Good marketing is meant to evoke a response from its intended audience. So the old adage “no news is good news” shouldn’t apply to email marketing campaigns, right?

Not necessarily. According to MarketingSherpa, an online marketing research company, don’t count out those recipients who never respond to your email communication. There’s a good chance they really enjoy getting your email newsletters and related correspondence. They may even be responding to your campaigns in alternative ways that you’re not seeing in your campaign tracking efforts.

This conclusion was based on MarketingSherpa’s investigation of its own silent audience of non-responders — those opt-in recipients who never clicked on links or responded to offers within the emails that MarketingSherpa sent. Perplexed by these non-responders, MarketingSherpa staffers picked up the phone and called a sampling of them. States a blog post by MarketingSherpa’s founder, Anne Holland:

“The most common answer shocked us. ‘I do. I like your email. Don’t stop sending it. I may not always have time to read it, but I want it.'”

Further investigation into non-responders suggested that some may actually be delayed-responders who simply have a different approach to responding:

1. They see an email, recognize the brand and company sending it, but tend to put it aside until they have more time.
2. They later go to the company’s website (or even call the company directly).
3. Although the email was never used as a click-through mechanism, it still made an impression and evoked a response by this recipient.

Moral of the story? Don’t automatically assume your non-responders are dead-end leads that should be removed from your email list. Do some investigation first … by phone or through a targeted email survey. You may be surprised by the loyal fans you never knew you had!