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Reengagement Email Strategy (With Examples)
When your audience seems to lose interest in your email marketing campaigns, reengage them with this strategy.
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When people stop actively engaging with your emails, you may assume they’ve lost interest in your business. However, this may not be the case. There’s a good chance you’ve just slipped off their radar in the chaos of life, business and countless other messages.
A well-executed email reengagement strategy can remind inactive subscribers why they love your brand and encourage them to reconnect. We’ll show you how to create a reengagement email strategy that cuts through the clutter and brings your brand back to the forefront for inactive subscribers.
What is a reengagement email?
A reengagement email is a mass email delivered to your list’s least-active subscribers. Unlike typical email marketing campaign communications, a reengagement email acknowledges the recipient’s lack of recent engagement and encourages them to reconnect with your company.
“The primary goal is to rekindle their interest, encourage interaction, and retain them as active subscribers or customers,” explained Kate Nowrouzi, vice president of deliverability and product strategy at Sinch.
Unlike email marketing campaigns designed to win new business, reengagement emails are a cost-effective way to reestablish relationships with people who have previously engaged with your brand.
How do you develop reengagement email campaigns?
Take the following 10 steps to develop a reengagement email campaign.
1. Identify your inactive subscribers.
Begin your reengagement email campaign by identifying inactive subscribers on your email list. You’ll want to create segmented email lists to target these individuals. However, keep in mind that subscribers disengage for various reasons, so a one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it.
Nowrouzi emphasized the importance of determining why people have become inactive so you can more effectively segment your inactive subscribers and send impactful targeted messages.
“Tailor content based on recipient behavior and preferences, and segment your audience to target specific inactivity periods,” Nowrouzi advised.
2. Write a catchy subject line.
A key challenge with reengagement emails is that they’re sent to people who haven’t been showing much — or any — interest in your brand. Without an immediate hook, your chances of reengagement drop significantly. Sometimes, a catchy subject line is your only shot at grabbing a disengaged recipient’s attention.
“Writing a subject line that encourages recipients to open your email requires a combination of curiosity, value and relevance,” Nowrouzi said.
Including the recipient’s name and avoiding commonly used spam phrases can help reduce email bounce rates and increase email open rates. Your method for reengaging subscribers should feel authentic to your brand.
3. Incentivize disengaged subscribers with a compelling offer.
Your catchy, unexpected subject line may spark your recipients’ interest enough for them to open your email. However, grabbing their attention doesn’t guarantee a sale. Without a compelling offer and a clear call to action (CTA), readers can quickly lose interest. That’s why it’s crucial to follow your subject line with an incentive that drives action.
“The best reengagement email blast has content that actually delivers on the eye-opening promise made in your subject line,” said Robert Newman, founder and CEO of InboundREM.
4. Personalize your incentive or offer.
Email personalization is an essential component of any email retargeting strategy. A generic offer in an email blast won’t cut it.
This is why it’s valuable to understand why a subscriber disengaged. For example, did they abandon their shopping cart, stop using your service, or ignore your recent emails? Your incentive should be tied to their behavior.
Here are some suggestions for each type of inactive subscriber:
- For abandoned-cart customers: If a customer left items behind and hasn’t returned, consider sending an abandoned-shopping-cart email with a personalized discount for the item they left behind. For example, it could say, “Still thinking about this? Here’s 15% off to help you decide!”
- For inactive service users: Try offering an exclusive loyalty perk or a free feature trial, such as “We miss you! Enjoy a premium feature free for the next 30 days.”
- For disengaged email subscribers: Reignite interest with a custom content recommendation, like “We noticed you loved our travel guides — check out our latest picks just for you!”
“It’s essential to tailor messages to disengaged customers in ways that resonate with their needs and priorities, creating meaningful reasons to reestablish a connection,” said Whitney Voigt, senior vice president of account services at Moosylvania. “Whenever possible, add personalized touches to show you’ve paid attention to their preferences and past behaviors.”
5. Restate your value.
Your inactive recipients subscribed for a reason — so use your reengagement email campaign to remind them why your brand is worth their attention. What do your emails offer that they can get only by staying engaged?
“Offer value by providing discounts, freebies or exclusive content that entices recipients to reengage,” Nowrouzi recommended. “Highlight what they’re missing.”
But value isn’t just about discounts. One of the best ways to reengage email subscribers is by offering valuable, relevant content that helps them get more from your brand.
“Create a series of tips, educational content or training opportunities that surround your company’s product or service,” suggested Alexis Quintal, CEO of Rosarium PR and Marketing Collective. “This will allow for an increased level of engagement and avoid spamming their inbox with information they don’t need.”
6. Introduce new value.
Beyond reminding subscribers of the value you’ve always provided, highlight additional reasons for them to stay engaged. What’s changed since they last interacted with your brand? Have you launched new products, enhanced product quality, improved existing features, introduced helpful integrations or forged new strategic partnerships? Maybe you’ve created a members-only forum or a loyalty program that would appeal to them.
When you showcase new value, you give disengaged subscribers a compelling reason to reconnect with your brand.
7. Share brand and product news and updates.
Brand and product updates are another way to reengage past customers. For example, if subscribers used to read your blog posts, include a “Posts You Might Have Missed” section in your reengagement email. List each blog post’s title, provide a brief description, and include a direct link to the post.
Similarly, if you’ve recently introduced new features or improved your service, highlight these updates with a quick rundown of what’s new and how it benefits subscribers. For example, a software company could highlight new enhancements, such as faster performance, new integrations or user-requested features.
This simple road to reengagement may lead to an increased click-through rate (CTR).
8. Offer several subscription options.
Even in the age of opt-in email marketing, subscribers may disengage if they feel bombarded with emails. They may appreciate the option to tailor their subscription settings to receive only certain types of updates or less-frequent emails, which could encourage them to stay engaged. (Of course, you must always include a clear unsubscribe option to comply with legal requirements under regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act.)
Quintal recommended offering a monthly email newsletter as a subscription option due to its high engagement rates and low unsubscribe rates.
“Monthly emails can also have the most value, with a breakdown of recent announcements, company updates, thought leadership articles, upcoming events and more,” Quintal explained. “A value-packed monthly newsletter has a better response rate than short, sales-pitchy weekly email blasts.”
9. Test different approaches.
As with any marketing strategy, you should conduct A/B testing for all aspects of your reengagement email campaign. Experiment with various headlines, offers and email frequencies to see what gets the biggest response. If your emails don’t move the needle, try something new.
“Keep an eye on open and click rates for these dormant segments, and compare them to the rest of your list,” advised Isaac Bullen, director of marketing at 3WH. “If you’re not seeing improvement, tweak your incentives or messaging and keep testing until you do.”
Nowrouzi stressed that continuous testing is a must for optimizing your reengagement campaigns. “Testing isn’t a one-time activity,” Nowrouzi said. “Regularly testing subject lines and content ensures you adapt to evolving preferences and trends.”
10. Don’t stop with one campaign.
Reengagement campaigns don’t have to be a one-and-done effort. You can — and should — send follow-up emails. Don’t assume that if recipients don’t open one reengagement email, all subsequent communications will go unopened; one or two more emails may make a big difference.
However, you must ensure that subsequent emails are noticeably different from previous ones and follow the reengagement best practices outlined above. A reengagement campaign is all about luring the customer back, which means sending the right message at the right time as you rebuild the relationship.
How many follow-up emails should you send? There’s no magic number, but Dana Farber, founder and CEO of Moonstone Marketing, recommended a basic three-email sequence.
“First, acknowledge [their] absence and highlight new features or content,” Farber advised. “Next, create urgency with a special offer. Lastly, include final confirmation of list removal with a clear call to action.”
What are examples of successful reengagement emails?
Although the above steps sound simple in theory, they can be tricky to implement in practice. Reengagement emails require a careful balance of tact, smart marketing strategies, and respect for people’s boundaries.
Large companies regularly implement successful reengagement campaigns using the aforementioned steps. Here are three standout examples.
1. West Elm
West Elm created an effective reengagement email that seamlessly combined a strong incentive with a clever subject line: “20% Off. Because We Miss You ❤”
Customers who saw that subject line in their inboxes were likely drawn in by both the potential discount and the emotional appeal. The phrase “We miss you” struck a friendly, inviting tone without attempting to guilt the reader. The email itself reinforced this approach, providing the discount code along with a gentle, welcoming invitation to shop again.
2. Hootsuite
Prominent social media marketing company Hootsuite took a reengagement approach based on restating and introducing value. In its recent email campaign, Hootsuite discussed its changes since the recipient’s last touchpoint and how those changes originated from customer feedback. Demonstrating both value and the power of customer feedback is a winning combo for reengagement.
3. Duolingo
Language learning app Duolingo is known for consistently emailing users to remind them they’re falling behind on their lessons. Through catchy subject lines that create a sense of urgency, Duolingo appeals to readers’ emotions to encourage them to give the platform another try. [Read related article: Learn the Language: How Duolingo Conquered TikTok]
How do you track reengagement success?
Your reengagement emails are only the start of your reengagement campaigns. To guide your next steps, you should use key email analytics to measure subscribers’ email engagement. Here’s how:
- Measure email open rates. Start by looking at your campaign’s email open rate. This metric tells you the percentage of recipients who opened your email. Low open rates suggest that your approach isn’t connecting.
- Analyze click-through rates. High open rates don’t necessarily indicate engagement, so you need to check the click-through rates. High CTRs mean you’re successfully convincing inactive subscribers to reengage. However, low CTRs, even with high open rates, suggest you’re not doing enough to convert email opens to actual customer follow-through.
- Compare and adjust your strategy. To pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses, compare and contrast your click-through and open rates for several reengagement campaigns.
- Organize your subscriber lists.
- Move your reactivated subscribers to your general active subscriber list.
- Keep inactive subscribers in a separate list.
- Continue targeting your inactive subscribers with the reengagement steps outlined above.
- Observe the impact. If all goes well, your active subscriber list will be more engaged now that you’ve removed inactive subscribers and added newly reactivated customers.
When you have an optimized target audience, more successful marketing efforts may follow.
When should you remove inactive subscribers from your list?
Although the ultimate goal is to bring customers back into the fold, a successful reengagement strategy also saves time and money by identifying inactive subscribers who are unlikely to ever make a purchase.
“A perfectly crafted reengagement email elicits action from every prospective customer, but it also weeds out the portion of your audience that doesn’t belong,” Newman said.
Farber recommended implementing a sunset strategy as part of your reengagement campaign. Set clear steps for identifying and removing permanently inactive subscribers so you can maintain a clean subscriber list.
“Establish a clear threshold for inactivity, send a ‘last-chance’ email with a compelling CTA and a timeline for list removal, and lastly, remove subscribers who don’t respond to the final reengagement email,” Farber advised.
The right moment to remove a disengaged subscriber depends on your business and the frequency of your messaging. As with other aspects of the campaign, you should test to find the best time frame.
“It’s important to position this phase not as losing subscribers but as refining your audience to prioritize those who actively want to hear from you,” Farber explained. “When done right, it strengthens your list and sets the stage for even better campaign results.”
What are the benefits of using email to reengage customers?
Here are some of the benefits of using email to reengage your subscribers:
- Reactivate inactive subscribers: Reengagement campaigns can get inactive subscribers to reconnect with your brand — customers you thought were entirely lost.
- Make smarter marketing decisions: By consolidating your active subscribers, you can gain a clearer picture of how well your company’s marketing efforts are working. In turn, reengagement emails may help you create better marketing campaigns.
- Increase sales: With active and inactive subscribers segmented and your marketing approach more refined, you could increase sales. That’s because email campaigns with a smaller but more active audience are more successful in connecting loyal customers with the items they want to buy.
- Improve sender reputation: Your sender reputation is a numeric score, ranging from 0 to 100, assigned by email service providers such as Gmail and Outlook. If you send emails regularly and subscribers barely interact with your campaigns or mark them as spam, your sender reputation decreases.
- A lower sender score increases the likelihood that email platforms will mark communications from your address as spam — or even prevent them from being delivered altogether.
- A high sender score improves email deliverability, thus increasing the chances that your emails will reach customers’ inboxes.
Max Freedman contributed to this article.
