sent out to email subscribers who haven’t opened in a while.
Usually in the past 3 months.
This is how you make a final attempt at wooing a newer email subscriber into becoming a raving fan.
Another added benefit besides getting the right people to raise their hand, is it also helps to identify those who aren’t a good fit, or who aren’t interested any more.
And keeping a clean list you’ll start to see higher open rates because those left behind are truly interested in your work.
Why You Need A Re-Engagement Sequence
Your email subscribers are a valuable resource, whether that’s actually a dollar value because you ran ads and paid for that subscriber…
– OR –
They were at one time a genuine lead who opted in and was interested in your work.
Also deliver-ability is an issue in most email providers as well (especially to those Hotmail addresses!)
So having this re-engagement sequence might also reach people who haven’t opened because they haven’t seen your emails.
And finally, you need one because sometimes we choose a boring subject line for our email now and again. This helps counteract it!
Who Needs To Be In My Re-Engagement Sequence?
Much of this system is automated, but searching for the contacts who need to be added to this re-engagement sequence will be a a quarterly action item that comes onto your To Do list.
In a system like MailChimp, you can go into your audience list and see who hasn’t opened in the past 20 campaigns.
They unfortunately don’t use months, but if you’re emailing weekly this is a good one to use!
In other email systems with a little more automation features, like an Active Campaign or Ontraport, you can take this one step further and even let the system find these “cold” subscribers!
How To Run A Re-Engagement Sequence
Once you’ve found your who, there’s just a few steps for setting up the automated email sequence for the first time.
Going forward you can simply apply the start tag and let it run!
To make this even easier, I’ve also include some swipe files for the content of your emails.
So, let’s get started in implementing this!
1. Set your tags
For this automation to work, you need a few tags to track their movement through the re-engagement sequence:
- Start tag that triggers the automation to run on the contacts you have decided
- Re-Engagement Yes tag for people who click to stay on your list
- Re-Engagement No tag for people who opt out
- Re-Engagement No Response tag for people who take no action
For the link to the yes, you’ll use the thank you gift below.
And for the link to no, you’ll use your email provider’s default opt out link.
2. Create your thank you gift
For people who opt to stay on your list, you’ll want to reward them with some type of PDF or video training as a thank you.
To keep it simple, it can be your main lead magnet or swipe a resource from one of your programs.
3. Write and schedule your emails
Start sending this sequence on a Tues, Wed or Thurs when inboxes will be better managed. And then schedule them for every 3-5 days from there.
Email #1 and #2 are very similar, just with different subject lines.
But make sure you finish strong with Email #3!
EMAIL #1 – YOU OKAY?
This is gonna be awkward but…
I noticed you haven’t been opening my emails lately.
And the last thing I want to do is add more inbox clutter to your life.
I want to be sure everybody on my newsletter list still WANTS to be on my list — so you can be honest:
Do you still want my sent to your inbox?
Yes! >> Click here to stay connected (+ get a sweet thank you gift)
Nope. >> Click here and I’ll remove you from the list. Easy peasy.
To be SUPER-clear: By clicking the link above you’ll be unsubscribing from all of my mailing lists & will no longer receive ANY communications from me, <YOUR NAME/YOUR BRAND HERE>.
If there’s SOME types of content you want, and some you don’t, hit reply and I’ll see if it’s something I can filter for.
That way you are getting exactly what you need from me and nothing else.
EMAIL #2 – IS THIS STILL YOUR BEST EMAIL ADDRESS?
I think we might be having a tech glitch…
…because because I noticed you haven’t been opening my emails lately.
And the last thing I want to do is add more inbox clutter to your life.
I want to be sure everybody on my newsletter list still WANTS to be on my list — so you can be honest:
Do you still want my sent to your inbox?
Yes! >> Click here to stay connected (+ get a sweet thank you gift)
Nope. >> Click here and I’ll remove you from the list. Easy peasy.
To be SUPER-clear: By clicking the link above you’ll be unsubscribing from all of my mailing lists & will no longer receive ANY communications from me, <YOUR NAME/YOUR BRAND HERE>
If there’s SOME types of content you want, and some you don’t, hit reply and I’ll see if it’s something I can filter for.
That way you are getting exactly what you need from me and nothing else.
EMAIL #3 – HOW CAN I HELP YOU?
Okay let’s talk…
My purpose in (inbox) life is to serve up to help you .
Are you still interested in that?
I ask because I’ve sent you a couple of emails asking if you want to remain part of my VIP list, and I still haven’t heard back on what you’d like to do.
#awkward
But it doesn’t have to be!
I just want to be ultra-clear that this email is the last attempt:
If I don’t hear back from you, I’ll take that as a (rather humbling ;)) sign that you don’t want to hear from me anymore + remove you from all future email communications.
So one last time, for the win:
Do you want to keep getting my emails?
Yes! >> Click here to stay connected (+ get a sweet thank you gift)
Nope. >> Click here and I’ll remove you from the list. Easy peasy.
To be SUPER-clear: By clicking the link above you’ll be unsubscribing from all of my mailing lists & will no longer receive ANY communications from me, <YOUR NAME/YOUR BRAND HERE>. Totally up to you.
All the best, either way. 🙂
Keep Engaging Re-Engagement Yes Clickers
If someone clicks your “Yes” line in an email above, make sure it applies the “Re-Engagement Yes” tag we created earlier.
And it should also link to a thank you page where they can download a great free resource.
But we’re not done with them yet!
To make sure they stay engaged before your next newsletter, send 2-3 of your best blog posts, videos or other content every 3 days through a separate automation.
Download and Delete Re-Engagement No / No Response
If you have a lot of people opting out, or just not responding at all – don’t despair!
This is a great thing, because again you’ll start to see your open rate percentage go way up when you aren’t carrying extra weight!
And you might also see your bill go down!
However, you don’t want to count these subscribers out just yet.
Because, they did raise their hand for you at some point!
I highly recommend that before you delete them from your email list, you download them.
Then, you upload them into a custom Facebook audience so you can re-target them in the future.
Especially run ads to them whenever you host a live event like a challenge, webinar or video series.
For as little as $5/day you could get a lot of unsubscribed contacts back on to your list, and engaged with your offers.
And that’s it!
It may seem like a lot to set up at first, but it pays dividends each time you can run it going forward.
When your open rates go from 20% to 40%, and you start to re-engage many of your contacts, you’ll be glad you took the time!
Your Turn
Let me know if you already had a re-engagement sequence, how is it working for you? Or, let me know if you’re inspired to implement one now!
Thank you so much for this easy-to-follow tutorial. I struggle with this a lot. THANK YOU!