Successful Reconfirmation

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Marketo's Email Delivery & Compliance Team often recommends that our customers send a reconfirmation message to a set of their inactive leads. This process is used as both a proactive strategy to ensure good delivery rates and as a response to blocklisting issues. For more information on this overall strategy search our Resource Articles for Blocklist Remediation.

At its most basic a reconfirmation message request a lead takes an action to stay on your mailing list. If they don't take that action they will be automatically removed from the mailing list.

These types of messages don't usually get a high response rate because you are sending the reconfirmation message to people who have already shown to be disengaged from your marketing. However there are instances where some reconfirmation messages get a more enthusiastic response than others so we've put together some tips for making the most out of reconfirmation.

Instead of marketing your company itself think of it as though you are marketing ENGAGEMENT with your company. While these ideas are similar, they aren’t quite the same. You want to frame this message with a sense of urgency to click a link. You also want to make it as easy as possible for someone to open the message and just click a link so they continue to stay engaged with your marketing.

Subject Line

We recommend that you frame the subject line very clearly with something about “not missing out” or “staying informed”. The subject should create a compelling and specific call to action. Some senders use an offer in the reconfirmation message to encourage action. Highlight this in the subject line if this is your approach.

Examples

We’ve Missed You! Take Action continue receiving our offers!
Last Opportunity to Stay Informed (Action Required)
Free shipping plus save 15% on next purchase

From Address

While you can use any From Address, we recommend that your From: label clearly identifies your company rather than using a lead owner name. A disengaged recipient is more likely to recognize “Your Company” than “Bob Smith”.

Email Content

In the body of the message your call to action should be immediate and clear. Put the reconfirmation at the top of the message content. Some usability studies have suggested that two choices may be more successful than a single choice so consider a bolder reconfirmation link at the top and a smaller link or button lower to unsubscribe. The main priority is getting someone to stick around for more of your mailings. You may also wish to make a short value statement about the fantastic information that someone can expect to receive by staying on your list!

There are a couple of reasons for these recommendations. The first has to do with making things easy for the blocklist operator. If during the resolution process they can look at the mail received by their spamtraps and immediately tell from the subject line that the message is a reconfirmation pass it will make it much easier for them to consider the data quality issue resolved because their spamtraps will not activate the reconfirmation link. Some of the less automated blocklists will not list a sender for a reconfirmation message that hits their traps so it's important that your cleanup action look like what it is.

The second reason behind this advice is that many people just scan their messages and don’t read all the way to the bottom; if someone has to read through a long value proposition before realizing that they must click a link to continue to be subscribed to your email program you may lose more subscribers than intended. The faster and easier it is to click that link the more people you’ll retain! A lot of people scan over marketing offers and think about them for a while before taking an action. You want to interrupt that process and make it clear that action is required now whether or not they’re ready to make a purchase!

Examples of simple reconfirmation email templates

More examples can be found in this other Community Resource “A Creative Re-Engagement Email Campaign”

Email #1

Subject Line: Action Required to stay subscribed to COMPANY

[First Name]:

You previously expressed interest in receiving valuable information and/or offers from COMPANY that are specific to your field. We’d like your permission to continue sending you relevant information via email so that you can stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends/topics of interest.

Please click “YES” below to continue receiving research and trends in your area of interest. COMPANY subscribers receive exclusive benefits, including the latest research briefs, white papers and/or compelling offers or discounts for future purchases.

Please update your Communication Preference by [DATE/TIME] or this could be your last chance to receive any future research. It only takes a moment to click one of the choices below.

YES, I would like to stay subscribed to the valuable information from COMPANY.

NO, I no longer wish to receive valuable and insightful offers from COMPANY.

Sincerely,

COMPANY

————–

Email #2

Subject Line: Your Subscription to COMPANY Industry Newsletter Expires Soon

[First Name]:

Our records show that you expressed interest in receiving industry information from COMPANY on [INSERT DATE]. Records indicate you have not read an email in [variable time frame], we do not want to bother you with emails you do no wish to receive so we want to confirm that you would like to remain subscribed to the COMPANY email program.

If you wish to be removed, you don’t have to do anything further. However, if you do want to continue receiving email from COMPANY, please click the link to let us know:

YES, I would like to stay informed and continue receiving email from COMPANY.

Sincerely,

COMPANY

————–

Email #3

Subject Line: Your Subscription to COMPANY Has Expired

[First Name]:

Thank you for your previous interest in receiving valuable content from COMPANY. Your subscription has now expired and you will no longer receive any future emails.

If in the future you would like to continue to receive email from COMPANY please click the link to sign up:

YES, I would like to receive email from COMPANY.

Sincerely,

COMPANY

Successful Reconfirmation