Sunk costs are painful.
So much money, so much time, for so little return.
I've been doing email marketing since 2010
I started using AWeber in 2010. Switched to Robly around 2015 or so (yeah I'd forgotten that one too), then MailChimp in 2017, and finally ConvertKit in 2022.
(Note: I'm pleased with ConvertKit. They have a free tier if you want to play. Check it out here. If you click and end up loving it and purchasing a paid plan later, I may end up with a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for checking it out!)
Long periods of not emailing the list
Until recently, I was horribly inconsistent in messaging my list.
At one point there were over a thousand subscribers on the list. In the final move to ConvertKit from MailChimp, I deleted a few hundred subscribers who had never opened one of my emails, leaving me with about 750 subscribers.
This was October 2022. In February 2023 — four months later — I finally sent a “Hey, I'm still alive” email to the list.
Six months later, almost to the day, I send another message saying in essence that I'll be exploring new things and that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up yet but hope you come along for the ride.
Overall, an exceptionally poor way to do email marketing.
Great expectations, kinda
It took me until October 2023 to start publishing things with any regularity at all.
From the end of November 2023 until now, I've gotten a message out every week on Tuesday. Ten weekly messages and counting.
Not where I want to end up, but it's miles ahead of where I once was.
Consistency through competition
I credit the reason for my newfound consistency to a competitive streak.
I'm in a monthly mastermind group with this guy. (Colin successfully quit his lucrative 9-to-5 to work as a freelance writer and editor full-time.)
We challenge each other. I had gotten a few newsletters out and encouraged him to do the same.
Well, he not only did that, but he raised the bar and promised his list that he would send something every Tuesday.
So I'm publishing every Tuesday now. I can't let him beat me now, can I?
Now I had a reason to delete subscribers
The main reason why I was afraid to delete subscribers was because I didn't have enough data.
Since I wasn't sending regularly, I couldn't tell whether subscribers were active or not.
But with over two months of weekly messages, my readers' intent became a lot clearer. After sending out every week for two months and getting no interest from those, and no interest from the previous months either, it was clear my emails were just noise to them.
I sent out one final “Is this goodbye?” email to just this list, and got only two clicks out of 327. If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is. See ya!
One of many things I've learned the hard way
If I'm going to keep paying for services to develop income streams online, I need to use them.
Mailing out once a week is an important start because it's consistent. My lack of consistency, across the board, killed much of the audience I once had.
Coming to terms with, and casting off, this unresponsive segment of my list will be a reminder not to let it happen again.
(Header photo by Melinda Gimpel on Unsplash)