What are you doing to activate inactive subscribers in your database?

The best thing to do is run a REACTIVATION campaign.

These campaigns take all of the inactive subscribers (usually, no email engagement in the past 3-6 months, depending on your email frequency) that have been subscribed for at least three months and provides an offer to spur their interest or plainly states that you are removing them from the list unless they engage.

Unresponsive subscribers can deal a serious blow to your deliverability, as more ISPs measure engagement as a means of scoring your IP reputation. As well, abandoned email addresses are often retained by the ISPs as "honey pot" or "spam trap" addresses, so emailing those accounts will hurt delivery.

It's typical that 40%-60% of your database is not engaged, so don't be terrified about losing so many subscribers. I promise you will not see a dip in overall clicks and opens!

Since the number of unengaged can be high, you have an opportunity to run Subject Line tests to see what spurs the highest interest. As these folks have not been responsive, you can try some really "out there" subject lines too.

When you run the test, don't feel like you failed if you only get 5% of people to engage. That's a standard response for unengaged subscribers.

If an email doesn't engage the subscriber, there are two other options that may be available:

1) run an offline print campaign to spur interest (can take time and costs $$$)
2) if you have a place where users login, try to code a pop-up so when an unengaged subscriber logs in you can ask them to verify their email address or update their subscriptions.

I hope this helps -- good luck!

While I don't disagree with George's recommendations at the tactical level, I do disagree with that statement "The best thing to do is run a REACTIVATION campaign."

Reactivation campaigns generally don't work very well. While he suggests that you might reactive 5 out of 100 people - most every marketer I've spoken to says they are able to reactivate 1 or 2 out of 100 subscribers. Regardless - 2% or 5% means that 95% to 98% of the 30-50% inactives that comprise your database - have stopped breathing.

Now I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't do reactivation campaigns. If you have a very large list then 2 or 5% can add up to decent number. Just that they aren't a panacea for dealing with inactive subscribers and that focusing on the root issues earlier is the key.

Per a recent Email Insider column I wrote - 'Inactive?' You Talkin' to Me? http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=154874 - I recommend that you actually focus your efforts on minimizing subscribers from going inactive early in the relationship.

If you wait 6, 9 12 months or more to determine your "inactives" - as marketers often do - then you've waited too long. At that point most inactives are truly inactive and you will not get them engaged again.

So the key is to identify subscribers that are inactive or showing signs of going inactive - early in the relationship and move them into an early activation program while you still have a chance to breathe some life into them.

The second, broader aspect of course is to just move your entire email program to one that is more sophisticated, incorporating behavioral data, triggers, personality, etc - so that subscribers in general are more consistently engaged.

Here is another resource, a tome of a blog post I wrote awhile back: Inactive Subscribers: What's Your Strategy? http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/email-marketing/inactive-subscribers-whats-you...

How about calling them, talking with them, reconfirming their motivation for subscribing in the first place, and then mutually deciding the best way forward. It is a fine way to determine who the "real deal" people are and to begin the subscriber-to-customer dialogue.

"Engage" happens when people actually communicate, not merely click.