# Yem Jam (Vol. 4)

By [Test pub - SS Import 2](https://paragraph.com/@test-ss-import-2) · 2021-06-14

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Hello friends,

Welcome to all the folks that recently signed up! For those coming over for the first time, if you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing:

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This week, we'll cover some growth experiments we're running with our newsletter customers. Let's dive in...

#### **🧪 Tests & Learnings 🧪**

Early on, we noticed newsletters share a common, sizable challenge. A large group of subscribers are dormant. These are folks that have not engaged with any content (emails, web posts) for a long time, say at least 30 days. Some have never engaged with any content since signing up: the most deeply dormant subs & hardest to win back. 😴

It's valuable for newsletters of all types to chip away at this problem. For ad-supported newsletters, email opens (and clicks and other actions) are important for revenue. For paid newsletters, engagement is closely correlated with retention. In other words, dormancy is a strong leading indicator that a paid subscriber will cancel.

So how do we reduce dormancy? 🚫😴🚫

#### **Test 1: For Gmail subs, 'Promotions' to ‘Primary’**

For the newsletters we work with, Gmail domains account for 60% of emails. Gmail has a tendency to bump newsletters to the pesky 'Promotions' tab, where they're often buried alive. 

Our first test was to send an email from a personal Gmail account to dormant Gmail subscribers. The call-to-action was to move the newsletter to the 'Primary' tab. 

We timed the send right after a newsletter post went out. That not only made it easier to drag us to Primary, but gave us insight into how many people opened the post. 

We saw **7.7% of the cohort open the Substack newsletter post**. And again, these were subs that had _never_ opened an email before. So if this group had 1,000 subscribers, we feel pretty confident the test drove 77 _incremental_ views. A promising start...

There was also a small group that opened up the _next_ post, which serves our ultimate goal: encouraging subs to more consistently engage. 

#### **Test 2 - 4: Re-engagement Campaigns Sent From Substack**

Next up, we sent 3 re-engagement emails from Substack. One highlighted tops posts, another audio versions of top posts, and the last one was simply a personal note. 

We knew going in open rate would be tough. Again, these were subs that had _never_ opened an email or engaged in any way. The **open rate was 3.5%**, below normal posts (35%), but not too shabby considering the test group's track record. 

For those that did open, the majority (60%) clicked on a link to an article or audio post! The overall re-engagement rate was 2.1% - an exciting starting point. 

While we have a lot of work to do, it's encouraging to see the positive impact and opportunities to add more value. We learned a lot with the first wave of tests and have a bunch of follow-up ideas to boost performance. We'll also be keeping an eye on the degree to which re-engaged subs remain engaged (or fall dormant again).

That’s it for this week - let me know what you think! I would love to hear from you. And if you’re not already, please consider subscribing below:

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As always, thank you for your support. 🙏

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*Originally published on [Test pub - SS Import 2](https://paragraph.com/@test-ss-import-2/yem-jam-vol-4)*