Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to nurture your leads and stay top of mind when they’re ready to seek additional information or to finally make a purchase. However, it’s also common to have a lead who starts out enthusiastically, only to lose interest somewhere along the way.
While it may be easy to just keep on focusing on additional lead generation and on leads who are actually interested, it behooves your business to take some time to develop some re-engagement strategies. At the end of the day, these prospects who seemingly fell off the radar are already aware of their pain points and that you could possibly offer a solution; so half the work is already done.
The best ways to entice them to get reacquainted with your brand is by developing re-engagement email campaigns with targeted messaging. And the foundation of successful re-engagement campaigns is effective email copy.
How to Write Re-Engagement Email Subject Lines
First, let’s talk about subject lines. After all, a threshold issue is to get recipients to open the re-engagement emails in the first place. There are several factors you’ll want to consider:
Add Personalization.
While including the recipient’s name in the subject line is certainly a way to let them know that the communication is intended to them, it’s not enough. Get creative about how to also mention something that’s of specific interest to them.
Were they about to purchase a SaaS tool from you before dropping off the face of the Earth? Bring it up — especially if you have additional reasons to get them to reconsider, such as a discount, free upgrade, or new features.
Ensure the Messaging Is Relevant.
If you're using customer relationship management (CRM) software effectively, you have plenty of information about your contacts. What’s their geographical location? When did they last visit your site? Which pages did they view the most?
Have they reached out to your business with any questions or concerns? Do they have specific interests? Make sure the subject line makes it clear that you’re emailing them because the communication pertains to them.
Create a Sense of Urgency.
Unless you state that this is a limited time offer, they may put you on the back burner. And being set aside to that position likely means getting forgotten about again.
They want the discount? Sign up by the end of the month. They want the free upgrade? It’s only available for the next five days. Move it along, reader, or lose out on the benefits.
Lead With Honesty.
Don’t ever do a bait and switch. Don’t resort to clickbait or misleading information. That will only annoy the reader and likely cause them to unsubscribe from your email list.
Besides, you always want to foster trust and transparency, and acting like a snake oil salesman is going to paint you in a negative light.
Keep It Short.
Limit your subject lines to 60 characters to avoid getting them truncated. You want your recipients to be able to read the entire phrase before deciding whether to open the email or ignore it.
This may feel challenging, but somehow we all manage to keep messaging short thanks to Twitter, so you can do it for this, too.
10 Tips for More Effective Re-Engagement Emails
Alright. Now that you know subject line basics for your re-engagement emails, let’s look at what you can do within the content to get the reader to take your desired action.
1. Optimize the Preheader Text.
This is another fundamental piece of the puzzle that’s easy to overlook. Remember, most of your users will probably check your email over a mobile device.
Good pre-header text makes them much more likely to open it and check out what you have to say.
2. Use Personalization Tokens.
It should almost go without saying, but not quite: Your re-engagement email is an essential time to use personalization.
First name personalization, in particular, helps grab attention, but you can also include more specific information, like referring to an ebook they recently downloaded.
3. Deliver Helpful Content.
While the purpose of the email is to re-engage them, your priority should always be, first and foremost, to provide them with information that’s useful to them.
If you know they have specific pain points, address those, and maybe even offer some short-term solutions for them right there in the text of the email. Yes, for free. It shows that you actually care about resolving challenges for them.
4. Highlight Benefits for Them.
Alas, you also want to re-engage them for the mutual benefits such an endeavor would entail. You get their attention and their possible business in the future, yes, but what are they getting?
Is it a better way to organize their business contacts? Is it a way to keep their data secure? Is it to help them remain in compliance with regulations? Whatever you help resolve, remind them of it.
5. Include a Surprise.
Include anything that would be a pleasant surprise for the reader, such as sending them a birthday gift or celebrating one of their recent milestones (say, for example, that they’ve announced opening a new business on LinkedIn).
Make it fun if it’s relevant to your brand and messaging.
6. Add a Free Gift.
Everyone loves free stuff — even wealthy people. It’s why there are freebies at Oscar parties and why celebrities and influencers get products sent their way on a regular basis. So chances are that your email readers would be absolutely delighted that you’re giving them something for free.
Within the B2B context, this could be free trials, product samples, a lapsed account upgrade, or a free extra service that doesn’t take you much time.
7. Deliver an Exclusive Invitation.
People love to feel special. So when you segment your contacts when preparing to send re-engagement emails, maybe throw in an extra for former customers, or people who have spent a specific amount of money with you before.
Or if you want to entice new people, tailor your invitation to their needs: Join us for a free copywriting course! Or enroll in our free webinar for XYZ. Then route them to a landing page where they can enroll.
8. Add Social Sharing Buttons.
No matter how you feel about it, social media platforms are extremely helpful tools to help you increase brand awareness and expand your reach. So make it as easy as possible for readers to share information they’re excited about with their networks.
9. Provide Them With Control of Email Frequency.
Give people the option to choose which types of communications to receive from you. Promo emails? Reminders? Announcements?
The same goes for the frequency they get to hear from you. That way, they won’t feel like their only option to hear less from you is to unsubscribe from your email list.
10. A Prominent Call To Action
Don’t just get back in front of them. Entice them to act. Make sure you’re following CTA best practices.
Make the buttons attractive. Use wording that lets them know exactly what will happen when they click on it. Appeal to their sense of urgency or curiosity. Keep it short and easy to read. And for heaven’s sake, make it obvious that it’s clickable.
Fill Your Pipeline Using Effective Re-Engagement Email Campaigns
Although you can learn a lot about your leads and customers over time, it’s not always easy to predict how they’ll react to emails. Some people simply hate marketing emails and will resist them at every turn – but most can be persuaded to find value in them if they’re worthwhile.
Do remember to scrub your email list before deploying your communications. Eliminating duplicates, typos, and deactivated accounts will give you more accurate numbers regarding your open rates.
And test a couple of iterations. While industry trends are always helpful, you can also learn a lot through trial and error.
Alejandra Zilak
Alejandra Zilak is a content writer, ghostwriter, blogger, and editor. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism and a Juris Doctor. She's licensed to practice law in four jurisdictions and worked as an attorney for almost a decade before switching careers to write full time. She loves being part of the Bluleadz team and implementing SEO best practices with her content. When not working, she loves to read, write fiction, and long distance running.