How to resurrect a dead email list of any size (< 1k to 1m+)

This is a tried and true technique for warming up/re-engaging a cold/dead email list. I’ve used it to take a list from 5% to 80% open rates and another from 1000 to 7000+ engaged subscribers. The key to success is patience and an email marketing tool that gets excellent deliverability.

1. Sign up for Campaign Refinery

They get the best deliverability and they scrub your list for you. Remember to take the bump offer for 50k extra credits, you’ll need it.

2. Set up email authentication

Make sure all your email authentication tings are set up. Campaign Refinery won’t let you email without it so that’s a plus.

3. Upload your list

Upload your email list but do not send any emails yet.

4. Write warmup campaign

Write a 7-14 day warmup campaign. 2-3 emails per day. Isn’t that too many emails Nabeel? No it’s not. I just got done sending 4 emails a day for 5 days. You need the volume to shake people out of their inbox blindness. And you’d be shocked at how many people WON’T engage and WON’T unsubscribe. @$$holes.

Campaign starts when you manually tag a subscriber. Campaign ends when they click (or open) an email. The emails should be clickbaity for maximum opens and clicks. The value is on the other side of the click, not in the email.

5. Add subscribers to warmup manually

Trickle them in. 100 on day 1, 200 on day 2, 400 on day 3, 1000 on day 4, 3000 on day 5 and so on. Don’t get greedy. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 million subs and it takes 2 months to warm them up. You’ll be glad you did it the right way.

6. Emailing engaged subscribers

You can email people who’ve engaged with the warmup as normal since they’ve been taken out of the warmup campaign.

7. Questions

If you have any questions reply to this post.

Note: Using Campaign Refinery is by invitation only. You’ll have to book a call to see if they’ll onboard you.

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