Mailing List Management

We grew an email list from 0 to 500K subscribers in just 10 months. If I were starting from scratch today, here's exactly how I'd do it again: 1) Nail the Lead Magnet: The fastest way to grow your email list is by offering something valuable in exchange for an email. Think of it like this: people won't give up their email for nothing. Create something they can't ignore: a discount, exclusive content, or a tool they can’t find elsewhere. For us, offering free travel guides was a game-changer. 2) Optimize for Opt-Ins Everywhere: Your website, blog, and even social media accounts should work like opt-in machines. For example: - Add pop-ups and fly outs on key pages. - Place CTAs above the fold. - Use scroll-triggered modals when visitors are engaged. We tested endlessly, and this attention to detail paid off big. 3) Tap Into Paid Growth Early: Ads get a bad rep, but when done right, they’re a growth accelerant. We launched targeted ads promoting our lead magnet and built a funnel that turned traffic into email signups. Paid campaigns helped us scale fast while testing which offers resonated with our audience. 4) Partner with the Right People: Collaborations can grow your list faster than any single effort. Whether it’s co-branded giveaways, email swaps, or shoutouts, find brands or creators that share your target audience. A well-executed partnership will unlock exponential growth. One really unique thing we did: We bought a bunch of viral social accounts and rebranded them for our business. This was huge in kickstarting massive and sustainable growth. And we fast-tracked the social proof we needed to build trust and scale quickly. 5) Focus on Quality, Not Just Quantity: A big list is meaningless without engagement. From Day 1, we focused on high-value emails to ensure subscribers opened, clicked, and stayed. Here’s a pro tip: Consistency wins. Sending emails weekly or bi-weekly keeps your list warm and engaged. 6) Build a Content Machine: Pair email growth with an organic content strategy that feeds your funnel. Blog posts, social media, and SEO aren’t just good for traffic—they create trust. The more valuable content you share, the more people will want to hear from you. 7) Leverage Cheap Marketing Channels in Ways Others Haven’t: This is going to ruffle some feathers but we absolutely dominated cold email for user acquisition. To the tune of 6 figure subscriber acquisition. No one was doing cold email for B2C the way we did it. This proved to be the most scalable yet cheapest acquisition channel we had. — To recap: - Offer something valuable for free to grow your list. - Use every channel—paid and organic—to drive opt-ins. - Build relationships with partners who already have your audience. The result? A system that scales. Your list is the one asset you fully own—start building it ASAP!

Bigger isn't always better. Sometimes size is a hindrance, rather than an advantage. Brands love to brag about the number of addresses on their mailing lists, but size isn't everything! An oversized list that under-performs, bloats your marketing costs, and contributes to deliverability problems is hardly boast-worthy. In the simplest equation, sending more emails = making more money. I don't dispute that entirely, I'm not a monster. The problem is what that calculation fails to account for: the potential for lost revenue later, when mail gets delayed, sent to the spam folder, or rejected completely. Most likely, sending more mail to some users does net more profit! But sending more mail to others does more harm than good without additional considerations being made for list quality, prior engagement, and purchase history. Let's unpack the risks in blasting another sale announcement to your full list: 🎒 An address that never confirmed opt-in could be a spam trap that contributes to a blocklisting. Or, it could be a real, disinterested person who's one message away from reporting your mail as spam and damaging your reputation in the process. Impactful blocklistings and excessive complaints can both result in mail being being rejected outright. Instead of more mail & more money, your users get no mail and you end up with no money. 🎒 A user who hasn't opened/clicked the last few emails they've received could be dormant, over-quota (stuffed full of mail and unable to accept more), or a spam trap, none of which contribute positively to your bottom line. 🎒 If you're planning on sending mail beyond your typical daily volume or attempting to re-engage lapsed users, you could be penalized if that additional volume doesn't respond positively to your overtures. Target users thoughtfully, with regard to their prior interaction with your messages (or lack thereof). 🎒 Remember that waning engagement could mean some special Gmail or Apple user is just waiting for the perfect offer before converting, but it could also mean that special someone reported your mail as spam previously and your messages are now delivering straight to their spam folder, languishing unopened. #deliverability

Their email list was dying, so we tried something radical: we STOPPED creating new content every week. Stop writing brand new newsletters every week. I discovered that recycling 50% of our newsletter content actually INCREASED engagement. (And cut our workload in half) It's called the "Immortal Newsletter" strategy: 50% is timeless, high-performing content on rotation 50% is fresh, trending insights Evergreen + ephemeral The benefits? + Zero subscriber complaints about "repeat" content + 2x faster to produce + Higher open rates than our previous "100% fresh" approach The secret? Most subscribers don't read every single newsletter. So they're actually missing your best content. I was skeptical too. But after 3 months of testing with a Growth Sprints client (and doing it myself for 2+ years), I can't believe more companies aren't doing this. Get off the checkbox marketing treadmill, stop writing brand new newsletters every week and start driving impact. PS - I'm thinking of sharing the exact system we use to select which content to recycle and how we rotate it (for free, no engagement ransom required). Would you want that?

Imagine sending highly targeted Cold Emails... only for them to bounce or land in spam. Frustrating, right? That’s why cleaning your email list is critical for Outbound success in 2025. Here’s why it matters and how you can do it right. 1️⃣ Protect your sender reputation Each bounce damages your sender reputation. Bad reputation = more emails landing in spam. 💡 Example: If your bounce rate exceeds 2-3%, email providers may start flagging all your messages as spam. 2️⃣ Improve deliverability A clean list ensures your emails reach active inboxes. The result? Higher open rates and better engagement. 3️⃣ Boost campaign performance Better leads means fewer bounces, which increases campaign ROI and $ generated. Here’s how you can clean your list: 🟡 Use email validation tools like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce by ZoomInfo, DeBounce, Clearout, LeadMagic ⚡️ Pro Tip: Validate your lists with 2+ providers to remove unverifiable accounts and maintain high deliverability. 🟣 Create an Email validation workflow Step 1: Run all new leads through a tool like NeverBounce before adding them to your list. Step 2: Segment contacts by email provider. Reaching out to Google inboxes first, then Microsoft ones, will help maximize campaign performance. Step 3: People change jobs often. Regularly validate your lists before the next campaign to remove any inactive or bounced emails. Remember: Clean list = good campaign performance. 🔝 Let’s keep yours thriving in 2025. 💰 💬 What tools do you use for Cold Email validation? Share your favorite ones in the comments. PS: I’m co-hosting a super-cool webinar with Tal Baker-Phillips from lemlist on Unlocking Cold Email Deliverability in 2025 and it’s happening on December 17th! DM me if you want an invite. 😊

Founder learnings part 10 - how to get world class email open rates in 5 easy steps! 6 months ago we knew nothing about email - now we send more than 100k emails per week and have maintained a 67% open rate for the last 3 months straight (industry standard is 18%) while holding sub 0.3% spam rate in postmaster. Here's what I wish I'd known 6 months ago, all manual builds + no klaviyo! : 1️ - Mail warming actually matters way less than you think in 2025 - because your score is way more linked to the domain/IP combo than just the domain, so, if you're using a 3rd party mail warmer and then switch across to klaviyo or some other sending tool, it basically won't matter - you've lost the score rep you built on the warmer. This is why we roll our own. 2 - Every send should be transactional: As in - every email you send should be triggered based on user interactions within your ecosystem, no cold-sending. Hitting their inbox at the exact moment they’re most likely to engage makes all the difference, put hooks all over your site/app/extension/anywhere else you can, watch for form entries, then trigger sends based on that - WAY better than blasting 100k out all at once from something like mailchimp. 3 - Pre-check for bounces – Sending to invalid emails hurts your sender reputation and increases spam filtering. Use services that check if an email will bounce before you send it, so you’re only reaching valid inboxes. This keeps your list clean and improves long-term deliverability. 4 - Prune your cohorts – This one should be obvious but most email lists have dead weight that drag down performance. Set up automated scripts to constantly remove unresponsive users and refine targeting based on engagement levels. The more dialed-in your segments are, the higher your open rates will be. 5 - Ramp sends REALLY slowly – There is no way around this. Even if your list is solid, blasting too many emails too fast will tank your deliverability, you have to be so slow and steady with this. Industry standards say 15% per day but we go slower and have done 8-10% on warmed domains to avoid spam filters. A slow, steady ramp ensures you build sender trust and maximize inbox placement.

We cut 1,145 subscribers yesterday. What every founder should know about building a newsletter. When we launched THE ELEVATE GROUP newsletter in March 2024, we were obsessed with growth. We promoted it at every event, on every stage, in every room. It took us a year to reach >2,000 subscribers. And then the graph stopped moving. Flat as a pancake. Jingjin Liu and I looked at each other and said, “Is it us, or is it them?” So we pivoted. • We removed our newsletter from LinkedIn. • We started creating highly valuable lead magnets. • Plugged the newsletter sign-up on our LinkedIn posts that went viral. • Created high-value monthly events. • That change accelerated our list to 5,000+ within months. At first, it felt like success. The number kept climbing. The uncomfortable truth? The easier decision is always to keep adding. Vanity metrics give you a high. You tell yourself you’re growing when in reality you might just be bloating. We fell into that trap. So, the last 2 months, we asked a harder question: WHO is actually reading? And are they our ideal customer profile (ICP)? When we dug into the data, we discovered 1,145 subscribers who had never opened a single email. Not one. We made the decision to remove them. Here’s how we approached it: – Identified all subscribers with zero opens since sign-up. – Sent them an email with a one-click option to stay. – Sent a final reminder five days later. – Removed 1,145 who didn’t respond. What we learned: 1. Vanity vs. value. Growth feels good, but engagement is the only real measure. Chasing numbers distracted us in the early days. Now we chase quality numbers. 2. Lead magnets drive sign-ups, not loyalty. They bring people in, but they don’t keep people. Retention requires consistent value. 3. Data is non-negotiable. Without regular audits, you can’t separate volume from value. 4. Curation compounds. Removing inactive readers improves deliverability, boosts open rates, and sharpens your ICP. 5. Every dollar counts. Cleaning our list dropped our Kit cost from USD119/month to USD89/month. That’s $360 saved annually - capital we can reinvest elsewhere.     What we’ll do next: – Keep building lead magnets that solve real problems. – Audit the list quarterly, not annually. – Treat engagement as the growth metric, not volume. – Remember that fewer engaged readers > more silent ones. Scaling a newsletter is like scaling a company. The easiest decision is to chase numbers. The harder - but smarter - decision is to curate for depth. We see too many solopreneurs making avoidable mistakes. And we wish we could help. So Jingjin and I are testing a one-off event. Your questions, your situation, unfiltered advice. Not inspiration. Interrogation. Business lens only: Money and Outcomes. Join the waitlist here - https://lnkd.in/gj5KbyUB We’ll only run it if there’s demand. P.S. What’s one vanity metric you’ve chased before you learned better?

Maintaining a bloated subscriber list filled with unengaged contacts can severely hinder your email marketing performance. Engagement trumps numbers any day. But why purge unengaged subscribers? 1. Enhanced deliverability:  → Email service providers monitor engagement metrics. → A high volume of unopened emails can flag your content as spam, reducing inbox placement. 2. Cost efficiency:  → Many email platforms charge based on subscriber count. → Removing inactive subscribers can lower costs, allowing you to allocate resources more effectively. 3. Accurate analytics:  → A refined list ensures that your open & click-through rates reflect genuine interest, providing clearer insights into campaign performance. Here are a few actionable steps: a. Identify inactivity:  → Define what constitutes an inactive subscriber for your business— e.g., no opens or clicks in the past 90 days. b. Re-engagement campaigns:  → Before removal, attempt to rekindle interest with targeted emails offering value or asking for feedback. c. Regular maintenance:  → Schedule periodic list clean-ups to ensure ongoing engagement & list health. By proactively managing your subscriber list, you: → Protect sender reputation → Enhance engagement → Ensure your messages reach those who truly value them How often do you audit your email list for engagement? Drop your strategies in the comments below.

Cold email outreach is often misunderstood as a numbers game - send more, get more. But the truth is, quality always beats quantity. Your success largely depends on the quality of your email list. A well-curated list means you’re reaching the right people with the right message, while a poorly managed list can lead to low engagement, high bounce rates, and damage to your sender reputation. Here’s a few key steps to refine your cold email lists for better results: 1️⃣ Segment your audience: start by dividing your list into segments based on criteria such as industry, job title, company size, or previous interactions with your brand. 2️⃣ Regularly clean your list: over time, email lists can become cluttered with inactive or invalid addresses. Regularly clean your list to remove bounced emails, unsubscribes, and unengaged contacts. This not only improves your deliverability rates but also ensures you’re focusing on prospects who are more likely to engage. 3️⃣ Use data enrichment tools: tools like Clearbit, ZoomInfo, or Hunter.io can help you enrich your email list by adding valuable data points such as the prospect’s role, company details, and social profiles. This extra information enables you to personalize your outreach even further. 4️⃣ Monitor engagement metrics: pay close attention to open rates, click-through rates, and responses. If certain segments of your list are underperforming, it may be time to re-evaluate those contacts. Use these insights to continuously refine your list and improve your targeting. 5️⃣ Leverage intent data: incorporate intent data into your list-building process. This data shows which companies are actively researching solutions like yours, allowing you to target prospects when they’re most interested. Tools like Bombora or 6sense can provide these insights. If you do something extra special to your email lists, share below 🤓 #Sales #ColdEmail #EmailMarketing #Outreach #SalesStrategy

Big email lists ≠ better results. In fact, a bigger list can kill your deliverability. Inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook don’t care how many subscribers you have. They care how many people engage. That means opening, clicking, and replying. And if half your list is ignoring you, Gmail starts assuming everyone will. So your deliverability drops. Even your best emails land in spam or promotions. You’re not being punished for sending too much. You’re being penalised for sending to the wrong people. That’s why regular list cleaning isn’t optional. It’s how you protect your sender reputation. Run this simple cleanup: → Segment no-opens from the last 90–180 days → Send a 2-part re-engagement campaign → Delete the rest without guilt What happens next: → Your emails hit more primary inboxes → Open rates climb → Clicks reflect real interest Keep it that way by: → Sending consistent value outside of launches → Set clear expectations in your welcome sequence → Running a quarterly list cleanup Because a smaller list of people who actually want to hear from you will always outperform a big one that doesn’t. When did you last remove cold subscribers from your list? If it’s been a while, take this as your sign.

“Just send another email” - The most expensive words in email marketing 👇 Let’s talk about something that rarely gets mentioned in email marketing (strap in it's a long one)… 👉 The mindset of leadership and internal teams Email is often (practically always) undervalued and misunderstood at the top And that trickles down to marketing teams who: - Send more emails because “volume = results” (it doesn’t) - Prioritise open rates over actual conversions. - Push batch-and-blast because leadership wants to see something go out. Common (but flawed) mindsets I hear: 🗣️ “Just send another email, it can’t hurt.” It can hurt – damaged sender reputation, unsubscribes, and spam complaints kill your inbox reach 🗣️ “We need to hit everyone – smaller sends mean smaller results.” Mass sends to unengaged lists destroy deliverability. Smaller, targeted lists actually perform better. 🗣️ “More emails = more sales.” Nope. Better, more relevant emails = more sales. Your audience doesn’t need to hear from you every day about every single thing. They need to hear the right thing at the right time. Most leaders don’t understand email beyond vanity metrics. They think: - Open rates = success - Big lists = more revenue - More sends = higher engagement BUT we know: - Open rates lie & are highly unreliable on their own - Quality lists outperform size every day - Over-sending leads to spam issues – which eventually tanks revenue How do you shift the mindset? Educate from the top down with DATA & the cost of inaction/carrying on Show leadership that email is a channel that requires strategy, not just volume Stop using vanity metrics & track really attributed revenue & impacted revenue, conversion rates, and deliverability health. When leaders see actual ROI, they’ll rethink their approach Advocate for the long game. Email isn’t a fast-sell channel, it’s a relationship channel. Until leadership shifts their mindset, email will always feel like a frustrating, underperforming channel (welcome to my world) And marketers will stay stuck on the hamster wheel of “send more” with less and less to show for it. 👉 If leadership doesn’t understand email – educate them (and get a juicy audit from me, it WILL transform everything) 👉 If your team is being pushed to over-send – show the risks 👉 And if you feel like no one’s listening – DM me I’ve helped businesses flip this mindset, approach, practices & strategy and the results speak for themselves Are you seeing the same mindset issues where you work? 👇