#75: I’ve ghosted my list for months, now what do I do?

Office Operations

This month I’m doing Q&A and I’m going to start off with a question I recently saw in one of my Facebook groups: “I’ve ghosted my list for months and now I don’t know what to do.”

This is a great question because I think at some point or another in our business, we’ve all done some form of ghosting.

You get busy and before you know it, it’s been 3 months since you posted on social media. Or you took on a few extra clients and stopped sending marketing emails to your list. Or maybe you’ve had a pivot in your business and you may want to head in a new direction and are stuck in limbo. A crisis happened and you had to step away for a while…

Things come up in business all the time, so just understand that it’s not as uncommon as you think.

In this quick video, I give you a couple of ideas to get you moving back in the right direction:

This month I’m doing Q&A and I’m going to start off with a question I recently saw in one of my Facebook groups and that is, “I’ve ghosted my list and now I don’t know what to do. Do I email them and apologize? What’s the best plan?”

This is a great question because I think at some point or another in our business, we’ve all done some form of ghosting. You get busy and before you know it, it’s been 3 months since you posted on social media. Or you took on a few extra clients and stopped sending marketing emails to your list. Or maybe you’ve had a pivot in your business and you may want to head in a new direction and are stuck in limbo, or a crisis happened and you had to step away for a while.

Things come up in business all the time, so just understand that it’s not as uncommon as you think. Here are a couple of ideas to get you moving back in the right direction:

#1

Be transparent and let them know what is going on. Emailing a sales email after a long hiatus with no explanation will probably fall flat or worse, they will click spam because they don’t remember you. Don’t be afraid to say things like, “I know it’s been a while and I’m sorry.” Tell your readers what’s been going on in your life, maybe many of them can relate.

Many years ago when I had been in business for just a couple of years I had to shut down when my son was diagnosed with lymphoma. I had no time to do client work let alone send out marketing emails so I sort of shut down my business for four months. When I was ready to come back, I sent a simple email explaining what was happening and at that time, I think I had like 100 subscribers, not one of them clicked spam or opted out. After all, we are all human.

#2

Provide an offer. I don’t mean add everyone to a re-engagement campaign, that’s more of a long-term strategy, what I mean is simply give them something without expectation. Some examples that I’ve seen is that a friend of mine realized that working with wedding organizers was not her thing and she wanted to focus mostly on helping photographers with their social media so she offered her list a free social media checklist for those who may be interested. Not only did it provide a handy checklist, but she could gauge who on her list may be interested. Maybe you can offer a free webinar or something that will get you reacquainted.

Just remember that unsubscribes are ok. The initial unsubscribes may sting a little, but that first email is the hardest part. Once you get back your momentum, you’ll forget about it and focus on moving forward and back to providing value.

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