Stop Hoarding Subscribers. Your Newsletter Doesn't Need Them.
Okay, so I got asked a question this week that I get ALL the time from people growing newsletters...
"Should I accept this borderline subscriber source or not?"
Somebody's building a newsletter, they get a cross-promotion opportunity or a recommendation from another newsletter, and the audience fit is... eh. Not perfect. Not terrible. Their gut says no, but they don't want to leave subscribers on the table.
Here's my answer, and it's super simple.
Accept it. Then monitor it for 30 days.
That's it. That's the framework. If those subscribers are opening at 40% or more after 30 days... awesome, keep them. If they're not? Delete them.
Not unsubscribe. DELETE.
I want to be really clear on that part because it trips people up. There's a difference. You want nothing sitting in the background of your list dragging you down. Dead subscribers hurt your deliverability, they hurt your open rates, and they make every future email you send perform worse. A subscriber that never opens isn't an asset... it's an anchor.
Now, one caveat. Before you delete someone, check WHY they went cold.
If it's a bot, a fake account, or a bad email address... delete immediately. No mercy. That's not a person, that's spam sitting on your list.
But if it's a real person with just a low open rate? Send them a follow-up first. Maybe they forgot about you. Maybe your emails landed in promotions. Give them one shot to re-engage, track it for 30 days, and THEN make the call.
The other thing that came up on this call was how to actually grow, and I'll give you the short version because people way overcomplicate this:
- Local newsletter? Meta ads. That's the channel. 100%.
- National or niche newsletter? Paid recommendations. That's the standard playbook.
Don't mix these up and don't go looking for some secret third option. The boring answer is the right answer here.
But honestly, the growth channel matters way less than people think in the early days. The person I was talking to is around issue 23 of their newsletter, and comparing issue 1 to issue 23 is night and day. That's the real work. Get the content to the point where YOU would want to read it, then throw money at growth. Not the other way around.
Because here's the thing... paid growth on top of a mediocre newsletter just means you're paying to churn people faster. Fix the product first.
So if you're building a list right now, here's your homework:
Go look at your subscriber list today. Find the people who haven't opened anything in 30+ days. Send the re-engagement email. Then next month, delete everyone who didn't come back.
Your list will be smaller. It will also be BETTER. Better opens, better deliverability, better data on what's actually working.
Quality over vanity metrics. Every single time.
Stay in the fight, Kevin