Don’t write off your lapsed supporters

It’s a natural part of any marketing efforts that you’ll be focused on how you can engage with new audiences and bring in new supporters. You might also be looking to engage more with your existing supporters and seeing how you can encourage them to get more involved and possibly lend you further financial support.

But one area that is all to easy to neglect is your lapsed supporters. Most organisations do of course realise that this is a valuable database. They know who you are, and that in many cases who are ripe to reengage. And from time to time will return to it and attempt to re-engage them via highly targeted campaigns. Possibly via email or maybe even phone calls if you have the resources.

Though often fruitful, these campaigns can take up a lot of time and attention. So how else might we do it?

The biggest step is to not remove contacts from your mailing lists just because they’re lapsed! In fact, you might want to make a special list just for these people to help tailor your message. Just because they’re not supporting you right now doesn’t mean they won’t again. In fact, you might even ask them what their reason for stopping is if possible with a survey or similar method. If it’s something like they just don’t have the money right now, they’re a prime candidate to come back in the future.

Keeping these people engaged is very important and if you’ve got a special list you can create special messages. They don’t need the introductory sales pitch. They know who you are, so you might want to dig a little deeper to convey newer or underdiscussed projects or services. Maybe even a special rate or bonus for returning if that’s appropriate for your organisation. Regardless, keeping yourselves in their mind will prove valuable and the more you do it, the more returnees you’ll have passively returning instead of needing to plan that big campaign.

Plus if you do decide to run a big re-engagement campaign, it’ll be so much easier to get them back if they’ve been hearing from you all this time!