Should you resend your newsletter?

Writing a newsletter, regardless of how many times you do it, takes time and energy. Isn’t it disappointing when you finally get to mail it out and see from your statistics that half of your recipients don’t even open it? If only 40% of the recipients open it, should you resend it to the other 60% who didn’t? This is a very dangerous test to carry out. On the one hand, your list contains names and emails of people who specifically asked for your newsletter, on the other, if you resend them the email they may get annoyed and there goes your reputation.

A new Case Study by Marketing Sherpa, about a UK marketer who undertook this slightly dangerous task provides very useful data.

If you decide to resend your newsletter to recipients who have not opened your newsletter, Marketing Sherpa makes the following recommendations

1. Do not resend names at email addresses that are likely to block HTML images, and thus not record opens. This includes Gmail, and some at-work addresses using Outlook or Lotus Notes.

2. Don’t resend text-only version recipients.

3. Don’t resend content that’s more frequent than monthly. Frequency is the number one cause of spam complaints that permission mailers receive.

4. Put an unsubscribe link prominently at the top of every mailing. Don’t make them scroll down.

5. Monitor your reply address, opens, clicks, conversions, indications of emailer reputation (blacklists etc) and any kind of customer service feedback. This is not a tactic for marketers using less sophisticated analytics systems.

6. Never mail names that are more than 90 days old that you haven’t consistently mailed unless you are a well-known, trusted brand in your marketplace and you’re darn sure people like and remember you. Even then, do it carefully. Perhaps even send a re-opt-in offer.

7. Take names off your active sending file if they have not opened and/or clicked in the past six months (or even sooner for weeklies and dailies).

MarketingSherpa, Inc. is a research firm publishing Case Studies, benchmark data, and how-to information for marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals. You can read their full article here.