Maintaining customer engagement is essential for your company’s long-term success. By consistently providing compelling, relevant, and timely information, you are more likely to elicit a response from your customers. However, your current offer, while interesting, may not address their current priorities.

When customers show signs of disengagement, offering them the option to control the type and frequency of content provides the best chance of retaining their interest in the long run. One possible option is adding a snooze feature to your email preference center, allowing customers to slow or pause communication instead of unsubscribing completely.

The Problem: Inactive Users

Our client was focused primarily on contact information gathered from live or one-time events. Their database contained tens of thousands of names. However, when those contacts stopped opening emails or clicking links, retaining all this inactive information became a problem. Time and money went into marketing emails that never got any engagement. By then, any form of engagement—even asking to pause communications—would turn an inactive contact into an active contact again. Our client was determined to do just that.

The Re-Engagement Campaign: A Fresh Approach

The initiative began with a clear objective: reach out to the tens of thousands of inactive users in the client’s database and determine if these users still wished to receive communications. More importantly, they wanted to give these contacts more options than continuing as is or opting out.  So, they decided to add a snooze option to their email preference center.

Crafting the User Experience

The process began with designing an email to the inactive contact.  The copy clearly showed the reason for this email and that they wanted to serve the customer according to their wishes.

The email allowed customers to re-subscribe immediately or navigate to a redesigned email preferences page, where they could choose between three options.

Upon receiving the email, users found their email address pre-populated in the form. They could simply click a button to save their preferences. If they chose to adjust their subscription, they had two main options: pause their subscription or unsubscribe.

Subscription Pause: Offering Flexibility

The pause option introduced a layer of flexibility that aimed to reduce permanent unsubscribes.

Users could pause their subscriptions for one, three, or six months. This feature was designed for those overwhelmed by emails or those taking a temporary break, such as a vacation. By providing this choice, they aimed to retain subscribers who might otherwise opt out permanently.

Our Client’s Results

Our client’s initial focus was re-engaging inactive users and managing event follow-ups. The snooze option allowed customers to select their own preferences. This strategy proved successful, as any interaction from previously inactive users was considered a win.

Adding a snooze option to your email preference is a simple option that added a valuable dimension to our client’s re-engagement campaign. By offering users the flexibility to pause their subscriptions rather than unsubscribe, they were able to retain a portion of the audience that might have otherwise been lost.

Do your inactive contacts need a break? Contact us today to implement a snooze option in your campaigns.