Fighting List Fatigue in 6 Steps

There are many different reasons why a subscriber might start disengaging with your emails: your emails are getting caught in spam folders, recipients can change their emails or have dormant email accounts etc. For the most part, in those cases, there isn’t much you can do to re-engage readers.

Instead, it's important to focus on the subscribers that have stopped opening your emails because they just become disinterested with your content. These subscribers haven’t officially unsubscribed and they don't want to end their relationship with you, but their interest has faded. When this happens it is often called “list fatigue” and it means that your list has become less responsive to your communications over time.

While it  is unlikely that you will be able to stop list fatigue altogether,  there are some things you can do to decrease its effect.

1. Provide fresh, engaging content – the single most important thing you can do is to provide quality content in every email. Something new, fresh, educational and relevant will help to engage your readers.
2. Don't over promote – Promotions aren’t bad, but they need to be accompanied by enough relevant content to keep your list interested.
3. Regulate email frequency – if you’re sending your emails too frequently it’s easy to overwhelm readers. Only email them when you have something worth saying. 
4. Focus on subject lines – Your subject lines are the deciding factor on whether your emails will get read or not. Take the time to ensure that your subject lines give your readers a reason to open your emails.
5. Make unsubscribing easy – Making it simple for a person to unsubscribe from your list is extremely important. Of course you don’t want to lose a subscriber, but if they’re not engaged, it’s better to let them go and focus on subscribers who actually read your emails. 
6. Continue to grow your list – Demographics and interests change. There is nothing you can do to prevent this. The only way to keep a high percentage of active readers is to constantly sign up new subscribers who are interested in your topic.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at May 17, 2010 2:15 PM

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