While it’s sexy to acquire new users, it’s smarter and cheaper to do as much as you can to reactivate the users and subscribers you already have.

And yet, if it’s so obvious… why is it that most businesses don’t do reactivation, at all?

Between 60% – 75% of subscribers on email lists around the world are dormant, meaning those people haven’t opened an email from that list in 6 months to a year.

It seems obvious, but the reality is that very few businesses are proactively re-engaging dormant subscribers, buying into the distracting sex appeal of new user acquisition.

But, healthy growth is about a lot more than top of funnel activities.

If you’re even thinking about reactivation, you’re already ahead of most businesses — and your competition.

Email can be a very effective (but not the only) way to reactivate users for a few reasons:

• 1. It’s your OWNED channel, not a rented one.

Retargeting works, but it’s pay-to-play. By contrast, it’s basically FREE to send through reactivation efforts via email.

If users have already given you their email addresses (or you’ve acquired them otherwise), wouldn’t you rather work what you already have?

• 2. It’s one of the most direct channels in your multichannel mix.

Really good reactivation happens on multiple channels at once; you need to create a crescendo effect to overcome the powerful inertia of dormancy.

While email isn’t the only channel to reactivate…

…you should also pull in paid retargeting, SMS and phone where available, and content marketing as a layer on top of it all…

Email is your bread and butter reactivation channel because your message has the potential to go straight to the user (theoretically).

What’s a “Dormant” subscriber?

You want to send reactivation messages to a dormant segment of your list to move them up the food chain.

Josh Egan’s User States model maps over to email marketing well, even though the exact intervals are longer when it comes to email subscribers.

New ==> Core ==> Casual ==> Marginal ==> New ==> Dormant ==> Resurrected

hat counts as “dormant” on an email list?

When it comes to email marketing, keep in mind that not everyone is going to interact with your emails every time you send.

Most people may not even interact within a 28 day window, depending on how frequently you send those messages.

For example, if you only sent 1 this month, and they didn’t open that one message, that doesn’t mean you’ve got a dormant user on your hands.

Instead, subscriber engagement — and dormancy — need to be measured against the actual volume of emails that you send.

Not:

“Did they open an email within the last 6 months?”

But instead:

“Did they open one of the last 10 emails we sent them?”

Or whatever number fits for you. It may be fewer than 10, or more, if you’re sending at a higher frequency.

Reactivate users

The first thing to do, is to use at least 2 different lists: The dormant and the active list. You want to send as many users as you can from the first list to the second.

For this, I like to use a few steps:

Step 1

Admit your error. Say how sorry you are, for not taking to them in a while, or for not sending them useful information. Give them the chance to unsuscribe or continue receiving your emails.

Step 2

Provide excellent content in an article, video or lead magnet. It is very important to regain their trust again.

You must do this, several times, at least 3. Is not easy to recover a dormant user, so you have to use your best content.

Step 3

Make your purchase offer, o conversion desire.
With this step you want to know, if your dormant users, wants to buy know. You must take advantage of this.

What if, the never open again an email?
You can use, some tactics in the email subject:
- Do you hate me?
- Gain 10 usd

Often work very well.

Prevent Future Dormancy

Now that you’ve done all this great work to reactivate your subscribers, don’t let it happen again.

Understand WHY your subscribers fell dormant, or unsubscribe, in the first place, then fix it.

Here are the 4 ONLY reasons for email list dormancy and/or churn:

• 1. Poor lead quality.

You didn’t get high quality leads. For example, if you purchased or otherwise acquired a list that’s actually not a good audience match for your product or service.

• 2. Email frequency too high.

You emailed too much and annoyed them, but instead of unsubscribing, they just went numb and started categorically ignoring all your messages.

• 3. Email frequency TOO LOW.

Most businesses — but ESPECIALLY startups for some sad reason — harbor a senseless fear of being “spammy.”

This is totally inane because what makes something “SPAM” is not its send frequency but its relevance and authenticity — both things you can easily control while still maintaining an aggressive campaign frequency.

The sad truth is that infrequent emails trigger unsubscribes or “numb out” dormancy just as frequently. They simply can’t remember who you are or why your stuff is relevant to them.

• 4. Poor email relevancy.

You sent content that was just plain BAD or not targeted. For example, you have been sending campaigns about women’s fashion to a bunch of young male subscribers.

This sounds silly and obvious to avoid, but it’s not always that easy depending on your subscriber acquisition and tracking efforts.