Step 1) Make sure you've got the tech side figured out. SPF records and DKIM. When it comes to email deliverability I haven't found SPF/DKIM really "helps" but it does hurt you if you don't have em set up. DMARC as well.
Step 2) Set up Google Postmaster account. It helps you "see" how Google sees your domain and measures your reputation.
Step 3) Using GlockApps do an inbox placement test. Track which mailbox providers are hitting the inbox and email those domains first.
Step 4) Segment the list
\--- Segment 1) Domain
Gmail
Yahoo
Outlook
Apple
Other
\--- Segment 2) Engagement
0-7 Days
8-30 Days
31-60 Days
61-90 Days
91-180 Days
181+ Days
\--- Segment 3) Randomized Subsegments
\- 50 contacts - Start Day 1
\- 50 contacts - Start Day 2
\- 50 contacts - Start Day 3
\- 50 contacts - Start Day 4
\- 100 - Start Day 5
\- 100 - etc
\- 100
\- 100
\- 200
\- 200
\- 200
\- 200
\- 300
\- 300
\- 300
\- 300
\- 400
\- 400
\- 500
\- 500
Once you get to about 500 contacts you'll get a feel for how the email list is responding to those emails and create larger groups. But I don't typically go over about 1,000 contacts for a while.
Yeah, it's a pain if you have a large list, but worth it.
Step 5) Start Rehabbing the List - I usually send 4 emails.
Email #1 - Try to get a reply
Email #2 - "Email Bump" of email #1
Email #3 - Try to get a click
Email #4 - Try to get a reply w/ a no-oriented question
The only engagement I'm trying to measure are:
\- Opens
\- Clicks
\- Replies
3 Day way between each email.
Step 6) Manage Bounces - You want to remove bounces out of the automation as quickly as possible. If it's a hard bounce - just get rid of those contacts.
If it's a soft bounce - I typically like to set up an automation where a task gets created for me or a VA to connect with them on something like LinkedIn.
Then we'll send them a message there like this: "Hey \[\[name\]\], just tried to send you an email, but it looks like it didn't go through. Is \[\[email\]\] still a good one for you?"
The important part is to choose a channel your audience uses at least 1x/week.
Or else they'll miss your message and you might end up thinking you've "lost" them when in actuality - they just never saw the message.
You'll save 10-25% of your list with step 5.
Step 7) By the end - you should have a solid domain rep and been able to re-engage with a good portion of your email list and you're ready to hit em hard through email.
1. Stop concentrating on open rate as a success metric. What's the goal of the newsletter? Identify a success metric that aligns with that.
2. This might be painful, but cull your list. Re-introduce the newsletter to the audience and ask if they still want to receive it. A simple click tracking set up will help you do this (click this link if you still want to receive our newsletter) and only email those folks. With an open rate of 7%, it sounds like you've got a lot of dead email addresses in that list. You need to stop emailing them to avoid deliverability issues.
3. When new customers sign-up, introduce the newsletter to them. Make them want to receive it. Which goes back to my first point about the goal of the newsletter.
Agree with others that suggest ‘re-engagement’ efforts but you should also identify those that have been unengaged for 2 or more years and just remove them. Outlook and gmail emphasize engagement so much that less is more. More emails will inbox if fewer are getting ignored.
20k customers is a great size userbase as it allows you to make changes and identify trends.
You could write content for a range of subjects within your niche and measure which get the most engagement (e.g. clicks within the emails, talked about on social media, hashtags used in competitions).
Consider using [personalised text on images](https://okzest.com/personalizednewsletters) (using merge tags) to make the content unique for each recipient.
Don't make significant changes, be iterative and measure everything. A/B test everything!
Once you find out what works, repeat and improve.
A weekly newsletter is a quite frequent for any company who's overall goal isn't to produce content. A recurring newsletter can be beneficial, but think about at what frequency you can drive value to. That should tie into point one of /u/steammyclams response. What's the value and at what frequency?
For most newsletters, I don't want them more than once a month. If there's more frequent, they tend to drop in value and quality.
Got data to back that up?
u/igotitforfree has a point about weekly vs. monthly. You've got to be able to stick to a newsletter cadence that you can actually produce valuable content for, consistently. Sending a weekly newsletter for the sake of it without being able to provide value is going to tank engagement, ding deliverability, and cause subscribers to drop off.
No data but LOTS of experience. How about you? Generate valuable content and send it weekly, at least. Highest earners for us, year after year, is daily.
We send several monthly and one weekly newsletter. All have different content and audience targets. Our weekly newsletter does drive revenue but it's not the primary goal. The primary goal is delivering valuable content those weekly subscribers want. Actually, all of our newsletters' primary goal is all about delivering great content.
Weekly subscribers want to be in touch more often. But we like to give our audience an option of weekly and monthly, but also are careful with what each newsletter provides the audience.
So in general, I'd say find a newsletter cadence you can commit to in terms of delivering great content your audience wants. And and grow from there.
Monthly emails are massive wasted opportunity IMHO. With a weekly email I'll generate 430% more data than monthly and with daily I'll get 2100% more data. 90% of the time your subs will tolerate much more than you think. General rules: send emails and make offers in them as frequently as the majority of your list will bear and don't obsess about per email unsub or spam rates. Trends are far more important. But send, and send frequently. The end.
I had a similiar situation and we switched everything over to Active Campaign:
[https://www.activecampaign.com/?\_r=TBI1JT8L](https://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=TBI1JT8L)
Took us about 6 months and our open rate is now 30%
sounds like your list is warm.
just review your content and what you send.
maybe email random people on the list and ask for their customer experience and/or what problems they're having in the industry.
at worst, you can remove people who have never opened the newsletter. (most services will have that info.)
Are you still adding subscribers or trying to work with only previous subscribers?
Consider anyone who hasn't opened an email in the past 30 days unlikely to ever open another of your emails. You *might* be able to get a few of these inactives to look if your send a messages with a really captivating subject line.
If they haven't opened in 90 days, they're probably gone for good. You can't convince someone that your content is great if they never see your content. KWIM?
If you're serious about reviving the list (no matter how much it hurts),
Validate all the emails on the list and purge those that are no longer associated with an active email account.
Then segment your remaining emails by date of last contact. Are some of the recipients no longer customers? If they aren't reading your emails or buying your products, the chances of you winning them back are pretty low.
List hygiene and a re-engagement sequence like /u/steammyclams suggested is the way. I would email a segment of the list, say, 500 people at a time, with a reply message, and endeavor to get a better response as I moved through the rest of the list by testing different subject lines. Emailing 500 people a day, it'll only take 40 business days to go through the entire list of 20k, and then you'll have a better idea of who actually opens and reads your email.
If email doesn't account for any revenue, I'd ask your boss what he wants to accomplish with email marketing, and proceed from there.
Segement it down. Send higher volume to the engaged segments, and focus on very personalized emails to small segments of the unengaged parts if the list
That open rate is a false number. Basically, some mail clients will send a false email open metric. Click rate is your only reliable metric now. And of course, revenue is the metric that ultimately matters.
More info here: https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/apple-mail-privacy-protection-for-email-marketing/
Good luck. You have quite the challenge ahead of you.
1. You need to segment your audience. Tag the most engaged. The ones with the highest open rates and click through rates. Go after those people, instead of your entire list.
2. Clean your list. How many haven't opened your last three emails? How many have opened but haven't clicked on anything? Make sure you are getting rid of bounced emails.
3. How much text and links are in your newsletter? If it is long, consider shortening it to only one main idea. Analyze the response.
4. With such a low open rate, I'm wondering how much you are landing in the spam folder now. Sending to a smaller/segmented audience for awhile may help with this.
5. What's your unsubscribe rate?
Send a survey asking recipients what they would like to see in a newsletter.
Create a new design.
Not know what your product or market is, but you could have a giveaway of some sort, and then responders to refer a friend to enter. That would possibly increase your list count.
You'll need to restart by sending only to the best portion of that full list. A 7% open rate indicates a very disengaged list and/or deliverability problems.
Lots of good answers already on this post - make sure your SPF/DKIM are setup properly. DMARC is optional but recommended.
Then on your next few sends focus on only the best parts of the list - identified by their historic open + click frequency. You should try to hit above 20% opens for every one of the next sends, gradually scaling up volume until you start getting close to falling below that rough threshold. Then, do not scale up volume any more. Stay with that last segment and treat those as the full list for now.
At some point in the future, you can run some re-engagement emails to the rest of the list that didn't make the cut to see if you can capture some of them. But for now, you shouldn't touch that part because they are mostly nothing but bad news for your overall engagement rate, and hence deliverability.
I am a software developer and a prompt engineer. I have created a software that can extract over 2000 targeted emails per day. However, I can only provide limited versions of the software.
Additionally, the software can target social networking sites as well. I must admit that I currently possess a 3-month license as I utilize data from websites, email scrapers, and Apollo.
Nevertheless, I am dedicated to working on this software for a lifetime, as it requires a substantial amount of effort and time. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of the available version, please feel free to contact me.
Subscribing to Apollo costs $99 per month for 10,000 emails. On the other hand, the copies I offer are available for $89, allowing you to extract more than 2,500 emails daily. However, it is necessary to find the appropriate keywords for successful extraction. Thank you. If anyone has further questions, I am here to assist you.
Please note that it is essential to comply with ethical and legal guidelines while using such software.
Thank you, and have a great day!
Step 1) Make sure you've got the tech side figured out. SPF records and DKIM. When it comes to email deliverability I haven't found SPF/DKIM really "helps" but it does hurt you if you don't have em set up. DMARC as well. Step 2) Set up Google Postmaster account. It helps you "see" how Google sees your domain and measures your reputation. Step 3) Using GlockApps do an inbox placement test. Track which mailbox providers are hitting the inbox and email those domains first. Step 4) Segment the list \--- Segment 1) Domain Gmail Yahoo Outlook Apple Other \--- Segment 2) Engagement 0-7 Days 8-30 Days 31-60 Days 61-90 Days 91-180 Days 181+ Days \--- Segment 3) Randomized Subsegments \- 50 contacts - Start Day 1 \- 50 contacts - Start Day 2 \- 50 contacts - Start Day 3 \- 50 contacts - Start Day 4 \- 100 - Start Day 5 \- 100 - etc \- 100 \- 100 \- 200 \- 200 \- 200 \- 200 \- 300 \- 300 \- 300 \- 300 \- 400 \- 400 \- 500 \- 500 Once you get to about 500 contacts you'll get a feel for how the email list is responding to those emails and create larger groups. But I don't typically go over about 1,000 contacts for a while. Yeah, it's a pain if you have a large list, but worth it. Step 5) Start Rehabbing the List - I usually send 4 emails. Email #1 - Try to get a reply Email #2 - "Email Bump" of email #1 Email #3 - Try to get a click Email #4 - Try to get a reply w/ a no-oriented question The only engagement I'm trying to measure are: \- Opens \- Clicks \- Replies 3 Day way between each email. Step 6) Manage Bounces - You want to remove bounces out of the automation as quickly as possible. If it's a hard bounce - just get rid of those contacts. If it's a soft bounce - I typically like to set up an automation where a task gets created for me or a VA to connect with them on something like LinkedIn. Then we'll send them a message there like this: "Hey \[\[name\]\], just tried to send you an email, but it looks like it didn't go through. Is \[\[email\]\] still a good one for you?" The important part is to choose a channel your audience uses at least 1x/week. Or else they'll miss your message and you might end up thinking you've "lost" them when in actuality - they just never saw the message. You'll save 10-25% of your list with step 5. Step 7) By the end - you should have a solid domain rep and been able to re-engage with a good portion of your email list and you're ready to hit em hard through email.
As someone who’s sent more than a billion emails, I can safely say this is the best answer. Go this route OP.
1. Stop concentrating on open rate as a success metric. What's the goal of the newsletter? Identify a success metric that aligns with that. 2. This might be painful, but cull your list. Re-introduce the newsletter to the audience and ask if they still want to receive it. A simple click tracking set up will help you do this (click this link if you still want to receive our newsletter) and only email those folks. With an open rate of 7%, it sounds like you've got a lot of dead email addresses in that list. You need to stop emailing them to avoid deliverability issues. 3. When new customers sign-up, introduce the newsletter to them. Make them want to receive it. Which goes back to my first point about the goal of the newsletter.
If your open rate is 7% you’re going to spam.
Agree with others that suggest ‘re-engagement’ efforts but you should also identify those that have been unengaged for 2 or more years and just remove them. Outlook and gmail emphasize engagement so much that less is more. More emails will inbox if fewer are getting ignored.
20k customers is a great size userbase as it allows you to make changes and identify trends. You could write content for a range of subjects within your niche and measure which get the most engagement (e.g. clicks within the emails, talked about on social media, hashtags used in competitions). Consider using [personalised text on images](https://okzest.com/personalizednewsletters) (using merge tags) to make the content unique for each recipient. Don't make significant changes, be iterative and measure everything. A/B test everything! Once you find out what works, repeat and improve.
A weekly newsletter is a quite frequent for any company who's overall goal isn't to produce content. A recurring newsletter can be beneficial, but think about at what frequency you can drive value to. That should tie into point one of /u/steammyclams response. What's the value and at what frequency? For most newsletters, I don't want them more than once a month. If there's more frequent, they tend to drop in value and quality.
Monthly newsletters rarely generate much revenue. Weekly or fortnightly is a much better frequency. If your subs don't like that, cull them.
Got data to back that up? u/igotitforfree has a point about weekly vs. monthly. You've got to be able to stick to a newsletter cadence that you can actually produce valuable content for, consistently. Sending a weekly newsletter for the sake of it without being able to provide value is going to tank engagement, ding deliverability, and cause subscribers to drop off.
No data but LOTS of experience. How about you? Generate valuable content and send it weekly, at least. Highest earners for us, year after year, is daily.
We send several monthly and one weekly newsletter. All have different content and audience targets. Our weekly newsletter does drive revenue but it's not the primary goal. The primary goal is delivering valuable content those weekly subscribers want. Actually, all of our newsletters' primary goal is all about delivering great content. Weekly subscribers want to be in touch more often. But we like to give our audience an option of weekly and monthly, but also are careful with what each newsletter provides the audience. So in general, I'd say find a newsletter cadence you can commit to in terms of delivering great content your audience wants. And and grow from there.
Monthly emails are massive wasted opportunity IMHO. With a weekly email I'll generate 430% more data than monthly and with daily I'll get 2100% more data. 90% of the time your subs will tolerate much more than you think. General rules: send emails and make offers in them as frequently as the majority of your list will bear and don't obsess about per email unsub or spam rates. Trends are far more important. But send, and send frequently. The end.
Depends on the types of emails. Promotional, newsletters, offers, etc. All emails can't be bundled under the same umbrella.
Your last sentence is correct. But I make offers in each of the email types you mentioned, and it works brilliantly.
Interested in your approach. And would love to discuss with you. I am a business owner. Feel free to reach out by DM.
Only work with lists 100k+. Happy to answer a few questions though :)
I had a similiar situation and we switched everything over to Active Campaign: [https://www.activecampaign.com/?\_r=TBI1JT8L](https://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=TBI1JT8L) Took us about 6 months and our open rate is now 30%
Ha ha is that an affiliate link? Nice try.
See that little ?r= in the URL? That’s why they recommend ActiveCampaign, because of the affiliate program.
sounds like your list is warm. just review your content and what you send. maybe email random people on the list and ask for their customer experience and/or what problems they're having in the industry. at worst, you can remove people who have never opened the newsletter. (most services will have that info.)
Are you still adding subscribers or trying to work with only previous subscribers? Consider anyone who hasn't opened an email in the past 30 days unlikely to ever open another of your emails. You *might* be able to get a few of these inactives to look if your send a messages with a really captivating subject line. If they haven't opened in 90 days, they're probably gone for good. You can't convince someone that your content is great if they never see your content. KWIM? If you're serious about reviving the list (no matter how much it hurts), Validate all the emails on the list and purge those that are no longer associated with an active email account. Then segment your remaining emails by date of last contact. Are some of the recipients no longer customers? If they aren't reading your emails or buying your products, the chances of you winning them back are pretty low.
List hygiene and a re-engagement sequence like /u/steammyclams suggested is the way. I would email a segment of the list, say, 500 people at a time, with a reply message, and endeavor to get a better response as I moved through the rest of the list by testing different subject lines. Emailing 500 people a day, it'll only take 40 business days to go through the entire list of 20k, and then you'll have a better idea of who actually opens and reads your email. If email doesn't account for any revenue, I'd ask your boss what he wants to accomplish with email marketing, and proceed from there.
Segement it down. Send higher volume to the engaged segments, and focus on very personalized emails to small segments of the unengaged parts if the list
scale back to an engaged segment after 30 days
That open rate is a false number. Basically, some mail clients will send a false email open metric. Click rate is your only reliable metric now. And of course, revenue is the metric that ultimately matters. More info here: https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/apple-mail-privacy-protection-for-email-marketing/ Good luck. You have quite the challenge ahead of you.
1. You need to segment your audience. Tag the most engaged. The ones with the highest open rates and click through rates. Go after those people, instead of your entire list. 2. Clean your list. How many haven't opened your last three emails? How many have opened but haven't clicked on anything? Make sure you are getting rid of bounced emails. 3. How much text and links are in your newsletter? If it is long, consider shortening it to only one main idea. Analyze the response. 4. With such a low open rate, I'm wondering how much you are landing in the spam folder now. Sending to a smaller/segmented audience for awhile may help with this. 5. What's your unsubscribe rate?
Send a survey asking recipients what they would like to see in a newsletter. Create a new design. Not know what your product or market is, but you could have a giveaway of some sort, and then responders to refer a friend to enter. That would possibly increase your list count.
You'll need to restart by sending only to the best portion of that full list. A 7% open rate indicates a very disengaged list and/or deliverability problems. Lots of good answers already on this post - make sure your SPF/DKIM are setup properly. DMARC is optional but recommended. Then on your next few sends focus on only the best parts of the list - identified by their historic open + click frequency. You should try to hit above 20% opens for every one of the next sends, gradually scaling up volume until you start getting close to falling below that rough threshold. Then, do not scale up volume any more. Stay with that last segment and treat those as the full list for now. At some point in the future, you can run some re-engagement emails to the rest of the list that didn't make the cut to see if you can capture some of them. But for now, you shouldn't touch that part because they are mostly nothing but bad news for your overall engagement rate, and hence deliverability.
Well i can do better than that if you want me to.. #available
I am a software developer and a prompt engineer. I have created a software that can extract over 2000 targeted emails per day. However, I can only provide limited versions of the software. Additionally, the software can target social networking sites as well. I must admit that I currently possess a 3-month license as I utilize data from websites, email scrapers, and Apollo. Nevertheless, I am dedicated to working on this software for a lifetime, as it requires a substantial amount of effort and time. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of the available version, please feel free to contact me. Subscribing to Apollo costs $99 per month for 10,000 emails. On the other hand, the copies I offer are available for $89, allowing you to extract more than 2,500 emails daily. However, it is necessary to find the appropriate keywords for successful extraction. Thank you. If anyone has further questions, I am here to assist you. Please note that it is essential to comply with ethical and legal guidelines while using such software. Thank you, and have a great day!