7.5 Ways to Revive a Zombie Email List

by Angus Fraser · April 11, 2023

If your email list is on life support, or worse yet, it seems as if it has no pulse at all, there might still be hope.

Here are 7.5 ways to revive an ailing email list and improve engagement.

1: Re-engage your subscribers – Send re-engagement emails to your subscribers, asking them if they still want to receive your emails. Give them the option to update their preferences or unsubscribe if they are no longer interested. You can send an entire series of these over the course of a week or two, offering them a bribe to open your email and click a link.

2: Improve your email content – Make sure your emails are valuable and engaging to your subscribers. Use a clear and compelling subject line and personalize your emails to make them more relevant to each subscriber. Tell stories, make them laugh, give them a key insight or bit of news they can use. The better your emails, the more likely they are to get opened.

3: Segment your list – Divide your list into smaller segments based on subscriber interests or engagement levels and tailor your email content to each segment. You can offer free reports, videos and so forth to get your list segmented into each category. For example: Video marketing, social media marketing, driving traffic, SEO, mindset and so forth. By segmenting your lists by interests you know you’re sending relevant information.

4: Clean up your list – Remove inactive subscribers from your list. This will improve your email deliverability and open rates. Then again, I can tell you from personal experience that I’ve had subscribers that were dormant for months and sometimes years suddenly start opening my emails and clicking my links. People do get distracted in life sometimes, and they might just come back to you later on. It’s your call.

5: Use different communication channels – Experiment with different communication channels, such as social media, to engage with your subscribers. This can be a good way to remind them that you already have a relationship and your emails are worth opening.

6: Test different strategies – Try different strategies to improve engagement, such as sending emails at different times or using different email templates. You might also test plain text vs HTML, as well as testing using pictures in your emails.

7: Be surprising – Sending out emails that surprise and delight subscribers can make a world of difference. Don’t be afraid to be shocking or controversial to a point. Just avoid things like politics and religion. You can voice your opinions, tell great stories, make them laugh and give them key news and information. Be different. Be interesting. And try to never be boring or exactly what they expect.

7.5: Use cliffhangers – Once you get your readers opening your emails again, trying ending each email with a cliffhanger that is continued in tomorrow’s email. It could be you pause telling a story at the crucial part (Did he live or die? Did she ever find the treasure?) or maybe you make a promise of what’s to come (Tomorrow I’ll reveal how to drive a million visitors to your website using a wooden spoon, a box of chocolates and a hammer.)

By taking these steps, you can improve your email list engagement and build a more responsive audience.