3 Ways To Revive a Dying Email List

Author: AnswersWanted

Date: September 20, 2020

You’ve spent big money on ads, networked with people, collected business cards, poured your soul into blog posts and videos to collect a nicely sized email list.

Yet, for whatever reason, the list has gone stale.

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Reasons a list can go stale:

  • You forget/don’t have time to mail them for a while
  • Affiliate promotions and customers get used to emails not containing value
  • You haven’t sent much relevant email lately
  • List fatigue from mailing too often

Whatever the reason, who likes to let a valuable asset go unused? You still long for the realistic (and achievable) goal of mailing something customers really DO want and to rake in the cash… Or hey, never mind the money. Maybe you’re just really looking forward to genuinely helping people with their hopes/dreams/needs. That’s awesome too.

Let me share a few ways you can revive a dead list, share some stories and some wisdom give you all the answers that you’d only ever find by interviewing experts, or paying huge consulting rates.

#1. The famous 9 word email

Many dollars are chased marketing after the wrong people. They inevitably

The subject should just be their first name, ie. “Bob”.

The body of the email should be these 9 words:

“Are you still looking at getting [insert] [your] [service]?”

Typically this is sent one at a time, but weirdly enough it works even if sent via mass blast to a list of unresponsive users.

#2. The “I’m sorry” email

It’s funny, this subject line has been in my back pocket for years. In the spirit of providing incredible content, I feel like I can share this with you. However, I had this one client who for years delivered nothing but affiliate offers to her list of mostly 40+ year old single women who clung to her as their fearless leader. She had kind of abused the relationship and it was a sizable list not worth losing.

In an effort to stop blasting flat content and start rebuilding a relationship, I suggested we apologize to the list. This wasn’t an easy thing for her, as she was a pretty confident person. Either way, out of the 30,000 which hadn’t had an open rate higher than 5% in months, the list responded with a whopping 25%!

That might not sound like much but truthfully any business would jump at a 20% increase in sales. Surely the increased response and activity eventually did the same.

Note: People think the I’m sorry is going to include a gift or a special offer. WARNING. Not just any special offer, a REALLY good offer. Not anything anyone else can get.

You can apologize for not sending enough stories, for not sending often enough or whatever, but the idea is… you recognize you could do better.

#3. The “I’m sad to see you go” email



This one really gets lists. If you find “I’m sorry” didn’t work, this is by far the most powerful strategy. I’ll admit, it has pros and cons but it works.

I typically send an email saying we have run the newsletter since 199_ and started with just 10 subscribers. We’ve come along way but some people aren’t opening our emails…. We’ve decided to create a hot list, only those who open/click our emails will be on it. In a nutshell if you want to stay on the list… click here…

There’s more to this email than that, I have a few other emotional tricks I add. (which you can get if you take my template package free).

Note: You will get people emailing you upset. Some don’t read the whole thing. Some still want assurance they’re on your list, some will be glad to be removed, upset you’d dare remove someone without their permission.

Honestly, this passion to either stay on, or go away is well worth the renewed interest in your stuff. I’m just preparing you, if it’s a big list… instruct your support staff to expect these emails.