5 Steps to Bring Your Email List Back to Life

People join your email list for a reason—because they already like what you sell or do.

But here’s the truth:

Most of your subscribers are dormant.

If you’re not re-engaging with them, you’re missing out on the opportunity to drive more:

● Opens.

● Clicks.

● Sales.

To start re-engaging…

I outlined a 5-step proven and tested plan that we used for our client, who had 15,000 contacts.

The issue is, their list had been neglected.

They also get poor engagement because of sporadic email sends.

And this could be your situation…

Perhaps you have a decent-sized email list but low open-rates.

OR

Your subscribers haven’t heard from you in a while.

If you’re also sending emails inconsistently…

Your audience can quickly lose interest.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost them forever.

That’s why we dug into different strategies for re-engagement until we found the right mix.

So, let’s look at the steps of re-engaging an old email list:

1. Create an email segment of disengaged subscribers.

2. Send a re-engagement email.

3. Follow up (multiple times if appropriate).

4. Delete non-responders from your list.

5. Prevent it from happening again.

Let’s walk through each step in more detail…

1 – Create an email segment of unengaged subscribers

You don’t want to send unnecessary emails to your engaged customers.

So, the first step?

Separate your unengaged subscribers from those engaged ones.

To target the unengaged subscribers specifically, you’ll need to create a segment.

If you don’t know (yet) what a segment is:

It’s a subgroup that meets the criteria that you define.

The cool thing here is:

You set the criteria for what counts as "unengaged."

They could be people who…

• Enquired but didn’t join, sign up, or purchase.
  

• Were customers once but have cancelled or no longer buy.
  

• Haven't opened your last 5 emails.

Then, use your email service to create a segment with these people.

This segmentation works on every major platform—whether you use:

● Mailchimp.

● Aweber.

● Podia.

● Convert Kit.

The process stays simple regardless of your chosen system.

2 – Send A Re-Engagement Email

The second step is to send a re-engagement email for your chosen segment.

You want to be open and honest here.

Talk about why you’re emailing…

Then give people a reason to stay subscribed, such as:

• Receive discounts and promotional offers.

• Get time-saving tips and tricks.
  

• Access to exclusive content.
  

• Be the first to hear about news or updates.

Also, don’t forget to give people the option to stay subscribed or opt out.

This could be an explicit YES/NO button that people can click based on their preference.

Here’s the re-engagement email that you can use:

Email Headline: Are You Still In?

Body Text:

Hey there! 👋 

We noticed you haven’t opened our recent emails. We totally get it—between work, life, and everything in between, your inbox fills up fast! But before you go, here are a few of our most-loved articles that might be just what you’re looking for:

[Insert links to 5-7 popular articles]

If you’re no longer interested in our fitness tips and insights, feel free to [unsubscribe here].

Or, if you’d like to share ideas on how we can make these emails more relevant to you, just hit reply. We’d love to hear from you!

Big Button: YES! Don’t delete me!

Notice how this email stays:

● Honest.

● Shares value upfront.

● Makes the choice simple with a big button at the end.

And if you want to use this template…

Feel free to customise it!

3 – Follow Up

“We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.” — Alex Hormozi

The lesson here?

Don't forget to send a follow-up email.

This simple reminder can get 40% more people to respond.

Ideally, you need to wait for 2-3 days after your initial email to send it.

And if you want even BETTER results…

You might want to send a second or third reminder before moving to step 4.

4 – Delete non-responders from your email list

We usually wait 10 days after the follow-up email before taking this step.

This gives people who have been on holiday to read the email and take action.

Look…

Deleting non-responders may sound a bit harsh.

However, it actually does more good than bad to your list:

- Better delivery rates - when more people open your emails, services like Gmail and Yahoo mark you as high-quality.

- Less spam risk - having too many inactive subscribers can get you marked as spam.

- Lower costs - fewer subscribers mean smaller fees from email providers.

Your choice?

Delete those who opt-out or those who don't take action.

Remember:

The number of email subscribers is misleading most times.

What matters is how many people actually read and care about your content. 

If you’re paying for people to be on your list who don’t open or take an interest in your content, then you’re wasting money on them.

So, make it simple—add an unsubscribe link so people can remove themselves.

Or track who opens and clicks, then clear out those who show no interest.

Either way, you'll end up with a smaller but stronger list.

5 – Prevent it from happening again

The last step is optional but will save you future headaches in the long run.

Think back—what turned your active list quiet?

And you’re going to find the root cause to avoid making the same mistake again.

Did you stop sending them emails on a regular basis?

Why was this?

Lack of time is the most common reason, in which case it’s worth batch preparing, delegating, or outsourcing this task.

Did you never even start sending emails?

Perhaps you collected email addresses from new members or people who enquired but never did anything with them.

If so, then you need to set up a welcome sequence.

Did you send a few but get poor results?

Benchmark your open and click-through rates against the industry average.

If it’s lower, then think critically about why that is.

Maybe you need to work on better subject lines so that people are intrigued enough to open them.

We learnt this lesson ourselves.

Our inconsistent email schedule left subscribers wondering when they'd hear from us next.

The solution?

A newsletter every two weeks— a rhythm we can maintain.

For new subscribers, we added three months of weekly emails, building relationships right from day one.

How to re-engage email subscribers – summary

So, now you know exactly how to re-engage email subscribers that haven’t heard from you in a while.

By taking these steps…

You’ll see:

● More emails getting opened.

● Repeat purchases.

We’d love to hear how you get on—get in touch to let us know your results!

Thank you for reading Behind Wellness’s newsletter. I hope you found this week’s edition valuable.

Until next week,

Samara

P.S. If you have any questions, shoot me an email at [email protected], and I’d be happy to help.

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