Did I make a big mistake?
ByLast week I deleted over 2500 subscribers from my AWeber account.
Have I gone crazy?
Well, you know, I learned a trick in AWeber which allowed me to see how recently people have opened my emails.
And many people – rather than unsubscribing – just don’t even bother to open emails in the first place.
And I was shocked to see that over 2500 subscribers hadn’t opened an email of mine in 2 months.
Now I don’t take that personally, I do exactly the same thing, I susbcribe to multiple lists, unsubscribe from lists that I consider to be a waste of time, I open some peoples’ emails nearly all of the time and some I just scan the top line.
It’s a pretty ruthless business, and if I’m caught on an ‘off day’ I’ll unsuscribe from a lot of lists at once.
It’s nothing personal, we just can’t cope with the mail we get and the constant offers of free gifts and downloads.
I was speaking to a very successful internet guru about it last night and he thought I’d made a big mistake.
He said that some people will sit on a list for months without taking action, then they’ll go on to buy just like that.
So I’m sitting here thinking, did I make a mistake?
Did I just ‘burn’ a list that it’s taken a lot of work to build up?
Or was I right to remove people from my list who – for whatever reason – don’t wish to engage with me?
You see, I’m getting the same results from a list that’s now a third the size, because what I’m left with is action takers, people who are clearly committed to learning and progressing, and happy for me to be one of their guides.
So my open and click rates, compared to the total number of subscribers, have gone up because the people who are left take more actions.
I learned a lot about this whilst taking part in adswaps.
I would swap with people with bigger lists, but I would deliver more clicks from a smaller list.
So should we be getting more excited by clicks (or actions taken by subscribers) rather than just list size?
If I can deliver the same outcomes with a list a third the size, that doesn’t sound quite so impressive, but isn’t it the results that those subscribers bring that matters?
I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on this, please add a comment below.
By the way, the reason I took this radical action is because I’m going to be making some changes to the way I do business – and they’re all geared at benefiting my subscribers.
I’ve got some great plans in the pipeline, and I hope that they will differentiate the emails that I send out from those of many other marketers.
I just figure that we need to offer something a bit different from the constant diet of ad-swaps that we’ve all seen before … so I’m going to be making some changes very soon.
August 2010 update.
AWeber blog post: How To Reengage Inactive Subscribers
Anyone else have feelings about this?
Facebook comments:
Hi, it’s my first visit to your blog.
I believe you did the right thing. I remembered a video byy Frank Kern, who was so unhappy at one point, he just dumped his “old” business (the LOT), move to LA from Georgia (leaving his lovely mansion) and then made more than he did previously, becoming bigger than ever.. his biz has 25 employees and great clients, I might add.
He’s happier now and he said it was because he started writing down the exact things that he wanted..such as: My bathroom has marble flooring and can fit 6 people. OR: I walk my daughter to school everyday and we talk about doing fun things in the evening.
That was really inspiring to me.
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Paul Teague Reply:
September 17th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Hi Lita, thanks very much for visiting my blog and leaving a comment, it’s much appreciated.
That’s a really interesting story about Frank Kern, I enjoyed reading it.
Speak soon, Paul
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Paul
Great post – brings up an interesting debate. i’ve actually got a moderately small list and have steered clear of building it via loads of adswaps – wish i could say as I had foresight given what a lot of MWA students are saying along the lines of what you say here – mainly due to being a bit lazy, but have found that I have developed a better connection with them by developing a relationship and offering items of real value as a pose to just more rehashed PLR and endless gifts which will collect dust on their hard-drives. Hopefully will pay dividends in the end as I should have a responsive list.
Completely understand about unsubscribing off lists as I’m on so many it takes ages to filter my e-mails – its another thing on my to do list!!
All the best
Tom
Tom Harvey´s last [type] ..Social Media Traffic 1 – Leveraging Twitter
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Interesting post. I have toyed with doing this too. However, recently I sent out an email to my list with a really hard-hitting subject line and the open and click through rate went through the roof.
Sometimes it’s just that you need to push people to open your emails. But, after my shocking email I will review who still didn’t open it and maybe ask them if they want to be removed.
It’s a tough one.
Justin´s last [type] ..How To Get Yourself Banned From Google Adsense
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Paul Teague Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Hi Justin, I think that’s a great technique.
If I did it again, I would run a schedule of re-engagement tactics first, then delete if that didn’t work.
How did you shock your subscribers … you can’t copy the email here or link to the post can you?
Paul
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I would say the responsiveness of the list depends on a few things such as:
- How they subscribed in the first place. If they subscribe after buying your product, then you have a list of buyers as long as you continue to follow up with them.
- If they come from giveaways, it’s still possible to convert them but you’re going to have to work a lot harder for your conversions.
Frank Kern did the same thing and deleted well over 100,000 subscribers from his list and effectively had to start again after he got “busted” by the FTC.
Great post, thanks.
Wayne Lambert´s last [type] ..Auto Traffic Avalanche – Controversial Review
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Paul Teague Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 7:38 am
Hi Wayne, thanks for leaving a comment.
I think both of these points are good points, and I think if I did this again I’d follow the excellent advice in the AWeber article at the bottom of the post and build in a ‘warning’ and re-engagement process first, rather than just deleting those subscribers.
The biggest loss has not been in terms of any business I’ve lost, but only in my ability to ‘boast’ a bigger list … a list a third the size sounds much less impressive, most people seem uninterested in what you can do with that list.
I’ve also seen people with pretty big lists sending virtually no clicks at all – which amazed me.
I think that we should be encouraging newbies to think about quality and engagement, rather than purely list size, as this will serve them better in the long term.
Good to hear from you, pop by again some time.
All the best, Paul
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As they say, nothing as strange as folk.
Can also work the other way for some reason. One of the most active people on my list (always clicks, joins some of giveaways etc) just suddenly decided to unsubscribe, gets me thinking am I doing something wrong as well.
One whole big learning curve.
Many thanks
Simon
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Paul Teague Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 7:58 am
I agree with you Simon … it’s a strange science!
I should probably point out too that there is a background reason for pruning my list in the first place.
I’m very seriously considering a move to a new autoresponder service, so clearly need to focus on active subscribers when/if I move over.
This is always a damaging process to an existing list, which is why I’m making the move a) before my list gets too big b) while I have the confidence to know that I can build it back again.
I’m looking at MailChimp by the way … I love its web 2.0 add-ons and think it may suit me very well in the long term.
All subject to testing of course!
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Hey PAul-
I read this and was like WOAH! I couldn’t believe it. Then I thought about my subscriptions to lists. There are many that I do enjoy reading their content, but I haven’t been a customer. It is costing them $. I read the comment from David (Sure, you may get the odd person who has done nothing for months and then makes a surprise purchase but I suspect that sort of behaviour is very rare.) and realized this is not usually the case. Then I thought about a post I recently read about one individual that was a member of someone’s list for 8 YEARS before taking action. When they took action, they wondered why they didn’t do it earlier. It goes to show you may have missed out with one of those folks, BUT, I would take a responsive small list to a large unresponsive list any day. Thanks for the food for thought!
Jerry
Jerry @ TheOnlineSuccessProgramBlog.com´s last [type] ..What can TheOnlineSuccessProgramBlogcom do for you
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Paul:
All I can say is Wow! Okay I can say some more…I would be afraid to do what you have done. I understand why you deleted those subscribers but does it really hurt to keep them on your list even if they have not opened any of your emails for sometime? Yes, your stats look better but I still wonder.
I would probably debate myself to death with this issue to the point that I would never take any action to delete the subscribers.
- Rick
Rick Byrd´s last [type] ..How To Deal With Negative Comments On Your Blog
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Hi Paul,
I’ve done exactly the same as you – over the past six or seven weeks I have flushed around 4,500 “dead” subscribers, almost 50% of my subscriber list…
Drastic? Perhaps, but like you these guys had not opened an email for months and just sitting there idly was costing me money due to Aweber’s policy of ramping up your monthly costs when your list dares creep up above 500 (but that’s another rant entirely).
Sure, you may get the odd person who has done nothing for months and then makes a surprise purchase but I suspect that sort of behaviour is very rare.
I’d much rather keep a tighter, smaller list of people who are interested in what I have to say and I am going to get rid of the dead wood on at least a bi-monthly basis.
I hope your broadband gets sorted out soon (mine was a nightmare when I moved – around 3 weeks later than it should have been switched on) and look forward to seeing what you have planned for the rest of the year.
David
David Walker´s last [type] ..Google Supremacy Review
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