Having a large email list is great, but it’s worthless if 90 percent of your subscribers stop opening and reading your emails. Unfortunately, many businesses still focus too much on growing their list and fail to prioritize the needs of their current subscribers. While subscriber churn rate isn’t a typical email metric, it’s something that every business should keep an eye on.
According to some experts, subscriber churn reduces the size of the average email list by 25 to 30 percent every year. In one study analyzing almost 1,400 brands, an average of only 56 percent of new subscribers remained on their email list after one year.
Before looking at how to reduce subscriber churn, it’s helpful to clarify what churn rate actually means and how it’s calculated…
What is Subscriber Churn Rate?
Put simply, the churn rate in email marketing refers to the percentage of email subscribers who leave an email list within a given period of time. There are two kinds of list churn:
- Transparent churn, or voluntary churn. This includes subscribers whom you cannot reach anymore, due to unsubscribes, spam complaints, and hard bounces.
- Opaque churn, or involuntary churn. This includes subscribers who aren’t seeing your emails. This is due to disinterest or the fact that emails are being sent to a recipient’s spam folder or non-primary email address that they don’t check.
To calculate churn rate, a standard formula is to pick a time frame, then add up the total number of unsubscribes, hard and soft bounces, inactive subscribers, and spam complaints, divide this by the total number of subscribers, and then multiply this by 100.
What Causes Subscriber Churn?
Here are the most common reasons for subscriber churn:
- Emails end up in a recipient’s spam folder.
- Emails go to the recipient’s non-primary email account.
- Subscribers receive too many — or too few — emails from a business.
- Subscribers forget they subscribed.
- Subscribers are no longer interested in your business.
- The email content isn’t relevant or valuable to recipients.
So what can businesses do to minimize subscriber churn? Here are nine ways to reduce email list churn rates and keep subscribers engaged:
Strategies to Reduce Subscriber Churn
1. Use Double Opt-Ins
Double opt-ins — when you ask new subscribers to confirm their email subscription after they opt in — ultimately lead to higher quality email lists. While double opt-ins require subscribers to take an additional step to sign up, most marketing experts agree that it’s worth it in the long run. As well as avoiding bots, you’ll attract people who are genuinely interested in what your business has to offer, which should increase email engagement rates and reduce email churn.
2. Optimize Welcome Emails
The welcome email is one of the best opportunities to introduce people to your brand and build trust with prospects. According to data from Marketing Charts, around 34 percent of new email subscribers are lost within the first 30 days, so it’s crucial to make a good first impression.
First, outline what new subscribers can expect from joining your list, communicate your brand’s values, and explain how customers benefit from your products and services. Next, reward new subscribers with an offer such as a discount or promotional code. Finally, end the email with a personal signature from a member of your team to build trust.
3. Segment Your List According to Subscriber Behavior
What is valuable to one subscriber might be worthless to another. For example, a new subscriber might appreciate an overview of products, whereas a recent customer is more likely to appreciate a product recommendation based on their purchase. This is why it’s important to segment your list into subgroups based on subscriber behavior.
Purchase behavior, subscription length, and engagement data should all be taken into account so that every subscriber receives more relevant email content in the future.
4. Give Subscribers More Choice
Different people have different preferences when it comes to email content, so let subscribers choose the type and frequency of email content they receive. One option is to send out a simple email form in a checkbox format. For example:
- Product announcements.
- Special offers and discounts.
- Weekly tips.
- Blog highlights.
- Monthly newsletter.
Subscribers can then choose one option or a combination of all five. The options will vary depending on your business type, but the goal is to empower subscribers by giving them a choice. This helps to build trust with your brand and is likely to improve future email engagement rates.
Alternatively, direct subscribers to a personal preference page, where they can choose what types of emails they want to receive and how often.
5. Set Up a Loyalty Program
Give subscribers the opportunity to participate in a loyalty program that rewards participants with exclusive offers, discounts, or invitations to special events. As well as increasing brand loyalty, this helps to minimize subscriber churn.
Consumers clearly value loyalty programs — according to a recent retail trends report, around 60 percent of consumers said that earning rewards or loyalty points was the shopping experience they valued the most.
6. Use Re-Engagement Campaigns
On any email list, a certain number of subscribers will become inactive after a while. It’s important to identify inactive subscribers using email analytics data and then target this group with re-engagement campaigns.
Before completely removing inactive subscribers from your list, offer them something valuable to rekindle their interest in your brand. You could offer free shipping, a discount, or a coupon code. Or you might simply want to remind subscribers why they signed up to your email list in the first place. Re-engaging just a small percentage of subscribers will help to minimize list churn.
7. Ask for Content Feedback
To boost email engagement, it’s important to understand what your subscribers like — and dislike — about your content. What kinds of content do they want more of? Where is your content falling short? Sending out an email survey is one of the simplest ways to find out. The answers will tell you what’s working and where there’s room for improvement. When you send the survey, explain to readers why their feedback is important to you.
8. Test Email Frequency
It’s not an exact science, but A/B testing different email frequencies gives you an idea of what subscribers prefer. For example, if you’re currently sending two emails per week, split your list into three groups and then:
- Continue to send the control group two emails per week.
- Send Group A one email per week.
- Send Group B three emails per week.
- Run the test for about four weeks.
Then, for each test group track open rates, click-through rates, and the number of unsubscribes. Depending on your marketing goals, you can then decide which email frequency is optimal for your business.
9. Simplify Your Messages
According to a recent survey that analyzed almost 3 billion emails, 43 percent of all emails were opened on a mobile device, making mobile the most widely used device to open emails. Given that so many subscribers open emails on a smaller screen, it’s important to simplify your messages. This means you should:
- Write shorter subject lines that don’t get cut off on mobile devices — according to one study, around 41 characters or seven words is ideal.
- Prioritize information by beginning with your key message.
- Keep it short. According to a Hubspot article, emails with 50 to 125 words of copy typically receive higher response rates.
- Use bullet points and short paragraphs to make emails easier to read and scan.
- Create larger call-to-action buttons that are easy to see and click.
Wrapping Up
Reducing subscriber churn is a common challenge for any business, but it’s possible to keep more of your email audience engaged with the right strategies in place. Ultimately, you need to continually consider the needs and desires of your target audience. This means delivering relevant, timely content, listening to subscriber feedback, and then tweaking your strategies to keep contacts actively engaged with your brand.
By using a combination of the email marketing strategies outlined above, you can improve your overall engagement rates, keep your churn rate as low as possible, and support the growth of your business.