Most Dangerous Job in Marketing: Firing Dormant Subscribers Hurts but Necessary
Figure1: Bronto Software's "Love 'Em, Leave 'Em & Move on" white paper has the best title yet for a B2B digital marketing white paper and mostly delivers the loving. Screenshot by Derek Handova
As soon as I saw the title of Bronto Software’s white paper on email marketing engagement, I had to smile broadly. There’s something about “Love ‘Em, Leave ‘Em & Move on” that struck a nerve. Maybe funny bone is a better way of framing it. Frankly, it’s the best title I’ve ever seen in a B2B white paper. But beyond the attention-grabbing headline, there lay brutally honest steps to try to salvage the “relationship” with your email customer, failing that a way to say goodbye gracefully and getting ready to cultivate the next set of customers.
Figure 2: When you first engage with an email subscriber there's an adrenaline rush that makes you want to run in fields of gold. But is it a love that will last or simple infatuation? Photo credit: Micah Camara / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
When you’re looking to gain a new email customer, there’s an initial rush of excitement when it actually happens. However she has happened to land on your web site and registered all her details for your regular mail campaign and special one-off offers, it got your adrenaline pumping and pulse racing. But something has happened since then. The ardor has cooled. She’s tailed off clicking through. Some of your emails even go unopened. Face it; she’s just not that into you anymore! Don’t despair, though. Bronto has a strategy for your direct marketing effort to give it one last college try by:
Figuring out why email subscribers loved you at the beginning and renewing that love
Failing renewal of love giving them an ultimatum and some time to comply
Forgetting spurned love, forging ahead and cutting former email flames from your database
Figure 3: Bronto Software's "Love 'Em, Leave 'Em & Move on" email white paper boils down to sending messages that customers/lovers want to read. Photo credit: planeta / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Loving Them To begin with, Bronto says you need to know how you came together at the start. Has this happened to you before? Are you repeating past mistakes and self-sabotaging your relationship? She who does not know her own history is doomed to repeat it. According to Bronto, there are generally four conceptual ways how you could’ve “met” your subscribers:
In your neighborhood (i.e., your web site)
Through a friend of a friend (i.e., social networking)
Speed dating (e.g., sweepstakes enticement)
At the club (i.e., in-store/Point-of-Sale signup)
Each of these relationship origins has its own dynamics and follows a different decay rate. Meeting subscribers in your neighborhood is the basis of a strong relationship as she made the first move to come onto you. Meeting subscribers through social networking is more of a second chance where her friend saw something in you, and she chose to take a look herself and after experiencing off-the-bat chemistry later decided that it was only infatuation. Whereas subscribers who only joined your mailing list because of a spiff like a sweepstakes could just be players out to get what they can from you—wham, bam, thank you ma’am! And as at a real club where you've collected your fair share of 555 prefix numbers, subscribers that sign up for your mailing list at the store cashier could’ve given out a bogus address.
Figure 4: According to Bronto, each different type of email relationship has a different decay rate based on its acquisition technique. Screenshot by Derek Handova
Figure 4 shows Bronto’s example relationship decay rates for each meeting type. You can combat email marketing relationship decay rates by:
* After determining that there is a subscriber relationship problem, trying to subtly fix it by schmoozing the divas via steps such as,
Using banner ads in emails to coax profile updating for a special offer
Validating them by confirmation of their updates
Doing the unexpected in your subject lines such as employing emoticons
Adding an extra-added bonus on top of a substantial discount like free shipping
* Talking it out by,
Making an emotional statement including, “We miss you,” “Haven’t seen you lately,” “Did we do something wrong?”
Offering expert advice in the your company’s field
Improving her user experience
Binding the customer with standing loyalty programs, lifetime gratis shipments and bonding her to your community base
Leaving Them If none of the foregoing tactics has made things better with your subscriber and rekindled her love, you need to escalate things. Send her an ultimatum! But give her some time. Don’t tell her precisely how much time or that you will take her back in a heartbeat. You may be a fool in love, but you’re no schmuck! However, you must be ready for the potential blowback on this “my way or the highway” tactic and be prepared to kiss your subscriber goodbye!
Lay it on the line. Tell her you are tired of all her foolish games and to stop wasting all your precious time. Is she in, or is she out? The truth will do just fine. If she doesn’t respond to your future email communications, you’re through. No more sappy sentimentality. Just straightforward emotional blackmail. She’s a woman; she’ll understand this approach.
In any event, your next—and perhaps final—email to your erstwhile love interest should contain an explicit Call-to-Action link cajoling her to confirm her interest in continuing to receive emails. Failure to click will lead to termination. You may want to make an offer of a discount or another value-add for relationships based in your neighborhood or on friends of friends—the players and clubbers just aren’t worth it, really—as one last lifeline to her.
Moving On Cut bait or go fish. Even as you have culled your neglectful email subscribers out of your contact database’s life, you can still profit from this exercise. Segment these former subscribers based on their demographics, point of entry and interaction history. Once you have a profile of your exes, you will be better able to judge future Ms Perfects. Maybe there is a way to anticipate trouble earlier in your relationships and head it off. But best of all you’ll know a femme fatale at first sight now. If any of these ingénues darken your doorstep in the days to come, you’ll know to run and not walk away from them. And while you are at it, ban your ex-subscribers from re-engaging with your email list. Who needs ‘em?! Don’t think you are alone in this. Bronto can help you automate your email marketing relationships. If only they could do this for our real relationships.
Analogy run amok but in the Running As much as I like Bronto’s headline and overall content of “Love ‘Em, Leave ‘Em & Move on,” it’s a bit too cute—by half. The relationship analogy is just too laborious, and I felt myself rolling my eyes like Mitchell Pritchett on “Modern Family” and lowly groaning at the bad puns, some of which may not be intentional.
Nonetheless, Bronto offers an entertaining take and some useful insights on email marketing relationship sustainment. It’s somewhat top-heavy on the “love ‘em” advice and tails off “leaving ‘em” & “moving on.” But that’s only right as you should be trying to salvage your relationship with your email subscribers and only spurning them if all else fails.
I’d recommend this white paper primarily for B2C marketers, but if you’re a high-volume B2B purveyor, you may also find interesting information within. See the whole piece for yourself (registration required).
-Derek Handova Social Media Practitioner