Before You Email Your List — Read First
Cold Email List
Subscribers forgot you
Send Sales Emails Immediately
- •Subscribers confused
- •Unsubscribes spike
- •Campaign fails
Start Warm-Up Process
• 5-Step Warming Sequence
- •1. Reintroduce Yourself
- •2. Provide Value (No selling)
- •3. Show Excitement
- •4. Continue Value 1–2 Weeks
- •5. Resume Normal Communication
Engaged
Email List
- •Higher engagement
- •Lower unsubscribes
- •Ready for marketing
The Common Scenario
- …You created a new product.
- …You gave it a great name.
- …You went all-out in search of publicity.
- …You offered cool opt-ins and attracted fantastic new subscribers.
- …You waited two weeks for the excitement to die down and to get yourself in order, and now you're ready to email your list for the first time.
This is a common scenario…usually followed by a BIG mistake.
What do most people do in your situation? They jump right into an email funnel with their brand-new opt-ins. Makes sense, right? After all, they gave you their email address. They want to hear from you.
Not so fast, though. These people gave you their email address one week, two weeks, maybe even three or four weeks ago. Do they even remember signing up? Probably not. If you start sending subscribers sales emails after a few weeks of radio silence, they won't even remember who you are.
You won't get sales — all you'll get is a pile of unsubscribes.
Table of Contents
What Is Email List Warming?
Warming your email list means reconnecting with your subscribers after a period of inactivity. If you've had a break from sending emails, whether it's two weeks or six months, you need to go through a warming process before you can get back into the swing of normal communication.
After all, you wouldn't jump into the middle of a conversation at a cocktail party and say "Hey, buy my product!" You'd get nothing but blank stares, and people would stop inviting you to parties altogether.
Why Is Warming Important?
Warming your list is crucial because it helps maintain a strong relationship with your subscribers. When you're silent for a while, your subscribers might forget who you are or why they signed up. Reconnecting with them through a warming process ensures that they're ready and excited to hear from you again.
By warming your list, you're not only rebuilding trust but also increasing the likelihood of successful sales and engagement.
Recommended Warming Schedule
Start thinking tropical islands, sunny summer days, and hot coffee…because it's time to get warm.
1. Reintroduction Email
First, you're going to send an email to your list to introduce yourself.
You might think your subscribers know who you are — after all, didn't they recently opt in to hear from you? — but you can't make that assumption. Chances are, they don't remember you.
The Awkward Party Analogy
Have you ever met up with a group of people, only to realize there's someone in the group you've only met once? For the life of you, you can't remember their name. Everyone assumes you know each other, and you feel too awkward to introduce yourself and risk looking silly. So you carry on like you remember them, all the while feeling self-conscious.
What a sense of relief you'd feel if that person walked up to you right when you arrived and said, "Hi, I'm Sameer. I think we met once before, but I wanted to re-introduce myself."
Problem solved!
Example Reintroduction Email
"Hi, I'm Rishi, the founder of NetGains. You're receiving this email because you recently signed up to find out more about growing the email list of your own. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sending you some helpful information about email lists: how to grow them, how to groom them, and some fun facts about email lists throughout history. I look forward to getting to know you!"
Don't worry about apologizing for neglecting your list. Just jump in and act like everything's fine.
2. Provide Value
Did you notice that the paragraph above didn't involve any selling? That's because you need to re-establish your relationship before you start asking your list to buy things.
Would you buy a liter of milk from a guy on the street who walked up to you and said "Hey, buy this milk!"?
Or would you rather buy milk from your neighborhood grocery store, where the employees greet you by name, you have a store loyalty card, and you've happily shopped without incident for the last few years?
No one feels comfortable buying something from a total stranger. Who knows what you might get?
What to Give Away
Think PDFs, helpful tips, insightful advice — whatever you have to offer that your subscribers will find relevant and interesting. As long as you're not asking your list to DO anything in return, pretty much any applicable content is okay.
But don't sell. At this stage, you shouldn't even ask them to visit your blog. That's asking your list to do something for you, and you haven't built a strong enough relationship to make that request that yet.
Instead of sending readers to your blog, copy the content of a blog post right into the body of your email. Make it as easy as possible for your readers to receive your value.
Keep it brief: Your content should fill up a single computer screen, or a screen and a half. Don't ask your readers to scroll down forever. 2,000 words of content in an email isn't helpful, it's annoying.
3. Get Excited
It's important for your list to feel your passion throughout your warming emails. They'll get excited if you're excited!
A few ways to do this:
- Explain why you started this project. What problems were you seeing around you, or experiencing yourself, that made you come up with the idea for your product? Why is this your personal mission?
- Share personal anecdotes that are relevant to your readers and show that you feel their pain. This shows that you're not just a robot sending them emails. It humanizes you and fosters a deeper connection. Your subscribers will think: "Hey, this guy gets me."
- Tell your readers what you've been up to. If you're speaking at a conference, or you just had a phone call with a customer who told you a really cool story about their experience using your product, go ahead and share it.
- Express genuine emotion. If you're thrilled to share some great advice, or if you're enthusiastic about a news story that relates to your product topic, let your readers know. Adding your own emotional reaction on top of the content you send will make it have a stronger impact.
Warning: Be careful about letting your emotion sweep you away into promising things you can't deliver. It's easy to get charged up and say "stay tuned tomorrow for 1,000 great tips about growing your goatee!" But if you can't deliver, don't make the promise.
4. Heat Things Up
Continue the warming process with a few more emails that follow the first three steps:
Reintroduce Yourself
Provide Value
Get Excited
Frequency Guidelines
You'll send approximately 2 emails a week over the course of two weeks. By the time your list is fully heated, you'll have sent a grand total of 4-5 emails.
Don't overcompensate! You might feel the need to bombard your list with communication to make up for your period of silence. Don't do it! Over-emailing can lead to a whole separate issue called Subscriber Burnout, or List Fatigue.
During these two weeks, you may notice some unsubscribes. Do not be alarmed! This is perfectly normal. The percentage of unsubscribes that you'll get during a warming process is FAR lower than the percentage of unsubscribes you'll get if you start selling to your list while they're still cold.
It's like a freezing cold pool on a hot day. Most people will want to ease into the water slowly instead of being thrown right into the deep end.
5. Business as Usual
Congrats. Now your list is back to normal, at the same place it was when your subscribers first signed up a few weeks (or months) ago.
Once you reach Step 5 and your list is warm, you can begin your educational or marketing campaign.
And don't let your list go cold again!
Best Practices for Warming
Here are some best practices to ensure your warming process is effective and engaging:
- Be Consistent: Send emails at regular intervals to keep your subscribers engaged without overwhelming them.
- Provide Value: Always include something of value in your emails, whether it's a tip, a resource, or an interesting fact.
- Be Personal: Use personalization to make your emails feel more genuine and relevant to each subscriber.
- Stay Positive: Maintain a positive and enthusiastic tone throughout your emails to keep your subscribers excited.
- Ask for Feedback: Encourage your subscribers to share their thoughts and feedback to build a two-way communication channel.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Here are some common mistakes to avoid during the warming process:
- Over-Emailing: Sending too many emails too quickly can lead to subscriber burnout and increased unsubscribe rates.
- Ignoring Feedback: Not responding to subscriber feedback can damage trust and reduce engagement.
- Being Too Salesy: Focusing too much on selling during the warming process can turn off subscribers and lead to unsubscribes.
- Lack of Personalization: Sending generic emails without personalization can make your subscribers feel unimportant and disengaged.
- Not Providing Value: Failing to provide value in your emails can lead to disinterest and increased unsubscribe rates.
The Big Picture
Success in email marketing isn't about the size of your list. It's about the ENGAGEMENT of your list.
What's the use of having 1 million subscribers if they've all gone cold? Better to have 500 subscribers who are on fire with passion for your product.
Let's Put This Into Perspective
Do you plan to launch a product in 2015?
If the answer's yes, you should start planning to warm your list right now. Reinvigorate their enthusiasm and get them ready — now — for your latest and greatest product offering. It takes time and patience to rebuild a trusting relationship with your subscribers, and if you want a successful launch, you'll need them on your side well before it's time to sell.
Sarah Johnson
Sarah is a cybersecurity expert and Senior Content Strategist at NetGains, specializing in enterprise email security and compliance.
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