Cleaning Your Mailing List & What To Send In A Re-Engagement Campaign

…with re-engagement email templates, and steps for Flodesk & Convertkit

You’ve had your mailing list for a while now.

Over the last few months and years you’ve offered all sorts of free lead magnets, run a few challenges, and shared a few iterations of your newsletter. 

Aaaand as a result, you’ve got a long list of subscribers - get in!

But here’s the kicker.

You’ve got people on your mailing list who signed up a few months or even years ago, who now lay dormant.

They aren’t opening your emails any more, they delete them without opening…

OR WORSE…

They’re sending them to the email graveyard - the junk folder. 

That’s NOT where you want your emails to end up! 

On your mailing list you want as many people to be opening your emails as possible, right?

More than that - you want as many people to be engaged as possible. 

You want people on your newsletter list who are excited for your emails to land in their inbox

… they read them from top to bottom, and they even reply to your emails to let you know how much they love ‘em.

Sooo… want more eyeballs on your emails?

IT’S TIME TO CLEAN YOUR MAILING LIST…

I know it feels good to look at your subscriber list and see the subscriber number go up and up.

But it doesn’t mean anything if a large proportion of your mailing list aren’t even opening your emails. 

In fact, if there’s a large proportion of your emails not being opened, and if a number of your subscribers are moving your emails to junk, you’re in trouble. 

You see, the email gods will see your email engagement has dropped and you’Ve got a high proportion of disengaged subscribers on your list - and they will assume your emails are a bit, well… rubbish.

And so…

Your emails will ‘mysteriously’ start landing in junk folders across the land.

~ even for people who have just signed up to your list and are excited to read your emails. 

And you know what the junk folder is? The email graveyard. AKA where you don’t want your emails to be going. 

So what can you do to improve the deliverability, and engagement of your emails? CLEAN YOUR MAILING LIST!

Sure you’ve made it easy for people to unsubscribe when they’re no longer interested (because we’ve discussed why there’s no point having subscribers hang around on your list when they’re no longer engaging - so you’ve made it obvious where people need to unsubscribe right?… Riiight?)

But let’s be honest, as a subscriber yourself, sometimes you can’t be bothered to unsubscribe from a mailing list…

… like those emails you get after you bought a gift for your mum, that just aren’t that relevant to YOU.

You leave the emails coming in and delete them when they land in your inbox, and maybe you even put them in Junk.

And that’s what some of the people on your mailing list have done, and so rather than them unsubscribing themselves - you’ve got to do it for them. 

‘Cleaning’ your mailing list means removing the subscribers who aren’t engaging with your emails so that the proportion of engaged users on your list goes up, and you’re back in favour with the email gods. Yay!

I did this a few months back and removed about 500 people from my mailing list.

As someone who loves decluttering and organising, this felt good to me. But in case you’re still worried about your subscriber numbers dropping, just remember that the number of subscribers on your list means nothing if half of them are disengaged.

Don’t let your ego get in the way of improving the deliverability of your emails - and therefore serving the people who want your help.

How to clean your mailing list

WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR FLODESK & CONVERTKIT

This process will work across all different mailing lists, but below you’ll find the specific steps you need to take on Flodesk.

If you’re on Convertkit - you can get a lot more automated (hurrah!) - scroll down for the convertkit instructions.

Step 1 | CREATE YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT EMAILS

I like to send my disengaged subscribers a few emails to give them the opportunity to re-engage with my emails and stay on my list, before I delete the still-inactive subscribers.

This series of three or four emails is called a re-engagement campaign, and that’s your next step - to write your re-engagement emails. 

I personally send out three emails, 24-48 hours apart to give people the opportunity to re-engage. My re-engagement emails look like this:

Re-engagement email 1

Email 1 Subject: Are you sure?

Hi FNAME

I can’t help but notice, you haven’t read my emails in a while sob

To be sure I’m only emailing people who want to receive my emails, I’m dropping into your inbox to ask… are you sure you want to be here?

Let me remind you what you can expect in my weekly email. EMAIL PROPOSITION GOES HERE

So, is it a yay or a nay?

If you want to unsubscribe from my mailing list and stop receiving my emails – that’s totally fine, - we can part as friends. You can unsubscribe below.

ADD FOOTER BLOCK IN FLODESK, WHICH SHOWS UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE PREFERENCES

If you want to avoid being unsubscribed and stay on my mailing list to receive my emails and access to my free workbooks and trainings when they come out:

CLICK HERE TO STAY ON THE LIST BUTTON - LINK TO YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT PAGE ON YOUR WEBSITE (we’ll get to this is a sec)

The choice is yours. I’ll leave it with you :)

Then, 24 hours later I send out email 2. 

Re-engagement email 2

Email 2 Subject: You ok hun?

Hi FNAME,

I'm dropping into your inbox because I can't help but notice that you haven’t opened any of my emails for some time.

IMAGE WITH TEXT SAYING - YOU OK HUN?

It’s ok, I get it – you’re feeling overwhelmed by your inbox, it happens in this crazy, noisy online world. Is there still room for me in there though?

Let me remind you what to expect from my emails moving forwards so you can make a decision… EMAIL PROPOSITION GOES HERE

So… do you want in? Or is this goodbye?

I only want you to receive my emails if you want to receive them. If things have changed, if my emails are no longer relevant to you – that’s ok. We can part as friends. You can unsubscribe below.

ADD FOOTER BLOCK IN FLODESK, WHICH SHOWS UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE PREFERENCES

But, if you want to keep receiving my emails, hit the button below to stay on my mailing list, and I’ll look forward to dropping back into your inbox again very soon.

CLICK HERE TO STAY ON THE LIST BUTTON - LINK TO YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT PAGE ON YOUR WEBSITE (we’ll get to this is a sec)

Then 48 hours later, I like to send out my final email

Re-engagement email 3

Email 3 Subject: Is this goodbye?

Just a quick one FNAME,

You’re about to be removed from my mailing list. Thing is, it’s been a while since you last opened one of my emails, and although I hate goodbyes, I can take a hint. sniff

I’m emailing one last time to see if you want to continue receiving emails from me? If it’s a no, that’s ok! We can part as friends – click below to unsubscribe.

ADD FOOTER BLOCK IN FLODESK, WHICH SHOWS UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE PREFERENCES

But, if you want to stick around on my mailing list, and receive my emails EMAIL PROPOSITION GOES HERE, click here to stay on the list.

Decision time! I’ll leave it in your hands.

Step 2 | BUILD YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT WEB PAGE

Ok, so you’ve got your email copy for your re-engagement campaign. The only thing you’re missing is the re-engagement page on your website that I mentioned - what’s this all about? 

You need somewhere for people to click through to when they opt to stay on your list. This is so that your email provider can track them as an engaged user again. This link could take them to your free resources that they get as a subscriber perhaps, or simple a page that you slap together on your website quickly that says something like:

‘Yay, you’re sticking around. I’ll be dropping into your inbox again soon with [EMAIL PROPOSITION GOES HERE]. Then add a CTA: In the meantime, you can binge my podcast, or go down some rabbit holes on the blog, and you’re following me on Insta right?

Step 3 | FIND YOUR INACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS

The first thing you need to do is find your inactive subscribers.

On Flodesk…

• When you log-in, go to Audience

• This takes you to a list of all your subscribers

• Then select Filter in the top right > tick ‘Active’ 

• Next, where it says ‘Activity’ ‘Subscriber was last active’ - select a timeframe

  • The timeframe you pick will depend on how regularly you send your emails. If you send emails weekly, then your subscribers have a weekly opportunity to open your emails - so you might want to look at a 60-day or even 30-day window. If you send your emails monthly, you might want to look at 90-or more days ago

• Then click ‘Apply Filter’ 

  • The list it spits out will be your list of subscribers who HAVE NOT engaged with your emails since the time frame you selected. So if you selected ‘subscriber was last active’ ‘90 or more days ago’ this shows you people who haven’t engaged with your emails in the last 90-days - your dis-engaged subscribers. 

• On the top left, hover your mouse below ‘All Subscribers’ and an option will come up to ‘Select All’ - tick that box and select all subscribers who have come up on that list. 

• Next, you want to select ‘Add to Segment’ in the options that come up when you selected ‘all subscribers’ - type in a segment name, perhaps ‘re-engagement list 1’ (the 1 is important for step 3 later on) and select ‘Create re-engagement list 1’ when the option comes up, and click Save. 

You now have a list of subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails in whatever timeframe you selected. Those are the subscribers who currently are damaging the deliverability of your emails. 

But before you get angry and delete them from your list, let’s give them a change to re-engage, shall we? 

Step 4 | SEND YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT CAMPAIGN

Taking the email copy you’ve written, and the link for your re-engagement page, build out your emails in Flodesk (or wherever email platform you use). 

You could build your re-engagement emails as a workflow, or individual emails. The only thing to bear in mind is updating your re-engagement subscriber list between each email.

And send your first re-engagement email out to the list of disengaged users you created in step 1.

Important! Updating your subscriber list between emails

You’ll need to update the mailing list you’re sending emails out to each time because if someone re-engages in email 1, you don’t then want to be sending them email 2. 

So, you want to refresh your list of dis-engaged users each time you send the next email - which is why I said to call your re-engagement list in step 1: ‘re-engagement list 1’.  

Just before you send re-engagement email 2, you want to repeat the first step I outlined in this post: Find your inactive subscribers. But when you save the list as a new segment, this time call it ‘re-engagement list 2’ - that’s the subscriber list for email 2 (hopefully it’s shorter than the list you made the first time around because some of your subscribers have re-engaged). 

And repeat the same steps before you send out email 3. 

Step 5 | CLEAN YOUR MAILING LIST

Ok, you can now finally clean your mailing list! After email 3 has been sent out, and you’ve given it 24-48 hours - you can FINALLY clean your list. 

Now, some subscribers will have unsubscribed themselves, and some subscribers will have re-engaged. But there will still be some subscribers who are completely ignoring your emails - these are the people you want to remove from your mailing list. 

If you’re using Flodesk, this is a modification of step 1. 

• When you log-in, go to Audience - This takes you to the full list of all your subscribers

• Then select Filter in the top right > tick ‘Active’ 

• Next, where it says ‘Activity’ ‘Subscriber was last active’ - select the timeframe you’ve been using to create your re-engagement lists

• Then click ‘Apply Filter’ 

• Next, hover your mouse below ‘All Subscribers’ tick ‘Select All’

• This time you want to hit ‘Unsubscribe’

• It will then ask you to confirm unsubscribe by typing ‘unsubscribe’ into the pop-up box - go ahead and do that

• When ‘Yes, unsubscribe’ pops up as a red button on the box, click the button

• The list of dis-engaged subscribers will then show as ‘unsubscribed. 

How to clean your mailing list ~ the super quick & easy way on Convertkit

Convertkit has it’s pros and cons - particularly when compared to Flodesk.

… SRLY I’ve got a running note in my phone notes dedicated to weighing it up.

One thing it has in it’s favour (to combat the not-so-pretty email editing ability…

Is a much more automated way to clean your mailing list.

Set up an automated workflow, chuck in your ‘cold' subscribers’.a couple of times a year and jobs a good’un.

Step 1 | CREATE YOUR RE-ENGAGEMENT EMAILS

Write out your re-engagement emails (as described in the first step of the Flodesk instructions above - and grab your email templates there.

Then set up your emails as a email sequence. Name it something like ‘re-engagement campaign’.

On all of the emails add a filter - to tagged subscriber ‘cold subscriber’.

Step 2 | SET UP YOUR AUTOMATED WORKFLOW

Annnnd I’ve got news for you - you’ve cleaned your mailing list! Yay! Who doesn’t love a spring clean?  

Now you can watch your open rates spring back up and your engagement rate increase to - what’s more you’ll be in the good books of the email gods and keeping your emails out of spam - result! 

Wanna back-pocket this post for your next mailing list clean up? Pin it for later.