How to Maintain An Engaged Email List

Once you commit to building an email list, it’s your job to keep your subscribers engaged, nurtured, and excited about getting your emails. This is no small feat. We know from experience–from managing our own email list, and countless clients’–that it takes time and effort to grow and maintain a subscriber base! 

In this blog, we’re sharing the best techniques to hook your audience, draw them in, and keep them coming back for more. Keep reading for details on how to maintain an engaged email list!

Write Engaging Subject Lines

Getting subscribers to open your emails is arguably the most important element of email marketing. If no one is opening your emails, why bother sending them? The whole point of investing in your email strategy is to craft emails that engage your audience and get them excited about your business, your offers, and your life. 

The trick here is to write subject lines that pique the interest of your subscribers. That way, when your email lands in their inbox, they are much more likely to click on the email and read it. Attention-grabbing subject lines will increase your open rates tremendously. From there, you can work on delivering content that makes them want to keep reading. 

Want some tips for writing engaging subject lines to keep your email list active? Download our guide with 120+ subject line ideas you can use for your newsletters. 

Provide Valuable Content

Once a subscriber clicks on your email, you need to follow up with content that hooks them. Newsletters are ALL about valuable information–so make sure you’re providing high quality content!

Think about this:

• What information does your potential client need to know before working with you?

• What questions do your clients or potential clients ask you about often?

• What insight and advice can you offer exclusively to your subscribers?

In general, it’s a good idea to follow the 80/20 rule. That means 80% of your newsletters should be providing value to your audience, and 20% can be sales. Showcase that you’re a subject matter expert by giving them FREE information in each one of your newsletters, and sales will follow naturally. 

If you can, try to offer resources, updates, and sales to your email subscribers before you announce any news on your social media or website. This will help make your audience feel uniquely valued and like they’re part of your special community.

Get To Know Your Audience

Make it a priority to get to know your subscribers better after each email. Evaluate how subject lines impact open rates–do emojis, questions, cliff-hangers, or send times make a difference? You can learn something new about your audience every single time you send a newsletter. 

Another thing you can do is use A/B testing to isolate exactly what captures your audience’s attention the best. We highly recommend using this approach, since it provides data-backed understanding of audience preferences and tendencies. For more details on how to get started with A/B testing, check out this blog. 

One part of email marketing that’s often overlooked is scrubbing your email list every few months. The goal is to remove unengaged subscribers, which will keep your list active and refreshed. There’s no use hanging on to audience members who aren’t interested in your business! By setting up a sunset sequence in your email service provider, this process can be done automatically.

Learn more about email sequences for eCommerce businesses here. 

Send Emails Consistently

An engaged email list will be ready to buy from you when you have an offer you want to share, or are launching a new product or service. But your audience will only stay engaged if you consistently provide value. 

You don’t have to email every week, but do make a schedule and stick to it. Be upfront about how often your audience can expect an update or a newsletter, and set aside time in your schedule to make it happen. 

Remember, maintaining an engaged email audience doesn’t happen overnight. It will take consistent effort, but over time you can expect to see your open rates and click through rates increase. 

To take that first step toward truly engaging your audience, our biggest tip is to focus on writing top-tier subject lines. It’s hard to overstate the importance of subject lines in getting your audience to click on your email–this is THE reason someone will open and read your content. 

We created a full guide on writing subject lines, including tons of sample ideas, to help you take your email marketing to the next level. Download the full guide below–and don’t forget to send us a message to let me know how it goes!