Make your list fall in love with you

A couple days ago I found someone on X complaining about having low open rates…

I found out that the person “fixed” his problem by cleaning up his list from the dead contacts. Now… His opens went up… But in the long term that’s not a good approach.

Why?

Simply because deleting dead contacts isn’t going to get more people to open and read your emails. The same people will be opening them, just the open rate will be higher so you can jerk off to it…

Instead…

What he should focus on is writing emails that people want to read.

He is already mailing fairly consistently, so that’s good. But I don’t feel like his emails are written with anyone in mind and that’s a huge mistake.

You can’t write for no one.

Good writing is writing that’s written to SOMEONE. A flesh and blood person with feelings and desires and problems just like everyone else.

Another thing is that…

You have to know that person.

It’s not enough to say, oh, I will be writing for “entrepreneurs with productivity problems”. No, you have to know them(e.i. do your research).

Afterall…

If you don’t know them… How are you going to write something they’ll want to read? You don’t know what they want.

Okay…

Just doing these two things — writing to someone, and knowing that person — would marginally improve this guy’s relationship with his list. It might not get him higher open rates because open rates are unreliable… But…

The relationship will be there.

People will be happy to find his mail in their inbox.

Maybe not all of them… But a couple of hardcore fans are still better than 2000 who open your emails just to delete them.

Of course, these are just some of the core basic things. You will need to do more to develop a great relationship with the people on your list but to start, this will do it.

Kristof Nemeth.