How much engagement do your campaigns generate and what are you doing to actively combat disengagement?

What is Disengagement?

Disengagement is demonstrated when:

• Subscribers delete your emails without reading/opening them first
• Subscribers delete your emails without following the call to action
• Subscribers unsubscribe from your mailing list
• Subscribers mark your emails as ‘Spam’ or ‘Junk’
• Subscribers ignore your emails completely

Chances are you receive marketing emails that cause you to demonstrate disengagement!

Subscribers Delete My Emails? But WHY?!?!?

Frequency – If you’re emailing your subscribers too often, chances are they’ll feel overwhelmed by your emails and will find it easier just to ignore them altogether. However, if you don’t email your subscribers often enough, they may forget all about you and your business. Frequency is a very fine line, and each recipient will have their own frequency preferences!

Content – It’s absolutely essential that your email content is informative, engaging and entertaining (think about it, it’s better that your email generates giggles and not grumbles!) Most importantly your email content needs to be relevant to the subscriber. If you fail to tick these four boxes, chances are you’ll fail to generate genuine interest from your subscribers.

Have a think about the emails that you ignore and neglect, and ask yourself why you choose to delete, filter or forget these emails. This will give you an excellent insight in to how you can make your own email campaigns more engaging.

What Impact Does Disengagement Have on my Marketing Campaigns?

Disengagement can have quite a damaging impact on the overall health of your email marketing strategies.

ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) and email providers (such as Gmail and Hotmail) constantly monitor how mail is sent to a subscriber. More recently, they’ve started monitoring how a recipient responds to an email from a sender.

If the recipient adopts the same response each time they get an email from a particular sender, the email client and the ISP recognise this behaviour and alter how they deliver the mail.

If you have multiple recipients demonstrating disengagement behaviour too frequently, it could be much harder for your emails to reach your recipients (this applies to both old and new subscribers!)

What Can I Do to Deal with Disengagement?

Simply follow these 7 email marketing tips to increase results and decrease disengagement!

Opt In – Make sure your subscribers either opt in or double opt in to receive your email marketing newsletters. This builds a trusting relationship from the very start; making your subscribers more likely to engage with your emails.

Welcome – Present subscribers with welcome page that allows them to set the frequency of the emails that they receive from your business as well as the option to choose which categories/subjects they would like receive emails about. This enables you to market to the subscriber on their terms; making them more likely to engage (and it helps you to build up more accurate and useful mailing lists).

Add to Contacts – You’ve added the subscriber to your list, but it’s also important that the recipient adds your email marketing mailing address to their Contacts. This will help to ensure that your email lands in their inbox, and not their junk folder; and it will also tell the ISP and email client that you are a contact that the recipient wishes to engage with.

Cool Copy – Remember to make your email copy informative, engaging, entertaining and relative to your subscriber!

Split Testing – Double check the effectiveness of your marketing message by using split testing on a small portion of your mailing list.

Monitor Responses – Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can click ‘send’ and forget all about your email marketing campaign. An integral part of your strategy must be to review the results and monitor the responses your campaign generates. Keep an eye out for contacts that regularly display disengagement behaviours.

Maintain Your Lists – If a particular recipient demonstrates ongoing disengagement then be sure to perform a little housekeeping on your mailing list. Don’t be shy of letting the recipient know that you have removed them from your mailing list (and give them the option to re-subscribe should they want to)

Remember…

It is unlikely that every single member of your mailing list will positively respond to every single one of your emails.

Don’t be offended if a few people become disengaged with your marketing emails; instead, use it as a reminder that you need to maintain your lists.