25% of your email list is dead right now.
And you don't even know it.
When was the last time you checked the health of your email list?
Bear in mind that over the course of any given year, up to 25% of most lists will go stale or dead.
When I talk about CPR, it's a little bit like someone who's had a heart attack. But in this case it stands for Clean, Personalize and Revive. It's my three-step method that brings almost any list back to life.
By the end of this blog, you're going to know how to improve open rates, boost deliverability, and re-engage subscribers without starting from scratch.
You do not need to scrap your list.
If it's been a while since you emailed anyone, or you just neglected it over the winter and you're not sure if you need to go in, let's have a look.
Cleaning helps to reduce bounces. It keeps your sender reputation strong and ensures your emails actually land in inboxes.
Cleaning covers two different things.
First: Make sure your deliverability stays high.
If you haven't done it, go and check that your domain has a good reputation. Make sure you've authenticated it and that you're actually reaching people. You can check via your ISP:
How to authenticate in Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/help/verify-a-domain/
How to authenticate in Hubspot: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/marketing-email/email-deliverability-best-practices
How to authenticate in Klaviyo: https://academy.klaviyo.com/en-us/courses/authenticate-your-emails-with-a-branded-sending-domain/1829916
Second: Run your list and check for inactive, unengaged or fake addresses.
If your list is small (1,000 or 2,000 people), you can do it manually. If it's more than that, I really recommend engaging a deliverability service and running the list through it. Take a look at EmailMovers.com or ZeroBounce.com
It’s a bit like taking your car to the car wash. Deliverability and screening services exist purely to check for bots, fakes and spam traps. It’s a time-saving way to update your list if you are getting a high bounce rate, a lot of spam complaints or just a low open rate.
I would also look at anyone who hasn't opened in the past six months - assuming you have emailed them a few times in that period. Ringfence them in a separate segment.
Don't get rid of them yet. Just make sure you put them in a bucket which says "no opens, six months." There's a good chance if they haven't opened, either your email is going to their spam or junk mail, or they've forgotten about you.
Or, (which sometimes happens), they've abandoned the email address but it hasn't yet been registered as a soft bounce.
How to do it:
If you use MailChimp, HubSpot or Klaviyo, you can easily run a filter or segment search that updates itself according to the rules you set. I would archive and remove all spam, hard bounces and unsubscribes, plus anyone identified as a bad address from the deliverability service. Then, I would set up a list simply saying “all non-openers in the last 6 months.” If you want to, you can deliberately exclude past customers, as there is a chance they are in contact with your sales team.
And remember: don't be afraid to cut the dead weight.
The minute I remove the unengaged people (which can be up to 20% of the list) from my next email send, I see my actual open rate shoot up.
Initially I'd say about 40% more compared to what it was.
So if I was only getting 14%, by removing the dead weight, I'm suddenly seeing 25 - 40%. Depending, of course, on the list, the reputation and the offer made.
Industry standard is 20-25% open rate. After cleaning, you should hit or beat that.
You only want highly engaged people.
I've got no interest in emailing someone who's never going to look at it. And to be fair, neither have they.
You need to be ruthless.
Once your list is clean, it's time to make it clear.
When you personalise, you get better relationships, higher engagement and far fewer unsubscribes.
The end goal for every single email is to get someone to take action. The best way to do that is to meet them where they are.
Bucket your list (also known as a segment).
You can do it by:
You can use their name, but honestly, what's more important is using context. That is, to send what's relevant.
If you know they signed up two weeks ago for your lead magnet checklist, there's a high possibility they're interested in what to do next. Or they've let it gather dust on their desktop (which happens a lot more often than we ever want to admit), and they need a hand-hold to take action.
With this group you can literally send out a personal message saying: "Hey, I know you downloaded this. Is there anything else I can do to help?"
Your key gold areas:
Knowing exactly where people fall and what they know of you is the key to creating a really good email.
And it's not hard. It just takes a little bit of reflection, a bit of time and a chance to dig into your data.
Now, I know what you're going to say next: "Nat, I don't have enough data."
If you're missing key data to segment properly, competitions are the fastest way to fill those gaps.
Give people an incentive to: A) Respond to your email B) Share some more information with you and c) Have fun!
I've seen this time and again with the big brands.
If you want to refresh your database (because most big brands will have a really ruthless cull point for inactive email addresses in the list), they reactivate them and clean the list at the same time by running an irresistible competition.
For example:
(The last example was for a small business that did the competition on the anniversary of their opening. It was worth it because they managed to get a load of bookings out of that on top of the giveaway.)
There are lots of little things you can do. Ideally, the prize should be within the realm of what you offer in your sector. A hamper might be brilliant for a B2C beauty brand, but it will barely register if you are selling upmarket flats in London.
So make sure you clean. Get rid of anyone who's clearly fake or not interested.
Make sure you personalise. And remember that one personalised reactivation email will outperform five generic ones.
If in doubt, go deep, go personal.
And AI makes it so much simpler because it can pattern-match trends now, pinpointing the moment people’s interest drops off.
You've cleaned. You've managed to get some interest going.
Now we need to revive interest.
It's one thing to get them to open. It's another to get them really clicking and engaging with you.
This is where a good win-back series is your friend.
It's not enough to say: "Hey, I've got a competition." You want to actually get them to become a customer or a repeat customer.
This is where you need to re-engage. You need to remind them of how fantastic you are, how fantastic they are, and how well you're going to work together.
What works:
Let's say you're a careers coach. Instead of simply saying "Oh, did you know that my last two customers got higher pay raises?" you want to say:
"That's right. I've managed to negotiate a fantastic six-figure deal for my latest client. I've got two spots available in my careers discussion group this afternoon. And I've got a fantastic workshop set up. We're going to be kicking back and talking strategy. What are you doing?"
Immediately give them a vision and then make the connection.
Also, set clear rules.
Boundaries are so important in email because they stop you feeling like a failure.
Tell people, for example, in your win-back series: "We miss you. We're going to give you two or three engagement emails and then we will remove you. So make sure you click to stay on our list."
You can take the sting out of email removals by making it automatic through your workflows.
And remember, tell yourself: removing unresponsive contacts is a healthy practice. It's not a failure.
When you're pruning a garden, you don't get upset that you're deadheading a plant. You just accept that you need to.
It's exactly the same in email.
This brings us full circle, back to cleaning and deliverability.
ISPs reward engagement. If you ignore emails with poor deliverability, it means fewer people get to see you. By pruning, you pay less for a smaller list full of happy readers getting results, with a high chance of landing in the inbox.
Win-win.
If you've got a list that you have not emailed in three months or more:
At the very least, do a very simple manual cleaning exercise. Run your eyes down the list and look for non-openers. So clean it.
If it's been more than six months or you just want a complete fresh start (let's say for example, a salesperson has imported a load of lists they've scraped from elsewhere):
Get a list verification service. Remove all the crap.
Honestly, it is so worth it. And it doesn't cost a lot of money.
Next, personalise.
Dig into your data and start putting buckets together. As I said:
And then design the offer for each of them. The actual subject can be the same but the approach is different.
If you need to, run a competition. That's a great way to get re-engagement and to collect more data.
Finally, revive.
Once they're actually active and aware of you again, you want to get them back into your world. Back to the enthusiasm and engagement they initially had. The reason why they signed up in the first place.
You want them back for the long haul and you want to see their engagement lift higher.
You definitely want more sales and more customers.
So remember: a clean list equals better inbox placement and stronger revenue potential.
Grab the free segment formula below. It's the exact filter I use in MailChimp to find dead contacts in 60 seconds.
Then, if you want a second pair of eyes on your list, book a 20-minute strategy session with me. No pitch, just strategy.
I do these sessions free because I genuinely want to help you get your list healthy again.