If your email inbox is anything like mine, it’ll be awash with businesses asking you to re-subscribe to their mailing lists.
Chances are, you’ll have engaged with a few of them and clicked the ‘re-subscribe’ button, while others will have been immediately consigned to the trash.
The reason these companies are doing this is, of course, all down the the impending GDPR data protection regulations. In order to obtain a nice, clean list of fully opted-in subscribers who have given their full consent for you to contact them in future, asking for their permission again is very good practice indeed.
It’s not easy, though, and if you’ve already tried to do this and failed, here’s a few things you can do to increase the number of re-subscribes:
Start by cleaning your data
If your existing database has been around since the dawn of your business, it’s probably chock-full of dead addresses and people who started ignoring you long ago.
That means the dearth of re-subscribes you’re experiencing may well be down to the fact that you’re emailing people who either weren’t engaged in the first place, or who don’t exist at all.
It therefore pays to start any form of re-consent process by cleaning your data. Remove email addresses that haven’t engaged with your campaigns within the last three months and any that regularly bounce.
Segment your best customers
You’ve probably got a bunch of customers within your main mailing list that are the best clients you have. If that’s the case, sending them a blanket ‘please re-subscribe’ message probably isn’t particularly thoughtful.
Instead, try segmenting those subscribers into a separate list and send them something more personalised that thanks them for their custom and reminds them they’ll need to re-subscribe if they’re to continue receiving your news and advice.
Stop emailing people who have re-subscribed
It might feel like a bit of a pain in the backside, but it’s really important that you start to clear out the people who have re-subscribed from your old mailing list.
If you don’t, that old list will never dwindle, and you’ll be wasting effort emailing people who have already done what you asked of them. At worst, that might tempt them to unsubscribe!
Keep the email really, really simple and honest
People aren’t daft – they know why you’re asking them to re-subscribe.
While the GDPR isn’t really the kind of stuff you’d talk about with your mates on a night out, it is within the national conscience, and the abundance of emails we’re all receiving of this nature means people are already in-tune with it.
With that in mind, be honest when you ask for your subscribers’ permission to re-subscribe. You don’t need to mention those four letters, but you can start by saying something along the lines of “As you may know, the rules are changing, and we don’t want you to miss out on our awesome emails”.
Don’t waffle on; two or three sentences and a nice image is all you need.
And finally: ensure the sign-up form is ultra simple
It’s easy to screw up this process by including a vastly complicated sign-up form.
Keep it ultra simple. Remember – re-subscribing is a bit of a pain, therefore if you ask for their inside leg measurement, you won’t win many friends. Ask for a name and email address – that should be all you need.
Good luck with your re-subscribes! If you’d like more help building a targeted email list, download our free guide today!
