EPISODE 32 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
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Have you been ghosting your email list and now feel stuck on how to reconnect without sounding awkward or pushy? In this episode, I’m answering a Retention Lab member question from Cressida, founder of membership SkinGlow Codes. Her challenge? She hasn’t emailed her subscribers for over six months!
I’ll walk you through my simple, three-step plan for reintroducing yourself, warming up your audience, and rebuilding trust without relying on discounts, spammy tactics, or starting from scratch. Whether you’ve been avoiding your inbox out of fear, guilt, or overwhelm, this episode gives you the exact framework to get back on track and set up an intentional, sustainable email strategy.
What we cover:
The Starting Point – How to write an authentic, human “I’m back” email that resets expectations without being awkward.
The Three-Email Warmup Sequence – A framework for reconnecting with subscribers using tips, resources, and repurposed content that delivers value first.
From Most Engaged to Least Engaged – Why you should start with your loyal buyers, then gradually widen your reach to the rest of your list.
List Hygiene 101 – When (and why) to scrub inactive subscribers and how this boosts deliverability.
Setting Up Evergreen Support – How to create safety nets like automated re-engagement workflows and ongoing nurture sequences so you never fall behind again.
Soundbites:
“You absolutely want to start with nurturing engaged people first. So showing up in their inboxes again, having a look how that content is resonating with them and then gradually stepping it up working your way from most engaged to least engaged people on your list.”
“I have an automatic sequence where if they’re not engaging with any of those emails, they are automatically unsubscribed from my list. I love my list neat and tidy and highly engaged, and that means I have the best chance of landing in people’s inboxes.”
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Episode Transcript:
Nadine Nethery (00:00)
Hey, hey and welcome back to the podcast. Today I am diving into a retention lab member question. My member Cressida, she is the founder of Skin Glow Codes the membership. She’s a fellow Sydney site as well. She is stuck in a bit of a rut. She as it turns out, hasn’t emailed her list and she feels overwhelmed with the whole.
prospect of re-engaging her list and getting those wheels back in motion. So her question for us today goes like this: How would you begin a re-engagement strategy for an email list after not emailing subscribers for over six months? 100 of my subscribers order monthly still! which is amazing, right? So in today’s episode, I am going to share a simple three-step plan with you.
to help you introduce yourself again, rebuild those connections and gently guide your audience back to engaging with you, to expecting you in their inboxes on a regular basis. And that doesn’t include spamming, discounting your offers or starting from scratch. So if you are in the same situation, if you are raising your hand here and yeah, feel stuck like Cressida, absolutely keep listening and take notes.
So before we get stuck in, just want to normalise that ghosting your list can happen to the best of us. We all are busy nowadays. There’s so much on our plate as business owners. We need to market, we need to sell, we need to create content, we need to be in all the right places. And sometimes showing up on social media might just feel that little bit easier than writing a inverted commas formal email to our list. So I just want to normalise that.
If you have ghosted your list, it’s not the end of the world. There are easy fixes and I’m going to share them with you today. Re-engagement and getting back into those subscriber inboxes definitely feels somewhat awkward and somewhat risky though. You’re afraid to annoy those subscribers. You’re afraid that they have no idea who you are and why they signed up to your list in the first place. And…
it can be absolutely daunting to look at those open rates because let’s face it, if you haven’t talked to someone in six months, chances are they might’ve moved on, their lives might’ve evolved and yes, they might have no idea who you are. So let’s set the foundations for this three step plan. The key is to not push your offers and push a hard sell
when you start this re-engagement strategy, you definitely want to re-enter your subscriber inboxes as a trusted voice and do that slowly and intentionally. So step one, which is super important and doesn’t have to be awkward, right? We often like to overthink is, is that first reintroduction email? How do you go about that? I would send an authentic, warm,
personal email, where you set the scene that, you know it’s been a while, potentially explain what has happened and, what has been going on in your business, in your life, if it’s relevant and absolutely acknowledge that it is an honor to still have them
in your orbit and all I will do in that email after you’ve set the scene, you’ve told them you’re still here, you’re still doing your thing is deliver one piece of value, whether that is a quick tip, some insights, some new development in your space or even a small freebie, whether that’s a lead magnet something of value to help them remember why they signed up to your email list in the first place
and give them that quick aha moment. So no sales pitch, definitely value driven and personable where you remind them of who you are, what they can get out of being on your list and what potentially happened in the last six months and got in the way of you emailing your list. Step two, you want to look at a three email warmup sequence. So that’s where the re-engagement piece comes in. That involves
another email with tips, tutorials, resources. It can be even repurposing your best performing content on social media. If you’re really active there, absolutely have a look at what really resonated with your audience. These three emails are absolutely designed to wow your subscribers with the value, the benefits, the transformation that you can deliver without actually having to invest in your offers.
The purpose of those three emails absolutely is to build trust, to get them to engage with your content. So where you can absolutely ask them to hit reply, potentially ask them what’s been happening in their lives or in their businesses, depending on your niche. Repurpose all the amazing things that you have already created that you know are resonating with your audience. The important thing here for
those three emails is that you absolutely want to in step three, make sure you start with nurturing the most engaged people first. In Cressida’s situation that would involve emailing those hundred people that are buying from her monthly. So showing up in their inboxes again, having a look how that content is resonating with them and then stepping it up, adding a few hundred
more people into the mix working your way from most engaged to least engaged people on your list.
And what’s important here is to have a look at the subscriber engagement with those emails. People who don’t open, don’t click, don’t engage, you definitely can consider
scrubbing them from your list. Potentially, they don’t check their inbox anymore because they’ve changed email providers, et cetera. have a look after that re-engagement sequence. People who are super engaged, awesome, add them to your regular programming. That means come up with a sustainable email frequency, even if you just start…
emailing once a month again to step it up to once a week potentially, something that is sustainable for you. Alternatively, if you wanted to take it a step further and have a look through your content in general,
you can also consider implementing a ContentMine Evergreen email sequence in your business, which is something that I teach inside Retention Lab, my membership, where even if life gets in the way and things are too busy to email your list, you have emails scheduled to go out to your list on weekly basis without you having to do it. If that is something you want to explore
check out Retention Lab. It’s a formula that’s ready to go in there for you. So the key mindset shifts at play is that you are not starting from scratch. While it might feel like it, while you might feel like you have to build the relationships with your list again, you are nurturing people who originally have put up their hand to be on your list in the first place. And while people move on,
That’s totally okay. This is your opportunity to build lasting relationships with those people that still want to hear from you and remove those people who don’t engage with your content after the re-engagement strategy to keep that list tidy and clean because it is super important that your email metrics stack up.
Email platforms, email providers like Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, they pay attention to the engagement with your emails. So if the majority of your list never opens your emails, never clicks your emails, there’s no point in having these people on your list. They’re actually harming your deliverability. That means they are harming the likelihood of your email showing up in the inboxes of people that want to hear from you.
Scrubbing your list on a regular basis is super, super important. And it’s something that you can actually automate. In my business, I have an automatic sequence that adds people into a workflow, similar to the re-engagement flow, but slightly different. It adds them to a workflow where if they’re not engaging with any of those emails, they are automatically unsubscribed from my list because…
I love my list neat and tidy and highly engaged. And that means I have the best chance of landing in people’s inboxes. So while we are here and while we have this three step framework, so the reintroduction email, the re-engagement sequence, and then stepping it up from your most engaged people to the least engaged, I would like you to keep in mind that
everything when it comes to email marketing comes down to connection. If you focus on connection in your emails over a hard sell, then the conversions will ultimately follow because people are ready and primed to buy from you and they can’t wait to hear what you have to say and can’t wait to open that next email from you.
Once you have re-engaged your list, once you are back into regular programming, I absolutely would look at automating that list clean process. I happen to have a list clean toolkit, giving you a plug and play formula to automate this process. So you don’t have to worry about who’s opening, who’s clicking, who’s engaging. Your email system does it for you. And it also means you don’t
have to worry about manually scrubbing hundreds of people off your list. They basically remove themselves, which is great. And it serves your deliverability. So your task today, that’s for Cressida and anyone who has got their list, is don’t wait another six more months. You want to send that warm hello, that reintroduction email in the next week. So your job today is to have a think about how you position that
gap that silenced and then go from there. So have a look at your data. Have a look at those most engaged subscribers that you want to start with and get cracking. If you enjoyed today’s episode and you would love your question answered on the podcast either by myself or by a guest expert that I would vet for you and get on the show, then hit up the show notes. There’s a form for you to submit your question.
If you enjoyed this episode please make sure you subscribe, follow, share it with your biz buddies, you know the drill and thank you so much for tuning in this week. I’ll see you next week.
