The maintenance of email lists In the history of constructing email lists, it has been claimed that the larger the list, the better it is, and the larger the list, the more sales you are going to make. This is something that has been often said. That may have been the case at one point in time, but when you consider how far the internet economy has gone, it isn’t surprising at all. The same can be said about cold calling for offline companies, which was effective a decade or two ago but has, to put it mildly, become antiquated and out of date in recent years. The same is true for the manner in which you need to construct your email list. Let me explain: in today’s world, the market, also known as reality, has become so muddled and distorted due to the presence of advertising and marketing materials that individuals are very cautious about what they consent to receive and what they sign up for. The majority of the time, individuals will not even bother to check at their emails because they are afraid that they will be inundated with sales material and so many various things that are all of the same kind. I am one of those people, and I know that I am one of them. Because your email list has to be tight and efficient, it is of the utmost importance that you pay attention to the next piece of advice that I am going to provide to you. Incorporate a button to opt out at all times. Immediately, you are providing individuals with the opportunity to remove themselves from your email list. Although this may appear to be counterproductive, what you are actually doing is showing that you are only interested in people who are serious about the product or service that you are selling. When you have an email list that is full of individuals who do not read your emails, you have a list that is overweight and out of shape; it is a list that needs to be trimmed down since it contains all of the people who were not going to purchase your product anyhow from the beginning. The fact that people unsubscribe makes me happy because it enables me to know that I am dealing with a greater number of individuals who are serious about improving their situations on their own and are not just seeking for the next “get rich fast” scam. When someone does not want your goods, there is no need to feel bad about it since you have an opt-out option available. This is another way that you may create goodwill. The addition of an opt-out button to your email list is not the only item that may assist in maintaining a smaller list size. One of the things that I like to do on occasion is to remind the folks on my email list that I only want to collaborate with those who are serious about their business. This might very well entail my requesting that individuals unsubscribe and requesting that they commit to anything. Everyone requires a little bit of dedication, and because it was not different with my offline company, there is no reason why it should be different with my email list. When it comes to cleaning up your email list database, it is not always sufficient to just include an opt-in or send a powerful action email. To tell you the truth, if you are sending out thousands of emails and your open rate is appalling, the reason is not typically bad content; rather, it is not a terrible subject line. Let’s be honest here. This occurred to me when I encountered a situation in which I was not receiving a significant number of opens. The reason for this was that my email list was out of date, addresses were no longer in existence, individuals were not sufficiently active, and they did not care about my messages in the first place. It’s likely that they signed up for the service with the expectation that it would suddenly alter their financial situations. Do you know what I did? However, I did send a reactivation email to each and every person in my inbox. Well, what came before me was a severe setback; I lost half of my email list. The majority of this was due to the fact that many simply did not answer to the reactivation email, while others just unsubscribed. Therefore, I questioned myself, why have all of them left? All of this boils down to the fact that you did not target the appropriate individuals for your email list. Your email list will almost certainly be quite active if you focus on people who are interested in the product or service you provide, as long as you target those individuals. Now, what was it that I had left? To tell you the truth, when I attempted this with my list, I did not have a large number of individuals signed to it. I believe I had around 500 subscribers who were interested in receiving my newsletter. To put it simply, by the time I was finished, I had around 250, and I was utterly devastated. In spite of the fact that this is now a thing of the past, one thing that I have learned is that having a small email list that has subscribers who are actively engaged is more valuable than having a list of one thousand subscribers who do not care to read your emails. I am now making a concerted effort to maintain a lean and mean approach, as well as to maintain an email list that is actively involved and that loves it. Having said that, if you found this to be enjoyable and believe that it will assist you in your efforts to build an email list, then kindly leave a comment or even share it on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. I will be extremely grateful to you because if you have read this entire post, then you are an awesome person. Talk to you shortly, Joe “Caseman” Searle is a marketing and personal development coach who guides individuals to achieve six figures.