7 Simple and Smart Ways to Reconnect with Your Email List after Ghosting
You haven’t sent a newsletter in 3 months.
Or maybe it’s been a year or several.
Perhaps you haven’t posted on social media in 2 months.
How often should you email your newsletter subscribers anyway?
You wonder how often you should email your newsletter list. Is monthly too infrequent? Is three times a week too much?
There’s only a perfect email cadence for you. You get to choose how often you email your newsletter subscribers. Whatever you choose, stay consistent. Even if you promise weekly emails to your subscribers and the day of the week you send that email changes from time to time, that’s perfectly fine.
Even if you feel like you have a “small list,” we all start with one email subscriber. Many of my clients are surprised to know that my list is teensy compared with industry standards (around 1,200), and it doesn’t matter as much as you think it might.
In my first full year in business, I brought in $107,000 in revenue. List size didn’t get me to 6-figures; it was my authentic relationships and willingness to experiment and take massive action. If you offer a premium service as a done-for-you provider like a copywriter or designer, you don’t need a massive list.
Whether you have 10, 100, 1,000, or 100,000 people on your list, here’s a truth to remember:
ONE person reads your email — write to that one person and connect with one person.
Keep connecting with that one person, and you’ll build trust, let them get to know you, and bring them along on a journey.
Even though you started your new business with the best intentions of staying consistent, you might have gotten off on the right foot by emailing them each week or month, and then something happens. You get busy, it slips your mind, you miss a week, and then another, and suddenly wonder — why even bother?
Or maybe you also worry — they’ll forget all about me!
However long it’s been since you last connected with your newsletter subscribers (and even your social media followers), a break is always fine.
There’s a slim chance that your subscriber is sitting there thinking, “Why haven’t I heard from them this week? What’s going on?”
Subscribe
This question comes up a lot in my writing community for business owners. And it happens to all of us.
Business explodes, and we don’t have time to craft an email
We pivot to a new audience and don’t know what to say to our existing one
We’ve got some personal stuff going on, and sending an email is the last thing on our minds
Maybe we think we have nothing exciting or even important to say; it’s all been said before, or our thoughts are boring, so who even cares?
I’ve been there, and I know lots of business owners who have too.
You can jump right back in no matter how long you’ve been quiet.
Most importantly, you can do it without missing a beat.
Let’s start with what NOT to do first:
Don’t apologize for your absence from email or social media — ever.
Apologies are only appropriate when you make a mistake or hurt someone. Skipping a week or a few months of posting or emailing on a made-up timeline is not a mistake. You didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
A few more things NOT to say when reconnecting:
“Hi! I’m sorry I haven’t emailed you in six months… I’ve been so busy!” — you didn’t make a mistake! Stop apologizing.
“It’s been years since I last sent you an email. If you were wondering what I was doing…” — most people aren’t thinking about you or what you’re doing. That’s ego talking.
“I promise now that I’ll email you three times a week, starting today — like, for real!” Don’t commit to a communication frequency if you’re not sure. Sending irregular emails and sharing occasional social posts are perfectly fine.
In my Writing Vitamins newsletter, I promise a “weekly-ish” email. It might arrive on a Monday or a Saturday. You’ll get the email when it’s ready.
Sign up for the Writing Vitamins weekly newsletter to learn intuitive writing (the fast and easy writing process no matter what you’re writing) 👇
Here’s what to do instead to reconnect with your email newsletter audience
Skip the drama, catch them up on what’s new, and dip directly back in.
Here are 7 simple and smart ways to reconnect with your ghosted email list:
What have you learned since you last connected with your audience? Round out your learnings into a quick list and send away.
Tell a story. Without missing a beat, dive in, say HI, and launch into your story.
Grab your mic and record a 5-minute audio clip. Add a few sentences about the audio clip, and send it along.
Look at your About page for inspiration. Revise a piece of it into your email or break it into chunks to share on social media over a few days to help get reacquainted with your audience.
Start a conversation. Ask your readers to reply or send you a message with a specific ask. Have them share a win or their biggest challenge at the moment. Only do this if you plan to respond to those emails.
Gather five of your most relevant articles with links and send a round-up. Here’s an example of a blogging round-up or this one on creativity.
Resend an old piece of content — perhaps one of your most popular articles. Add a short intro into an email newsletter, and send it out.
Don’t overthink this. Writing your first message back out after ghosting your audience for a while is the first step to getting back into a consistent pace with publishing.
Connection can feel vulnerable — especially if you have some challenging things to share with your readers after taking a pause.
Standing out, speaking truth, and being visible can be super uncomfortable. Trust yourself and your intuition, and do it with confidence.
Read more articles on writing like this:
