eBook - Silverpop

6Engagement: Why It’s Vital
to Your Email Health
Engaging your customers will build loyalty, increase message reach and drive
revenue. Engaged subscribers also less likely to unsubscribe, go inactive or
report your emails as spam.
Building engagement must be a key strategy for the health of your email
program. It takes a two-pronged approach: You not only have established
deeper connections with your subscribers, but you’ve also overcome the many
negative factors eating away at your list every day.
The general term for these negatives is “list churn,” which includes unsubscribes,
inactivity and spam complaints. Thirty percent or more of the names in
your email database can turn over every year because of churn.
The good news is that whatever you do to reduce list churn can also help you
increase engagement at the same time.
Most email marketers focus on what happens after the opt-in, but you need
to look back much farther. The relationship begins where you first make
contact, whether at your website, on your Facebook page or in a Tweet, in
a confirmation message or a forwarded email, via a QR code, or through
wherever else you promote your email messages.
Then, naturally, you build engagement with highly relevant, informative and
valuable messages throughout the subscriber relationship. If your subscriber
ultimately moves to opt out, that doesn’t end your ability to engage. Instead,
work to retain your subscriber, either in a different kind of relationship or in a
different marketing channel within your company.
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