Dealing with inactive addresses
Mailing old lists
Abandoned, dormant or unresponsive email addresses hurt your numbers and can play havoc with your deliverability. These articles have advice on how to reactivate them or renew the opt-in.
Popular articles
Before you start a reactivation campaign...
Examines some of the issues you need to think about before glibly tackling "inactive" subscribers, particularly how you define inactive readers and how you segment them.
Know when to hold or fold
Outlines the problems associated with email addresses that never respond to your emails and suggests ways to deal with them. Part of the New Email Marketing series.
What are you afraid of?
Urges marketers to drop the obsession with the size of their list, focus more on the quality of subscribers rather than quantity, and cull the deadwood.
Cull your email list for the right reasons
Explains why getting rid of inactive addreses won't boost results in quite the way many would have you believe.
Reactivation campaigns
How do you trim an email list?
This is part 1 of a series and explores the idea of what exactly counts as an inactive subscriber.
Hewlett Packard purges the hopelessly profitless
Gives details of the "come back to us" email(s) sent by HP to subscribers who hadn't clicked/opened in a while, then describes seven steps to take in a typical reactivation campaign.
Tactics for reviving dead email subscribers
Offers some ideas for reactivating subscribers. Also makes the point that there may be different types of inactives (e.g. never responded, responded once, respond very infrequently) and each may require a unique reactivation tactic.
Example of segmenting by: customer + recency
Highlights a text-only email designed to win back customers who had not purchased for some time.
How fewer subscribers can boost your email business
Describes the role of engagement in delivery success, then presents the results of a test of two different approaches to reactivation: "renew your opt-in" and "reduced frequency".
Diseased email addresses and how to prune them
Explores the dangers of inactive addresses, then outlines three steps to take to deal with the deadwood.
Re-Engagement Examples
Advice on reactivation tactics, plus some specific examples of good reactivation emails.
The right way to trim inactives
Lists various points you need to consider when identifying and targeting inactive subscribers.
Shop.org: Effective Reengagment Strategy?
Detailed evaluation of a reactivation campaign, complete with screenshots and highlighted best practices.
Three tips to get them back on board
As well as ideas on reactivating subscribers, the article ends with some thoughts on the kind of practices that might be causing addresses to go inactive in the first place.
Counting the loose change
Weighs up the arguments for and against keeping inactive subscribers on your list, with some tips on how to move forward with the issue.
Savage address cull too drastic?
Discusses a case study where inactives were culled aggressively and identifies some potential improvements to the process used.
Start the year right
Suggests some tactics you might use to get the dormant customers on your list back into the active file.
Making bacn not spam
Suggests that maybe some of those inactive addresses are people just waiting for you to send the right emails, and so shouldn't be discounted so easily. Read a commentary on that concept here.
6 tips to win back inactive subscribers
Goes through the reactivation process and describes six ways to rekindle subscriber interest.
Parting isn't such sweet sorrow
Includes stats on the benefits of an address cull, with some tips on re-engaging inactives.
How to re-engage inactive subscribers
More tactics to use for re-engagement campaigns.
Non-responders may not be non-responders
A telephone survey of people who hadn't opened and clicked a newsletter in a long while revealed that many were not as indifferent as you might think.
Opt-in renewal campaigns
Thinking of using an old list? Part 2
Brief discussion of the need to get a fresh opt-in from people you haven't mailed in a while, plus ideas on what to put in the email you send them.
Saying Goodbye
Review of a UNICEF campaign to get people to reconfirm their interest in getting the organization's email newsletter.
Don't resend, reengage
Outlines a series of messages you might use to get people to recommit to your email list and then welcome them back.
Best practices
Recommended tactics to use in an email requesting people confirm they're still interested in getting your messages.
It apparently can pay to get permission again
Explains the benefits gained by one non-profit after asking readers of their newsletter to reconfirm their subscription.
Reconfirmation Messages: Clean Up Your List!
Advice on clearing out the "dead" addresses on your permission-based house list and the role of membership reconfirmations.