3 Ways to Shake Up and Refresh Your Email List in 2023

Now that we’re heading into 2023, it’s time to shake up and refresh our email lists.

If there is one hill that I would absolutely die on, it would be the value in having and growing your email list. And as we get ready for the new year, now is a good time to get back on track with where you want to be with it. We want our audience to get to a place where they know the knowledge we’re sharing in our newsletters is incredibly valuable and worth opening an email for. 

So, if your email list has been dormant for a while, the tips I’ll be sharing today are a good place to reawaken and reinvigorate it to start 2023 off right. Even if you don’t have any opt-ins yet and are just thinking about building up your email list, these tips will be a really great way to start.

Why is an Email List So Important Anyway?

Social media is a fantastic way to reach your audience and engage with them on a daily basis. However, what if social media fails? (Remember when Facebook and Instagram both crashed completely for hours a couple of years ago?) When social media outlets shut down unexpectedly – which is always a risk – we lose our ability to reach our audience. And that’s a huge problem if you’re banking your entire business on your social media reach.

That’s only one example of why building your email list is so worth your time but aside from that, once you have your list, those names on that spreadsheet or PDF or wherever you’ve collected them belong to you. These are people who opted to hear from you and that collection of names is yours and is not something that can ever be turned off unexpectedly. Even if you move from provider to provider whether you’re moving from Flodesk to MailChimp or anywhere else, that list will move with you because you own it. 

Plus, emails are a much stronger way to reach people consistently. Combined with your social media strategy, you can’t go wrong! So, if you’re ready to reinvigorate your email list or even get started on one, keep reading for my best tips to shake up and refresh your email list in 2023.

1. Don’t Sleep on Your Freebies

Sorry, there’s really no easier way to say that with a more positive spin. Your freebies are what you’re exchanging with somebody who is going to opt in to your email list for future communications. Freebies can manifest in coupon codes, free shipping, discounts, and more. We’ve all encountered them hundreds of times. 

I’m a big believer that the month of January is essentially onboarding for the rest of the year. Although we might still be recovering from the holidays, January is for getting all of our ducks in a row, getting our personal and business goals down on paper, and gearing up for the new year which, for me, begins on February 1. 

So, when I say don’t sleep on your freebies – particularly in the beginning of the year – you might be feeling this pressure to create a brand new freebie. However, it’s the beginning of the year and you’re so busy planning for the year ahead that creating a brand new freebie just seems like a lot. Here’s the thing though. You don’t have to try to reinvent the wheel. I know there’s something in your business that you can use as a freebie that you haven’t thought about yet or just haven’t marketed in a while. Don’t kill yourself trying to create and market a brand new freebie from the ground up. Instead, take a freebie that you already have and give it a little bit of love. 

Something else that isn’t talked about enough is recycling and repurposing old content. Recycling content is self-love. If you’re set on creating a new freebie, make it easier on yourself by finding a piece of content to recycle to use as your new freebie. Most of the work already exists. The content is already made; you just might have to reformat or expand on it a bit. You probably already have a sleeper hit sitting somewhere in your content bank that you could repurpose into something new. Look back and think about an old freebie that was popular at the time or even an Instagram post that went semi-viral. Either of these things could be your sleeper hit. You’ve already tapped into some insight that your audience was interested in. Use it.

Now, the next step is, talk about your freebie and don’t stop talking about it. Give your freebie the love that it deserves. Otherwise, your audience won’t even know that it exists. This means Instagram captions, stories, lives, TikTok videos, even Facebook ads. The greatest way to get people interested and ready to hand their email address over to you is to raise their awareness about what you can offer. Ask yourself who did you make this freebie for and why is it worthwhile? What is its monetary value? Even if you never plan on selling it, give it a price point so your audience has a firm visual of the value that they’re receiving for free. 

Finally, make it easy to sign up for your freebie. Think about the least disruptive way to get someone on your email list. This could be your link in bio or even links directly through your Instagram stories. On your website, this could be a pop up or a little form fill box. Ideally, signing up to your email list would be as easy as entering your email and clicking submit. It can’t always be that simple but do a little research to see what this would look like for you. 

2. How to Prime Your Audience to Open Emails Every Time

It’s a little self-explanatory but worth defining just in case. Your open rate is the percentage of how often people open one of your emails. However, just because you’ve created a new freebie, it doesn’t mean that your open rate will be any greater than when you first delivered that freebie. This is why you need to prime your audience to open your emails every time. 

When someone signs up for one of your freebies, this creates the perfect opportunity to make the most out of your email newsletters. People are going to be looking for that freebie in their emails. That makes the copy inside of that email very powerful. It’s a great opportunity to – in a very brief way – show your voice and write the really delightful copy that you want to be known for. 

The way that I write the email that delivers my freebie is understanding that people are going to have tunnel vision. They’re going to go directly for the freebie and may not pay attention to much else. So, my goal in that initial email is to give them the freebie as quickly as possible. This shows that I do not waste their time or make things harder for them. The copy that I do have in there is just a quick, very brief elevator pitch to give an example of my voice and what they can expect that they’re on my email list. Then, of course, I make the actual freebie easy to locate and easy to download as that is, after all, why they’ve opened the email and why this email is going to have the highest open rate. So, we don’t want to bungle that opportunity. 

My biggest suggestion for the copy that you write in your freebie delivery email is to write like you’re talking to a friend. That’s my favorite suggestion to really flex your brand voice. This has helped me so much, especially as a copywriter writing for other people. We can forsake a lot of what we learned and academia on how we’re “supposed to write.” It doesn’t have to be that way. Write like you’re writing to a friend because now that they’re on your email list, they are your friend. So, welcome them. Tell them how glad you are that they’re here with you and use this opportunity to fold in little golden nuggets of personality. Delightful copy in short form is the name of the game here. 

When you show your value in this very first email and you communicate thoroughly and concisely what someone can expect, it’s only going to incentivize them to open your emails in the future. So, this opportunity is really valuable. Ensure that it’s thoughtful and intentional and don’t waste it.

Lastly, after that initial email, don’t ghost your list. No one likes to be ghosted. You’ll see a general decline in your email open rate after that first email until it finally plateaus. Those first few emails are going to be among the most opened. This gives you more opportunities to make a lasting impression and show your subscribers how much you value them to incentivize them to keep coming back and continuing to open those emails. This is why automated welcome sequences exist – to give your subscribers the red carpet experience after they opt in to your freebie. Although it’s a lot of work up front to create a welcome sequence, it’s the antidote to ghosting and to keeping your audience engaged without the pressure of trying to come up with a newsletter every week. Once those opt-ins begin rolling in, you’ll feel really good knowing that your subscribers are getting your absolute best and you don’t have to do anything. 

3. Your List is Not a Means to an End

This has been the biggest game changer for me. However, it requires a bit of a mindset shift. Mindset shifts happen over time, so my hope is that this will plant a seed so in time, you’ll be able to change your perspective on how you approach your email list. 

Your list is not a means to an end. What I mean by this is we begin building our email list through the lens of a funnel or a need to sell. While this approach is not flawed, there is a better way that could be more beneficial both for you and for the real humans reading on the other side of your emails. 

Think about the emails that you’ve subscribed to. Many if not all of them are selling to you. How radical would it be to deliberately choose not to sell to your list? That could be the change that people want to see. That could be a reason why people continue to open your emails in the future. They feel safe in your emails knowing you’re not going to try to sell to them but instead are only going to try to connect and find common ground and share a collective experience. 

Now, to clarify, I’m not saying don’t sell to your lists. You absolutely should. However, you should reach out to your list outside of your launches and the opportunities you have to sell. For example, for every ten emails that you send, maybe only one or two of those are related to a sale or promotion. Depending on your business goals and needs, this may or may not be entirely realistic for you. But I strongly believe that a majority of your emails should be ones designed to connect and build rapport with your subscribers.  

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Like every other area of life, your email list needs to be tended to consistently. If you haven’t reached out to your email list in a while, don’t feel shameful or guilty. It’s okay. As we head into 2023, strive to improve in the future. Don’t stress about creating brand new freebies but instead use content that you already have that you can repurpose or revive, prime your audience to continue to open your emails by creating concise copy that showcases your personality while building rapport. 

2023 is a brand new year. Let’s start it off by building a great email community.