A Closer Look at Email Engagement

DISSED! WHY DO USERS BECOME DISENGAGED WITH YOUR EMAIL? After visiting your website, making a purchase, or stumbling across your company's blog, a customer has signed up to receive email from you. For a marketer, this is the most fragile, difficult relationship to maintain, and one wrong step can end in tragedy with your electronic IT'S A SUBSCRIBER'S MARKET correspondence in the spam folder. Look below to find out how to Unwanted correspondence has made subscribers avoid this tragic fate when sending your emails to the masses. increasingly wary of sharing their email address. 71% of U.S. online consumers say they've become more guarded about giving companies their email address over the past year. MAKING MATTERS WORSE 18% say they never open email from companies. Unengaged userS may actually be directly responsible for your email not landing in the inbox, Internet Service Providers (ISPS) are continually monitoring the habits of their users, and low levels of subscriber engagements such as low open rates and low click through rates, can result in your email being sent to the spam folder. Some ISPS have gone further with their analytics and are now sorting email even more aggressively: A LOOK AT GMAIL GMail PRIORITY INBOX SUBSCRIBER ENGAGEMENT Gmail introduced Priority Inbox, which learns to Gmail uses subscriber engagement to tag order sort emails based on user behavior. It automaticaly of importance for their users, making your identifies important emails based on which have company's email journey even more difficult. been read and replied to, and which have been marked as "important" by the user. A LOOK AT HOTMAIL Windows Live Hotmail. HOTMAIL MEASURES SUBSCRIBER 1 Messages read, then deleted by the subscriber. ENGAGEMENT IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS 2 Messages deleted without being read. TO DETERMINE PROPER DELIVERY: 3 Messages users replied to. 3 4 4 Frequency of receiving and reading a message from a particular contacts. FROM LOSING / INTEREST 54% % Said emails came too frequently. REASONS PEOPLE 49% Found the content to be repetitive or boring over time. UNSUBSCRIBE FROM 47% Received too many emails and decided to downsize. PERMISSION EMAILS: 25% Found the content irrelevant. 24% Preferred to seek out information on their own. 22% Signed up for a one-time offer. 13% Circumstances changed (moved, married, changed jobs, etc.) 0% Switched to another company that provided better information. 6% % Found an alternative way to get the same information (via blogs, Facebook, etc.) ONCE A SUBSCRIBER IS NO LONGER INTERESTED IN RECEIVING YOUR EMAIL, THEY WILL LIKELY: 67% Click "unsubscribe" 17% Delete emails when they arrive. 8% THE RULES TO SAVING YOUR EMAIL Click the "spam" or "junk" button. 6% Do nothing, just ignore the emails. Adopting the principles below can help to ensure delivery as well as keep subscribers engaged: 2% Set up a filter in their email program. Have your subscriber opt-in or double opt-in from the beginning of your relationship. This builds confidence and trust in your brand. Create a welcome program and implement preferences and frequency options for your subscriber. This way you are communicating with your audience on their terms, which helps to build engagement. WELCOME TRICKS OF THE TRADE Ask your subscriber to add your email address to their address book, This is the highest form of flattery and will showcase engagement to the monitoring ISPS. Email marketing may never be smooth sailing when it comes to subscriber engagement. This finicky relationship will always have to be nurtured with great care; however, doing so properly can achieve great results for your brand. Monitor your subscribers' responses. Changes in subscribers engagement can directly interrupt your email delivery. litmus SOURCES: LYRIS.COM, ECONSULTANCY.COM, SPAMRESOURCE.COM, EXACTTARGET.COM