Tips on Keeping Subscriber Engagement Up and Spam Complaints Down

by Andrew Schulkind

One of the best reports on email marketing, spam and subscriber retention I’ve seen, the Litmus/Fluent report is worth reading in full. It’s not even that long – 25 pages – and has lots of pretty pictures. But if you’re looking for a summary here are a few key points.

And here’s the link in case you do want to dig a bit deeper:

Adapting to Consumers’ New Definition of Spam

For my money, their second tip, send relevant emails at a good cadence, should be top of the list. (Perhaps they included “improve permissioning” because that happens first in the sign-up process.)

If you’re not relevant you’re going to lose your subscribers. If you inundate them, they’ll unsubscribe. If you send so infrequently that they forget who you are, you’ve got your cadence wrong.

Making your emails mobile friendly is another excellent tip, though you should check your analytics to see device-specific open rates. Still, going responsive has gotten much easier, so there’s little excuse for not making the change.

Don’t forget about what happens after they click. Engagement is the whole point of your emails, no? So make the landing pages mobile-friendly and tailored specifically to the message in the email. Don’t make them think about why they just clicked. It should be obvious, it should be relevant and it should encourage still further action.

Make unsubscribing easy. If the want to go, let them go. Inflated subscriber numbers may make you feel good, but they aren’t going to help your bottom line. (In fact, since many email service providers charge by the subscriber or message, dead wood on your list is actually costing you money.)

Here’s the link again. The full report really is worth the relatively quick read.

Adapting to Consumers’ New Definition of Spam

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