Inactive or passive subscribers as we know it, has been a persistent problem since beginning of the email era. The current challenge that has emerged is you will be penalized if your emails do not have adequate levels of deliverability and engagement.

With increasing stages of security from service providers, it has become increasingly difficult to reach to the inbox and have an invariably decent open rate. So you have to invariably make sure that your emails not only reach the desired Inbox but also gets opened.

Golden rules regarding Deliverability and Engagement

Most recent email service providers converted to a new algorithm that calculates deliverability using a combination of the original email delivery rules plus new “engagement” factors: open rates, clicks, unsubscribes and complaints. Considering the current equation of deliverability, future emails that you send may be considered SPAM or not delivered at all, even to subscribers who signed up to receive your emails.

List Hygiene

Well almost 70%-75% of email subscribes are inactive. List hygiene therefore is not only about removing undeliverable emails, bounces and unsubscribes. It also includes re-engaging inactive subscribers and the tricky task of asking subscribers if they still want to receive your emails. It’s aversive to think about losing subscribers but from a more business practical point of view its a share of resources, money and hurts the overall deliverability of your list.

Again if you remove inactives and non-responders there are number of added benefits to your email campaign. Moreover in addition to a better deliverability rate, you will have lowered costs and increased ease of segmentation and analysis.

Efforts to Engage

Use catchy subject lines like:

• Are you breaking up with us?
• Are we still friends?
• Are you mad at us?

The main body of the mail should possess the essence of the subject line alongwith variety of options to opt in and opt out, subscribe to only some topics and adjusting frequency.

Best Lessons Captured

• Email relationship should be started effectively by capturing attention and inviting engagement with a quality welcome series.
• Testing to determine the most important areas of interest can be adjudged by engaging content and subject lines.
• Segmenting and personalizing emails so you deliver the greatest relevance to each individual subscriber.
• Analyze inactive users and begin sending re-engagement emails as soon as possible so that inactive users do not remain on your list.

So what are you waiting for evaluate current deliverability rate and apply the above rules.