Why I Deleted 2,354 Names From My Email List (and How I Lived to Tell About It)

On July 23rd of this year, I deleted over 2,000 names from my email list.

It wasnโ€™t an accident. I didnโ€™t get hacked, and it wasnโ€™t a glitch. I did it intentionally.

Why would I do such an insane thing, you ask?

I deleted those contacts because I made a conscious choice to get rid of subscribers who were no longer engaging with my emails, attending my webinars, or buying my products.

ListCleanUpBadge

How My Accountability Partner Convinced Me to Clean Up My List

Warren Talbot (of MarriedwithLuggage.com) is my accountability partner, and he happily kicks my butt every two weeks. He motivates, he cheers, he pushes, he cajoles.

And when we started working together in January of this year, Warren almost immediately asked me when I was going to perform a clean up process on my list of over 6,000 subscribers.

Iโ€™ll admit it โ€“ I resisted. I whined, I made excuses, and I avoided the question every time he brought it up. I have been in business for 8 years, and I had never cleaned up my list before.

But to Warrenโ€™s credit, he kept nudging me to do it anyway.

Eventually, I decided to do it, despite my reservations. I wanted to stop avoiding the issue and pretending it was going to go away.

Why You Should Consider Cleaning Up Your Email List

There are a lot of reasons you might want to do a bit of list maintenance (also called list hygiene or list clean up).

If youโ€™ve been building your list for a while (a year or more) you probably have some subscribers who havenโ€™t opened or clicked on an email from you in months.

It’s possible some of these folks areย sending your marketing emails directly into a filtered folder in Gmail or Outlook, or they might be deleting your emails without opening or reading them at all.

Naomi Dunford and Dave Navarro of Ittybiz.com call this phenomenon โ€œlist bloatโ€ and there are a lot of good reasons to try to get rid of it. Read this article by Naomi and Dave if youโ€™d like to see their take on why you shouldย do list maintenance on a regular basis. Itโ€™s a great read.

Here are a few reasons you may want to consider cleaning up your list:

1. Inactive subscribers might be costing you money. A lot of popular email service providers (like Constant Contact and AWeber) charge you more when your list exceeds a certain amount of subscribers. If you have people on your list who never open or read your emails, kicking them to the virtual curb may bring down the amount of money you need to give to your ESP each month.

2. List bloat is confusing and frustrating. At the beginning of July, I had over 6,000 people on my email list. Every time I would send out a promotion or a piece of new content, I would be completely flummoxed by the low response rate. I didnโ€™t understand why my open rate hardly ever went past 20%, why hardly anyone clicked on the links in my emails, and why some of my product launches seemed to absolutely flop.

The monologue in my head went something like this:

โ€œIf I have 6,000 subscribers, WHY IS NO ONE BUYING??โ€

By getting rid of inactive subscribers and people who are probably never going to buy from me, I can get a significantly more realistic picture of which subscribers are active members of my community. This also gives me a better idea of who is actually likely to purchase my products and services.

3. Getting rid of โ€œdead weightโ€ subscribers can lower the amount of negative feedback you get. When youโ€™re sending emails only to people who are truly engaged members of your community, the likelihood that someone is going to label your email as spam is significantly lower.

You will also get fewer complaints via email from subscribers who donโ€™t like your emails or want to complain when you send relevant offers. In short – fewer complainers means less energy spent on negative people.

How I Cleaned Up My List, and Why Iโ€™m Glad I Did

So after many months of Warrenโ€™s nagging gentle nudging, I was finally ready to make the leap and do some long-overdue list reduction.

I use Infusionsoft as my email service provider and my shopping cart, so it was relatively easy to take these steps using their built-in tools. If you use a different ESP, you may need to figure out the simplest way to accomplish these tasks. Check with your ESPโ€™s tech support team for more information.

Get Your Free Case Study: How One Blogger Added 600 New Subscribers to Her List >>

STEP ONE: Get rid of all bad addresses and people who have unsubscribed.

Here are the steps I took to do that with my list:

I ran a report to see all of my โ€œhard bounces,โ€ and deleted all of those subscribers. โ€œHard bouncesโ€ are addresses that have permanent problems. Either the address is no longer valid, or the recipient has blocked my emails, or the domain is bad. After I ran a report in Infusionsoft to find these bad addresses, I deleted all of these from my database.

Delete everyone who opted out of your list. If someone unsubscribed from my list or labeled my email as spam in their email client, I deleted them, too.

Some ESPโ€™s will delete these unsubscribers automatically, so you may not need to do this. Infusionsoft keeps these people in my database and requires me to delete them manually, so thatโ€™s what I did in this step.

STEP TWO: Find the people who are actively engaging with my marketing messages.

Now you need to run a few reports to find the people who recently engaged with yourย messages in some way. I ran reports in Infusionsoft to find everyone who did one of the following in the past six months:

  • Opened an email from me
  • Clicked on a link in one of my emails
  • Purchased a product or coaching package from me
  • Signed up for my list in the last six months using one of my opt-in forms (signed up for a free report, webinar, etc)

All of the people who fit one of the criteria above got tagged as โ€œEngagedโ€ in my email service provider. Infusionsoftโ€™s tagging function made it easy to label these people in bulk — again, check with your ESP about ways to do this with your list.

STEP THREE: Write to everyone else and ask them if they would like to stay on my list.

Once you have deleted all the permanently bad addresses, and labeled all the people are already engaged with you, you have a sub-list of people who are left who donโ€™t fit any of the above criteria. Letโ€™s call those folks the โ€œLeftovers,โ€ for lack of a better term. Now itโ€™s time to get the slightly more painful part. You can either:

    1. Delete all the leftovers right now, or
    2. Take one extra step to write to all the “Leftovers” and ask them if theyโ€™d like to stay on your list.

I decided to go with option 2. This is the email I sent to my โ€œLeftoversโ€ groupโ€:

โ€œHi there!

Iโ€™m doing a bit of semi-annual list maintenance, and Iโ€™m writing to you to see if youโ€™d like to stay on my list.

Hereโ€™s how this works:

1. If you want to be DROPPED from my list, you donโ€™t need to do anything at all. In two days, youโ€™ll be deleted from my database and youโ€™ll never hear from me (via email) again.

2. If youโ€™d like to STAY on my list, all you need to do isย click on this link, then click on the green button on that page and fill out a little itty bitty form. If you do that in the next two days, youโ€™ll stay on my list and continue to get my great content, offers for free webinars, and notifications about my upcoming courses.

Hereโ€™s the link to stay on this list, one more time.

Questions about this process? Just hit โ€œreplyโ€ to this email and let me know whatโ€™s going on, and Iโ€™ll get back to you right away.

Thanks so much! Cheers, Bethโ€

In this email, I invited people to stay on the list by clicking over to a landing page and signing up to stay on my list. This is a screenshot of my โ€œStay on My Listโ€ landing page:

StayontheList

I sent this email to my โ€œLeftoversโ€ list (which included about 2,400 people), and about 100 of those people decided to stay on my list by entering their email addresses on this landing page.

That number is pretty low. I’ll admit, I was disappointed. But Iโ€™m trying not to take itย personally.

I try to remember that I unsubscribe from MANY email lists – I feel like I unsubscribe from at least one newsletter every day – and it doesnโ€™t mean I donโ€™t like the newsletter author, or that I donโ€™t respect what they are doing. I am simplyย buried in email, just like everyone else.

STEP FOUR: Delete all of the โ€œLeftoversโ€ people who didnโ€™t specifically say they wanted to stay on my list.

After I sent the email above, sending people to my โ€œStay on My Listโ€ landing page, I waited two days, then deleted everyone who hadnโ€™t indicated they wanted to stay a subscriber. That means on list clean-up day, I deleted 2,354 of my subscribers.

Why Deleting Subscribers Is Incredibly Difficult

And Iโ€™ll be honest with you โ€“ deleting those subscribers from my Infusionsoft database was ROUGH.

To me, the numbers of my email list are a big indicator of how well my business is doing. So the idea that I would voluntarily cut my list from 6,000 down to 4,000, in one fell swoop? I thought it was a little nuts.

I understood the logic, but I still thought it was crazy. But I did it. I deleted those subscribers.

For about 30 minutes after I hit the โ€œdeleteโ€ key, I felt like I had made a huge mistake. What if I deleted someone who actually wanted to be on my list? What if I lost business? All kinds of worst-case-scenarioย questions ran through my head.

Then, after about 30 minutes of feeling panicky, I felt a sense of calm come over me. I had a really important revelation: I didnโ€™t delete active subscribers. I deleted people who didnโ€™t open or click on my emails, and were probably NEVER going to buy from me.

The Massive Upsideย of Cleaning Up Your List

Now that Iโ€™ve cleaned up my list and gotten past the negative baggage about it, I actually feel great about the whole process.

Iโ€™ve accepted my new subscriber number as my current reality, and it feels just fine.

My open rate has increased, and my unsubscribe rate has gone down. And that feels pretty great.

These days, I donโ€™t think about the fact that I deleted a bunch of subscribers. I just try to take great care of the ones I kept โ€“ the active, engaged members of my community.

I try to send my subscribers quality content and relevant offers on a regular basis, and try to build the best possible relationship with every member of my list.

If youโ€™re considering cleaning up your list — and getting rid of your own โ€œlist bloatโ€ — I highly encourage you to do it.

Itโ€™s a great move for your business, and youโ€™ll feel better about the subscribers that stick around. And thatโ€™s the best outcome at all.


Want to know how to get more subscribers to your list? Read this interview with blogger and writer Lacy Boggs, who added 600 new subscribers to her list just by taking ONE brave step!

Click Here to Get Lacy’s Story Instantly! >>>

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54 thoughts on “Why I Deleted 2,354 Names From My Email List (and How I Lived to Tell About It)”

  1. I had something like this happen involuntarily when I switched innocently to AWeber. My list is smaller but growing steadily – and my open rates are amazing. Agree and congrats on having a cool accountability partner – I knew the Talbots when they were Married in Seattle!

    1. Ahhhh, Cathy – I have heard similar stories from other clients. I’ve heard rumors that AWeber is revamping the way customers are allowed to import subscribers, and they may not be quite so strict with their re-confirmation process in the future. I’m crossing my fingers!

      So cool about the Talbots! Those two seem to know so many cool people! ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. Bold and authentic as usual! Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing because we work hard to make those connections with the list. Letting go is never easy but you’ve reinforced the need to see the list for its REAL purpose which is not to make us feel good about how big it’s become. I aways appreciate your down-to-earth, insightful perspectives.

    1. That’s right, Lee – the list is not there to make me feel all warm and fuzzy about my numbers. Downsizing actually helps me focus on the right things. Thanks for your kind words!

  3. Hi Beth,
    I have been reading in several email newsletters that the owners/writers are doing the same thing–downsizing the list and feeling the initial remorse that soon goes away.
    I am building my list with Pinterest so I do not have a list that is not responsive. I am seeing that a big number (like 6000) list is not good if you are getting a few click opens. So, an engaged 4000 list is more positive to your messages and offers. Thank you for the confirmation and I will keep the lower list numbers as a reminder for a responsive list. The power of the delete key works for all of us-small and greater than small.

    1. Yes, exactly, Bob – the key is being willing to let go of that major ego metric (of 6,000 subscribers). It’s harder than I thought it would be! But now my list is growing actively again and I keeping far more of my subscribers. And I like your phrase “The power of the delete key”! Great stuff.

  4. GOOD HONK! As my Aunt Irline used to say! Great message to all of us who never take the time to make those parts of our lives work! I’m so sorry for being “disrespectful” about not opening emails. Life has just gotten too busy, and too techno all at once..and I’m learning how to catch up! I HEAR your message of frustration and cleaning up and out. GO YOU! Ok, thanks for this very important message in my life. I needed it! I will be reading your emails, each and every time I get them. Not only will I garner the benefit of your expertise, it will create a much needed discipline in my writing life – which has been neglected for FAR TOO LONG! Many thanks, Beth!!

    1. Thanks for your comment, Curtine! But please know that I wasn’t yelling at you (or any of my subscribers) because you guys weren’t reading my emails. I know that everyone is swamped with emails and there are a million reasons people don’t read. I get it! Anyway, thanks for dropping by!

  5. I can relate to the pain that you felt after doing the deletion, Beth, but you really need to know who is really engaging with your content and should be nurtured to engage further.

    My open rates are usually above industry level as are my click rates (especially for the freebies) but imagine how much higher they will be without disengaged subscribers?

    I do this as a part of my list maintenance every 6 months so it doesn’t hurt as much by sending an email asking them politely if my content is still relevant.

    It is my understanding that under the CANSPAM regulations if a subscriber has been inactive for 2 years, we should ask them to resubscribe.or delete them as their permission has lapsed.

    Interestingly, this is the week when I am going to be sending out the resubscribe email to a couple of subscribers.

    1. That’s really smart to do list maintenance every six months – I imagine it stings a lot less when you do it regularly! Thanks for the comment!

  6. Yippee, I’m still on your list, Beth ๐Ÿ™‚

    I thought about getting rid of “bad addresses” lots of times. Though I know about the importance of a spring cleaning, I’m too afraid of losing too many folks. Including some friends and family members, who do not read everything. Maybe a good rule is to kick out everyone automatically who’s not engaging with the latest two emails? Like the idea of the invitation to stay in the list. This could even be included into an autoresponder – 6 months after they subscribed, for example. (Just read the latest comment above from Vatsala, so it seems to be a good idea)

    1. I understand completely, Sven – it’s nerve-wracking, like I said! And I definitely think narrowing it down to folks who opened one of the last two emails is a little too narrowly defined. That’s why I kept anyone who engaged with one of my emails in the last six months…that gives people enough time that they can easily skip a couple of emails and it’s still fine.

  7. Awesome blog post Beth. With a little encouragement from your mentor friend it sure does feel great when you have names on your list that is costing you money. Intend to follow your steps.

  8. Great article. I don’t have much of a list so far but it is good info to keep in the back of my mind in case I do start to feel a need for list hygiene. LOL thanks for the great content that you put out for us.

  9. Your relief sounds kind of like the relief you feel after cleaning out six boxes of old clothes, or photograpsh–or kitchen stuff. The open space it creates is so nice . . . soon erases any fears around throwing away so much.

  10. I am literally just launching my new dog blog so I am just starting my list-building from scratch but this is incredibly good advice for staying on top of the list as it grows. As my mother is currently my only subscriber, I think I have a ways to go before I need to be too worried but I love reading your posts. Glad I’m still on the list ๐Ÿ˜‰

  11. Hi Beth,

    I think you’re strategy is a good one. I do have one question for you, “Does your ESP count email ‘Preview Pane’ reads count in your open rate?” I’ve read on numerous sites that it is not included.

    The reason that I ask is because this is how I read all of my email, and although I occasionally buy from the people I’m subscribed to, I do get a ton of value from their daily emails and content. I would be disappointed if I’d found out that I was unsubscribed from any of these lists.

    1. Thanks, Taheerah! I checked with Infusionsoft on this, and they said: “An email being previewed does indeed count as an open. This is standard for the industry, as the way email opens are tracked, is there is a tracking pixel embedded in the email, and when the email is loaded (whether in a preview pane or a new window), that pixel is downloaded.” I appreciate you asking this and prompting me to ask IFS, because I’ve always wondered, too!

      Thanks for stopping by!

      1. No problem, Beth. I’m glad you got some value from my comment. Thank you so much for checking! We both learned something valuable today, eh?

        I forgot to add in my original comment that another way to actively engage your audience is through surveys. Do you use them?

        If you’re interested, I’d like to suggest Ryan Levesque as a great source for all things survey-related – http://www.askformula.com. By the way, I’m not in any way personally affiliated with Ryan. I’m just a fan who has purchased some of his products. :-). Enjoy your week!

        –Taheerah B.

        1. I usually do a survey of my audience about once a year, to get feedback on what their biggest marketing needs are, and see what kinds of products and services they might be interested in buying. Is that how you use surveys, too?

          I have been hearing great things about Ryan’s book “Ask”, including from Warren Talbot. Sounds like it definitely needs to go on my reading list for the holidays!

          Cheers,
          Beth

  12. I use surveys to really get to know my prospects to find out who they are as individuals, both inside and outside of the office. I also use surveys to not only find out what services they may be interested in buying, but to find out what they’ve already purchased. (This is an added layer of depth.)

    But my main goal is to establish and deepen my relationship with them so that I can relate to them on a human level.

    I also use surveys as part of my writing process for my branding copywriting clients when I’m crafting their copy.

    –Taheerah

  13. Apparently unsubscribing from newsletters AND doing it instead of your subscribers are both great techniques to get things more efficient and your inbox and mail-lists nice and tidy respectively.

    I’m glad I still get to see your newsletters Beth, even though I may not be the most active subscriber at the moment. I do enjoy your blog posts, however, and how you take matters into your own hands and introduce changes that are in the best interest of your brand and your subscribers. ๐Ÿ™‚

  14. Bloat is NEVER a good thing, not on our bodies or on our lists. I know it must have been one of those terrifying ‘time to pull up your big girl panties’ but you did the right thing! Dropping the dead weight gives you all the more room to dazzle the folks that love you and need you.

    You got this lady, CONGRATS!!

  15. Great article Beth! The thing is, if someone was deleted & really wanted to be receiving your emails….they will most likely realize at some point they aren’t receiving them anymore & go sign-up again! ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks for sharing this!

    1. Yes, Erin – I comfort myself by saying there are probably people out there who realized they were no longer getting my emails, and re-subscribed at some point. Probably a pipe dream, but I can still hope!

  16. Hi Beth,

    Congratulations on that SUPER bold decision…it’s not always easy – but I tell you, it’s a necessary evil. I can tell you that because I’m a huge fan of cleaning up my list(s) at least twice a year.

    …and I do this for this same result of yours:

    “My open rate has increased, and my unsubscribe rate has gone down. And that feels pretty great”.

    You see, it doesn’t make sense sending mails to people who are not interested in what you are offering…it’s a waste and a lose-lose situation…you waste your money and effort, the receipient wastes space and time. See?

    My style is pretty simple though:

    1. I segment subcribers to groups and isolate those who have failed to click through the last 10 campaigns.

    2. I send them a message asking them to resubscribe if they want to remain on the list in question (and provide a link for them).

    3. I then mass unsubscribe and watch my open rate soar.

    4. The serious subcribers come back but many are happy to be off ๐Ÿ™‚

    Perfect win – win ๐Ÿ™‚

    It’s sad that many bloggers and info marketers talk of the numerical strength of their list(s)…Howeever, what everyone should really be worried about should be the percent actually opening or clicking through, not some bunch of inactive subcribers!

    Do make the day great, Beth.

    As usual, you rock – sincerely.

    Always,
    Akaahan Terungwa

  17. Sounds simple, straightforward and very effective, Terungwa! Thank you for sharing your system. Nice to see you here! ๐Ÿ™‚

  18. Early September, I went through this purge on the subscriber database for my quarterly e-newsletter. I rewarded the faithful subscribers by offering them a free electronic copy of my new book before several weeks before it hit the shelves.

    I’m sure I’ll go through this purge again. People lose interest for a number of reasons — and not necessarily because you provide them with mediocre content.

    1. Hi Suzanne – I love the idea of giving the subscribers that stay some sort of bonus incentive! Wonderful suggestion. Thanks for stopping by!

  19. Great read! We have an email list that I am constantly adding to, but haven’t considered cleaning it up. You made some good points there. I would definitely be a bit timid if I were to trim our email list down, but this article makes me feel a little more comfortable about it. Thanks again, Beth!

  20. great post Beth! It totally inspired me to clean my list of 7000! I just now broke it into years (2010-2015) by the times they signed up/updated their contact info. Now to send those segmented emails, asking them if they want to stay on my list. (I’m on constant contact, and they call it ‘ageing your list”)
    THANKS for the push!

  21. bethโ€ฆ
    thanks for writing this insightful post—i have been struggling with this problem too as my email list is over 10,000 but my buyers and engagement is beyond abysmal! so disappointing that i do not even want to waste the $$ sending out e-blast.

    because of your post, i am going to review my list, edit with a machete—my favorite kitchen knife– lol and spend january 2016 redefining my audience.

    so glad i found you today on the sucessfulblogging list of 50 influential women bloggers!
    xo
    chris
    sleepersgourmet.com

    1. Hi, Ruth! That depends on your email service provider – they’re all going to have different ways of doing it. In Infusionsoft, which is what I use, I can check boxes next to certain email addresses, and then delete them all at one time.

  22. Well, it’s taken a while but your words have stuck with me, Beth. I started my purge earlier and now I’m finishing–partly because I’m moving to a new ESP and don’t want to pay for inactive members. I’ve also learned that inactive subscribers cost you some “reputation points” with your ESP so more of your emails go to spam–not sure how the AI on that works, but it’s enough of a motivation for me to pare down and focus on my most engaged folks. I’m wondering what kind of subject line you used. I was going to use something cute, but I think it needs to be very direct so people know this isn’t something to stuff in the “Read Later” file.

  23. I don’t even have 2500 subscribers to delete…Any advice on how to get subscibers?
    I got here from google looking for advice but read your shocking ๐Ÿ˜‰post title. It makes sense now!

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