Won’t I lose “good” subscribers if I cull my list

That’s not a great open rate for one of my emails, but this wasn’t a particularly arresting email, either. It was just meant to say thanks to people. I got a ton of replies to it, though. Easily the most in months, and it was all people say how much they appreciate being on my list, and my work, so that was nice.

Compare that with the second image, which was my email that went out two weeks ago BEFORE I culled my list. That was about the END of my Kickstarter campaign, and that email had 2,200 opens. I had just put out 30+ emails out in September, so this is probably LOWER than usual by a bit. Also, since I had just sent 30+ emails, the clicks were lower as well. Still, my last email had 500 more opens and over 7,000 fewer people reading it.

This third image is from a few months ago, before I started the Ichabod pre-launch emails, and the last time I sent a basic, no call to action email. You can see that one had 2,900 opens, about 200 above my last email.

All three of these emails are within my standard email range, from 2,000 opens to 4,000 opens, depending on the week and the hookiness of the subject line.

This is really important, though, if you are going to cull.

I try really hard not to cull anybody that has already bought my work on Kickstarter, or replied to any of my emails, because I assume they are engaged.

I keep specific lists where those people are segmented out on their own so I know not to delete them. I have over 60 different segments to capture everyone who is in any of the segments I won’t cull, and then I cross-reference them against my main list when I want to cull.

I did have ONE time where my opened dropped by half after one of my first culls, so I am very cautious now. It legit went from 5,000 down to 3,000 overnight, and I nearly lost my mind.

I still haven’t recovered to that level, but most of those people were on my list for freebies and my list is filled with higher quality subscribers now.

One other thing I realized early on was that just because somebody was opening my emails didn’t mean they were interested in my work. I used to do a lot of freebies and such, and those got HUGE open and click rates, but my INCOME wasn’t going up, because those people were there for the freebies and NOT for my actual work.

So, yes. I did cut a lot of people who were opening my emails, but not a lot of people who were buying my work, and my INCOME didn’t suffer, even though the vanity metrics of my opens did quite a bit. This is a decision you have to make. I wanted to focus HARD on people who really wanted my work, which meant cutting a bunch of people who opened my freebie emails to focus on people who really wanted to be there for the right reasons.

So my answer to that question is a resounding no, if done correctly, culling people from your list shouldn’t affect your opens, or your income. However, I recommend doing the cull right after a big launch so you can hopefully capture everyone who cares about your work.

Hopefully these images show that you can cull your list without losing any, or at least any significant, engagement.