Do experts keep cleaning you?

Have you ever been mysteriously unsubscribed from an email newsletter? 

It happens to me all the time. But I expect it. In fact, it’s how I can tell which “experts” are really beginners.

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and I use RSS to read long-form newsletters, which can look confusing in a creator’s analytics. 

Most newsletter audits and how-to’s tell creators to “clean” their lists as step one in a long plan to improve their content strategy. My confusing analytics often earns me a top spot on the list of readers to be “cleaned.”

Engagement analytics lie all the time. 

No one really knows your open rate or click-through rate. The best you can get is a general idea.

There are all kinds of reasons someone disengages that have nothing to do with your content:

• People leave jobs (and email addresses) behind. 
• People get too busy to read their email…for long periods of time. 
• People use RSS.
• People die.

You don’t know if you don’t check.

A better way to measure engagement is to get to know the people on your list.

“Clean your list” is a project, not an action. 

Your experience determines the size and scope of the project. 

• Beginner: Delete anyone who hasn’t opened or clicked on anything in (random number) months.
• Intermediate: Segment inactive readers. Run a re-engagement sequence. Keep or cut based on…whatever.
• Expert: Know your readers. 

“Know your readers” may include (but is not limited to): 

• Segmenting the seemingly inactive.
• Using AI (and sometimes common sense) to learn who they are, where they found you, and whether what drew them in fits what you publish now.
• Running that re-engagement sequence, if it makes sense. 
• For readers worth keeping, connecting in whatever format they prefer. Sometimes email just isn’t their thing. It doesn’t automatically mean they should be excluded.
• Asking them what’s up.
• Cutting anyone who no longer fits your direction or your reputation with email providers.
• Keeping a record of anyone cut above, before they come off the books of your service provider. You’d be amazed at how many clients I meet who joined one of my lists years ago for an entirely different topic. Digging up that old info comes in handy. 

All of that is one, tiny project at the start of your regularly-scheduled list maintenance. In big businesses, it goes way deeper. 

This is why humans are still needed in the AI era: connecting is the job and the goal of a good newsletter.

— CJ

P.S. Need help with your newsletter strategy? Book a one-hour strategy session with me here.

P.P.S. I added a few more cleaned-up back issues to the newsletter archive this week for VIP supporters.