I deleted 2,785 email subscribers

A little over a week ago, I deleted 2,785 email subscribers from my email list.

In fact, this is something I do periodically and it had been too long since I last did – hence the number of emails.

Why did I do that?

Well, they were unsubscribed. Which means I could not email them again even if I wanted to.

Sometimes I even delete people who are still subscribed. Now THAT is some crazy talk! Except…. not really.

See, if people are not actually engaging with my emails, then what’s the point of them being there? They just sit there taking up space and increasing my email hosting bill and they’re not paying any attention.

One might think…. well, maybe they’re saving the emails and they’ll come back and play catch-up later, right? Somebody? Maybe?

Heh, you ever actually done that? 🙂 I haven’t. I can’t tell you the number of times I have labeled and archived an email in Gmail with every intention in the world of coming back to it. I tell myself that email is probably good content, so I’ll save it and read it later during some down time.

Except, I can’t say I ever actually did it. 🙂

Now, remember the week before last, here in The Daily, where I talked about commanding attention? I said that the people who WIN in business and marketing are the people who command attention.

I didn’t say the people with the biggest email lists. It is the people who command the most attention.

Subscribers who open, read and click on emails are really who matter.

Those dumb guru marketers who might brag of email lists of 100,000 people…. I mean, who cares? If most of those people don’t pay any attention, does it really matter? When those marketers practice “slash and burn” marketing with their subscribers by emailing them crap to buy every…. damn… day…. are those people paying any attention?

No.

So, pruning your email list of unengaged people is important. It actually increases your open rates and helps your email deliverability.

And the people who are unsubscribed? Well, they’re just taking up space.

Now, what can you do with those unsubscribes?

Is all hope lost because they left your list?

Well, no. Here’s what I do….

1. Segment off the unsubscribes in my email program (I use Drip. Love it). I usually exempt people who have bought something.
2. Export them to a CSV file.
3. Delete them from Drip.
4. Go to Facebook and add them to my custom audience of Unsubscribes.
5. Try to re-engage them with a low-key ad to get them to come back.

In fact, those 2,785 people I deleted are going to be getting a little ad to re-subscribe for The Daily.

Now, if you have no idea how to work with Facebook Ads or custom audiences, then I invite you to check out The Facebook Ads Blueprint. You can either enroll in the course stand-alone… or you can join the Lab and get access to that and every other thing I’ve created.

But, here’s what I would encourage you to do right now… if you haven’t in awhile…

Go to your email list. See how many unsubscribes you have. And delete ’em.

Should you stress out about it? Should you shed a tear?

I’ll talk about that more tomorrow. 🙂

Until then…

– David