"What?"
I told her I’m deleting 5K of her email subscribers.
8,247 total subscribers. I wanted to delete 5,000 of them.
She'd spent two years building that list. Thousands in ads. Dozens of lead magnets. Webinars that ate up entire weekends.
And I wanted to torch 60% of it.
"Trust me" I said.
She didn't. But she was desperate enough to let me try.
See, those 8,247 subscribers were generating a whopping $1,940 per month. That's $0.23 per subscriber. My local barista makes more per customer per latte.
Her emails were Wikipedia articles with a CTA slapped on:
- "5 Productivity hacks for entrepreneurs"
- "How to organize your digital life"
I have no idea who TF is teaching this, but pls STOP.
Anyway…
Is it helpful? Sure.
But profitable? Hell no.
She was running an education charity, not a business.
And her list knew it. They'd trained themselves to consume her free content, feel productive about learning, then ignore anything that cost money.
Classic helpful prison.
Where you provide so much VALUE that you forget to provide TRANSFORMATION. Where you're so scared of being salesy that you become invisible.
"How many of those 8,247 people bought from you in the last 90 days?"
So I asked during our initial call.
"Maybe 40-ish?"
0.48% buyer rate.
That's not a list. That's a graveyard with email addresses.
So I did what needed to be done.
August 2023
I wrote one reengagement email.
Sent it to everyone who hadn't opened in 60 days.
~400 clicked.
~4600 didn't.
August 31st, I deleted them all.
Month 1 Post-Purge: September 2023
List size: 3,625
Revenue: $3,240
Up 67% from the previous month. With 55% fewer people.
But the real change?
I stopped writing for everyone.
No more generic tips.
I started writing about the real shit.
The 3 AM panic attacks about payroll. The client who ghosted after demanding a rush job. The family dinner where she couldn't afford to pick up the check.
Raw. Real. Relatable to the people who stayed + mattered.
Month 2: October 2023
List size: 3,701 (gained 76 organically)
Revenue: $7,820
We launched a small workshop for her.
41 people bought at $190.
She'd tried launching this exact workshop to 6K people four months earlier.
9 sales.
Same workshop. Same price. Same everything.
Except now we were selling to potential buyers, not browsers.
Month 3: November 2023
List size: 3,956
Revenue: $14,600
Something beautiful started happening.
The engaged list was SHARING the emails. Forwarding them. "Holy shit, read this" messages to their entrepreneurial friends.
When you write for everyone, you connect with no one.
When you write for someone specific? They become your sales team.
We launched her high-ticket offer. 90-day intensive at $2,100.
7 people bought. Plus workshop sales.
Month 4: December 2023
List size: 4,140
Revenue: $11,200
December dip. Client panicked.
"Maybe we should add those people back?" "Maybe we need to run ads?" "Maybe we deleted too many?"
I showed her one metric: Revenue per subscriber.
Before purge: $0.23 Current: $2.7
"You want to dilute that with cold traffic?"
She stopped panicking.
Month 5: January 2024
List size: 4,278
Revenue: $24,300
New year, new prices.
We raised her intensive to $2,850 and repositioned it differently than the last time.
Sold 8 spots. Plus workshops.
Something she didn’t even have to lift a finger for during the holidays.
Month 6: February 2024
List size: 4,412
Revenue: $29,800
Almost $30K.
That's $6.75 per subscriber per month.
Remember the $0.23?
The same offers.
Except now we were visible to the people who wanted to see us.
See, every unengaged subscriber is a poison pill for your deliverability.
Every unopened email tells Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook that you're not important.
Stack enough of those signals? Even your real fans won't see you because you'll be buried in promotions or spam.
But it's worse than just deliverability.
When you know 75% of your list doesn't care, you write scared. You hedge. You provide "value" instead of transformation. You apologize for selling.
When you know everyone on your list CHOSE to be there… recently, enthusiastically… you write like you're talking to people who get it.
That's the shift that created a 15x revenue increase.
Not better copy. Not fancier funnels. Not posting 47 times a day on social media.
But respecting the audience enough to remove the dead weight.
"But what if those deleted subscribers would have bought eventually?"
What if my grandmother had wheels? Would she be a truck?
Hope isn't a strategy. "Eventually" doesn't pay bills.
Those 4,600 deleted emails were never going to buy. They were there for the free show. The dopamine hit of consuming without implementing. The comfort of learning without changing.
Which is fine. Just not on my client's list.
Your list probably looks similar.
Check your metrics:
- Open rate under 40%?
- Click rate under 5%?
- Revenue per subscriber under $2?
You're sitting on the same opportunity.
The difference between you and my client? She let me hit delete.
Most won't. They'll cling to their vanity metrics like life preservers while their business drowns in a sea of apathy.
"I have 10K subscribers" sounds impressive at networking events.
"I make $5 per subscriber" actually pays for those events.
Choose your scorecard wisely.
Because right now, you're probably paying to maintain a list full of people who wouldn't buy water from you in the desert.
Every email you send them costs you money. Every unopened message hurts your reputation. Every "helpful" piece of content trains them to expect free forever.
Meanwhile, your real audience… the ones ready to pay for transformation, they can't find you in the noise.
Time to turn up the signal.
And that starts with turning down the noise.
P.S. If your revenue per subscriber per month is under $2, we need to talk. If you don’t know what that number even is.. we need to talk ASAP.
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