If you have been using email to get in touch with both your existing and prospective fitness clients, it’s highly likely you already have an email list. And this email list is filled with email addresses of individuals, who have subscribed to your mailing list to be receiving communications from you.
But over time, you may notice that some of your subscribers may become inactive. And this means they are no longer opening, clicking or engaging with any of your emails. The problem is, these inactive subscribers can considerably hurt the effectiveness of your future email marketing campaigns.
The good news is, you can easily convert some of these inactive subscribers to become active again, through effective email re-engagement campaigns. This will effectively grow your clientele. In this guide, we explain the importance of re-engaging inactive email subscribers. We will also walk you through some tips for writing re-engagement emails.
1. Why Re-engage Inactive Email Subscribers
Regardless of how engaging, informative or captivating your marketing emails might be, there will always be some subscribers who will become inactive over time. And, it may not be necessarily an issue from your end.
The reality is, inactive email subscribers are a widespread problem, which affects almost everyone who uses email marketing. And if you continue sending them emails and these inactive subscribers don’t respond or engage, your open rates will drop significantly.
If this issue persists, it will negatively affect your sender reputation. And in the future, most of your emails will be marked as spam, making it even hard to reach those subscribers that are still engaging with your fitness emails.
Therefore, the best way of maintaining your sender reputation is to clean your email list and remain with active subscribers. But, before you get rid of these inactive subscribers, it will be highly advisable to try to re-engage them and win them back.
According to Mail Chimp, one inactive email subscriber is worth approximately 32% of an active subscriber. According to the same source, inactive subscribers are less likely to churn and will purchase more frequently, compared to clients who are not subscribed to your email list.
Therefore, if you don’t attempt to win back some of these email inactive subscribers, you will be missing out on a considerable amount of revenue for your fitness business. Fortunately, you can win some of your inactive email subscribers using re-engagement emails.
2. Tips for Writing Re-Engagement Emails that Convert
As mentioned above, a re-engagement email campaign can help you to reconnect and win back some of your email subscribers, who may have become inactive.
And if your re-engagement emails succeed, you may convert some of them into long-term clients, which translates to more revenue for your fitness business.
But, before you start sending re-engagement emails, you should first segment your lists, to separate the active subscribers from the inactive ones. Separating the inactive subscribers from the active ones achieves two main things.
First, you will stop sending them similar emails like the ones you are sending to your active subscribers. And second, you will be able to identify and isolate them, so that you can send them targeted re-engagement emails.
Once you’ve finished separating the active subscribers from those who have been inactive for a certain duration, you can now begin sending targeted re-engagement emails to your inactive subscribers. Here are some tips that will help you to write better re-engagement emails that convert.
2.1 Find Out the Reasons behind the Lack of Engagement
Your email subscribers can become inactive due to various reasons. And, some of these reasons may be out of your control. Hence, before you start sending re-engagement emails, you should first determine the reasons behind the loss of engagement.
To determine the reasons behind the loss of engagement, you can conduct a simple survey, and then send it with your re-engagement emails. The survey can be in the form of an opinion poll or open-ended questions.
Also, ensure your survey is short, relevant and straight to the point. Ideally, it should take the recipient approximately one to five minutes to answer the survey. If it takes longer than that, it’s highly likely they will not complete it.
Once you get the results back, you can then make the necessary changes. For example, if one of the subscribers cites their busy schedule as the reason behind their loss of engagement, you can suggest sending them tailored and relevant content, during a specific time of the day when they are free.
2.2 Entice Them with an Incentive
Discounts, gifts, offers, and free resources are an effective means of winning back some of your email subscribers. And by mentioning this offer on the email’s subject line, it may entice them to open the email, engage with it, and become active once again.
For example, you can put together a free tailored workout plan or meal plan for some of your inactive subscribers and send it with the re-engagement emails. And by going out of your way to do this, it shows that you value them.
However, it’s worth mentioning that freebies and giveaways will not engage your inactive subscribers for long. Hence, once they re-engage, you need to be continuously creating compelling and meaningful content, which will help to keep them hooked to your emails.
2.3 Deliver Great Content
Some of your email subscribers may have become inactive because your content is simply boring or generic. And to win such subscribers back, you will need to start delivering high-quality, and interesting content when sending your re-engagement emails.
One of the methods that you can use to renew interest in your emails is through humor or adding a bit of fun to your emails. Injecting some fun or humor into your emails will make them more appealing to your readers. Also, they will remind your readers that you are a fun brand or individual to engage with, compared to sending generic or plain emails.
2.4 Send Personalized Emails
Sending a personalized email makes the recipient feel as if you are talking directly to them. Furthermore, studies also show that personalized emails are approximately 26% likely to be opened, compared to those with no personalization.
Therefore, personalized emails will not only boost your open rate but can also help to convince some of your inactive email subscribers to re-engage. To send personalized emails, you should first need to look at the data that you may have gathered about the recipient’s interaction with your fitness business.
For instance, the individual may have signed up for your email list after coming across a discount that you had offered on personal training membership. You can then send them a similar offer or even something better. And, there’s a high chance that this individual will re-engage.
Besides product or service recommendations, you can also send the inactive subscriber an email when they are celebrating a special day like a birthday or wedding anniversary. By sending the individual a personalized happy birthday email, it shows that you value their contribution to your fitness business.
From there, they may start looking forward to your emails. And from this re-engagement, they may decide to renew their membership.
2.5 Create a Sense of Urgency
Another effective means of re-engaging email subscribers is by creating a fear of missing out or FOMO, as it’s popularly known. At the end of the day, no one wants to miss out on something great. And, if someone is no longer engaging with your emails, they are missing out on something great that you may be offering.
For instance, you may be currently running a holiday discount on your online personal training sessions, where the first 10 to sign up will enjoy a 50% discount. And, this discount is only available to those who sign up within a particular duration such as seven days.
By highlighting this urgency in the email’s subject line, most of the inactive subscribers will be prompted to open the email to learn more about the offer. And if the offer is compelling enough, you may just convince an inactive client to re-engage and sign up for your classes.
2.6 Ask for Their Recommendations
One of the most effective ways of re-engaging inactive email subscribers is to ask for their feedback, on the type of content they may want to be receiving from you and the sending frequency. And, you can do so by sending an email, giving them various topics and sending frequencies to choose from, depending on their individual preferences.
As you do so, make sure you’ve already prepared relevant, informative and valuable content, covering the different topics. Once the feedback comes in, you simply need to send them re-engagement emails, featuring their selected topics and their chosen frequency.
By using this approach, your subscribers will definitely appreciate your effort in trying to understand their needs and wants. And from this point onwards, some may start re-engaging with your emails, since you are now sending them their preferred content, the way they want to receive it.
3. Wrapping It Up
If you have a couple of subscribers on your email list that have become inactive, this guide is specifically for you. With the tips and ideas we’ve shared in this guide, you should be able to convince some of your inactive email subscribers to re-engage. And once they re-engage, some may even convert right away. And for those that don’t convert right away, you simply need to nurture them, and they will eventually come around.