5 B2B Re-engagement Emails to Win Back Subscribers

Don’t Undervalue Your Email Subscriber List

While it’s easy to get caught up in flashy, new marketing methods like TikTok or Rich Communication Services, don’t overlook tried-and-true methods that work. Email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, proving it to be the top-performing form of marketing. It’s also more likely to drive sales than other channels, so it’s a dependable,  practical way to make a positive impact on your bottom line.

Nurturing your existing mailing list, including both leads and current customers, is an effective, easy, and often low-cost tactic to engage with your audience. From sharing more information about your key value proposition to generating interest for ongoing promotions to sending “We miss you,” emails, there’s no limit to the ways you can leverage email marketing. Here, we take a deep dive into the importance of growing your email list and share some email marketing best practices you can use to keep your audience interested in what you have to offer.

To skip to a specific section, click below: 

1. Four Reasons Why People Unsubscribe
2. What is a Re-engagement Campaign?
3. A Few Re-engagement Best Practices
4. 5 Best Re-Engagement Email Campaign Examples
5. Maximize Email ROI

Four Reasons Why People Unsubscribe

In 2020, over 306 billion emails were sent every day. Generally speaking, people’s inboxes are constantly flooded with emails, so it can be challenging for brands and businesses to stand out in the crowd.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s impossible to catch (and keep!) your audience’s attention, provided that you have a firm understanding of what, exactly, causes people to skim over subject lines or hit the “unsubscribe” button—and why.

Let’s take a look at the four most common reasons.

They Found Another Vendor

If your prospective customer is already working with one of your competitors, it may cause them to unsubscribe from your email list. Because they’re already using a similar service, they might think they don’t need to hear from your brand any longer. But instead of just accepting that you’ve lost a customer, use email marketing and HubSpot workflows to your advantage.

Create an email campaign that illustrates all of the unique selling points and key differentiators that set you apart from your competitors. Whether that’s price, features, or level of service, you can use these differentiators to persuade prospects who have one foot out the door that you are the best vendor for their needs—instead of the other guys.

Create multiple emails that focus on one value proposition each so you can really create a compelling argument for giving your brand or business a second look. Not only will this help maintain your email list, but it’ll also simultaneously generate warm leads, with no extra legwork required on your part.

They Didn’t Value or Understand Your Offer

When they’re already being bombarded by emails, people don’t want yet another irrelevant or confusing message cluttering up their inbox. 

If you’re not getting the clicks you want, make an effort to! objectively evaluate your past marketing emails to assess the clarity and tactics of your messaging. It’s more than likely there’s an opportunity for you to streamline your emails and articulate your value more succinctly.

You should also think beyond just the copy by pairing your text with visuals to create a  re-engagement email campaign that tells a  more holistic story and allows your audience to visualize what, exactly, they have to gain from becoming a customer.

They Lost Interest

Building brand loyalty is all about developing long-lasting customer relationships that evolve and grow in response to consumer trends, and creating a dialogue with your customers is a big part of the puzzle. Infrequent or inconsistent email marketing can make it seem like you don’t care to engage with your customers. In turn, your customers may begin to ask themselves, “Why should I care about this brand?” 

To avoid your prospects losing interest, develop a regular cadence of emails that are sent out at predictable intervals, whether that’s once a week or once a quarter. No matter what you choose, make sure these B2B win-back emails are engaging and showcase everything you have to offer to keep your email list wanting more.

They Forgot About What You Offer

Staying top of mind for your customers is an important factor in keeping them from unsubscribing. If you don’t send emails regularly or your emails don’t rise above the fray, customers might forget why they joined your email list in the first place.

Create emails that reintroduce your offerings, demonstrate your key differentiators, and hit home on the benefits that you deliver. Doing so will help keep prospects on the hook and wanting to learn more, which in turn helps to convert them from leads to customers.

You can even set these emails up using HubSpot marketing automation so you don’t have to keep track of what to send when. Streamline the whole process to make it easier for your internal team and a better experience for your audience.

What Is a Re-engagement Campaign?

A re-engagement email campaign is a marketing strategy that targets leads that have stalled out in the sales funnel. If leads stop engaging with your marketing efforts and have become a cold lead, a re-engagement email campaign can help to reignite their interest in your brand or services. Though it’s not uncommon to lose up to 25% of your email marketing list per year—with another 25% becoming inactive—a strategic email campaign can be the ideal way to warm them back up.

The best part about re-engagement campaigns? They save you money in the long run. Generating new leads can cost between 4-6 times as much as converting existing leads. Adding this type of strategic campaign to your overarching marketing strategy will help you generate more money for the business. Designing these using HubSpot marketing automation makes the process simple and allows you to deploy a HubSpot re-engagement campaign to improve your metrics and deliver the results you’ve been looking for.

A Few Re-engagement Campaign Best Practices

Before you get started drafting your re-engagement campaign, consider a few email marketing best practices that can help you maximize your ROI. Instead of simply deploying the same email out to your entire list, create specific segments of subscribers. This will help you deliver more targeted information to various groups to give them the exact info that they need. This not only offers a more personalized experience but can also help you tailor the messaging to the services they’re interested in or their stage of the funnel for a more effective approach. 

In addition to tailoring the messaging, you can also tailor the timing. Using HubSpot workflows, set up triggered emails that are deployed after a specific action is taken. For example, when a lead clicks for a discount, they can be put into one re-engagement series, while a lead that downloads a whitepaper can be put into another.

Once you’ve established your strategy, it’s time to think about the copy. Consider personalizing the re-engagement email subject lines to make emails more engaging and drive higher open rates. You should also keep things short and sweet; don’t overdo it with lengthy copy that will make readers’ eyes glaze over. You want to make the email worth their while, so offer incentives too, when relevant. Above all, keep things brief, engaging, and clear to drive action and convert leads.

5 Best Re-Engagement Email Campaign Examples

Re-engagement email campaigns don’t have to be complicated to work well. Instead of creating a complex strategy or getting too deep into the details, just keep it simple. Use proven tactics to turn cold leads into warm ones, and establish clear workflows and sequences for HubSpot re-engagement campaigns that will win back your subscribers.

Highlight Improvements

Showcasing the new and improved version of your services is a great excuse to reach out to your subscriber list. Highlight your new features, new offers, or newly released products to generate a sense of excitement and to re-engage people who had previously had lost interest. These B2B win-back emails are an important part of any HubSpot re-engagement campaign. 

Determining which new feature, product, or offering drives the most interest can also help your business behind the scenes. When you see what’s driving higher conversion rates, you can adjust your business strategy accordingly to better cater to what’s resonating with your target audience.

(Re)Check for Interest

If you haven’t engaged with your subscribers in a while, it might be time to take their temperature. Send out an email that gauges their interest in your products, launches, or marketing communications. A “We miss you!” email is an easy way to find out if they want to continue receiving your brand communications. 

Though it may lead to some unsubscriptions, this helps you hone your email list and eliminates people who won’t buy. That way, you’ll know who is fully engaged, giving you a better chance of increasing conversions and seeing long-term results.

Re-subscription Reminders

If you have previous customers who didn’t renew, try reaching out again. Remind them about all the best benefits, and illustrate that you’re trying to save them time and money. This is the perfect way to re-engage an audience who you know is inherently interested in your product because they were already customers! 

Following all of our email marketing best practices, you should be able to craft an email campaign with eye-catching re-engagement subject lines that will capture your target audience’s attention. In the body of the email, reiterate your unique selling points and key features to remind them of why they loved your product in the first place.

Frequency Updater

If you aren’t getting the traction you want from your re-engagement campaign, try sending a frequency check. Give the recipient a clear and concise option to unsubscribe from your communications entirely, or allow them to update their preferences to receive fewer emails or only emails of a certain nature, like product launches or account updates. 

Doing so shows that you take their time and interests into account, and it also allows you to better tailor your messaging. Once you have a sense of what your customers are interested in, you can send them specific emails that focus on those subjects, making them more likely to engage in the future.

You can even create HubSpot workflows that deploy automatically, depending on the person’s responses, utilizing marketing automation to streamline your internal processes.

Temporary Goodbye

Need to start from scratch? A temporary goodbye email is a great way to restart the conversation with your customers. Give them the option to temporarily pause all email marketing communications. Maybe their inbox is just a little overwhelming at the moment or they only shop with you around the holidays. Whatever the reason they aren’t engaging, allowing them to take a step back helps to build a strong relationship without you losing a subscriber for a win-win approach.

Consider setting up a triggered email using HubSpot marketing automation to send a temporary goodbye email after a set amount of idle time. Whether that’s three months or a year, you can set up parameters that take the guesswork out of deployment and therefore streamline the process for your marketing team.

Use Attention-Grabbing Re-engagement Emails to Maximize Marketing ROI

Your email list is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. While email marketing can feel like a daunting task, it’s an effective way to engage your target audience. Even though seeing that “unsubscribe” notification can make you feel like you’re failing, don’t worry. It helps you build an even stronger email list. The important thing is simply to understand why people are unsubscribing in the first place.

Once you’ve cleaned up your database, it’s important to take a critical look at your metrics. If there’s a large segment of your list that’s unengaged, a HubSpot re-engagement campaign might be just the thing you need to nurture cold leads and turn them into warm ones. Just remember these email best practices as you’re crafting your strategy to get the best possible results.

Interested in getting more horsepower out of HubSpot? We can help you do that. If you’re not sure where to start, try using a turnkey template from Campaign Wizard to get you started. Sign up for a 15-minute demo to see how our pre-built customer journeys can maximize HubSpot ROI.