Posted by For whatever reason, you have an old email list sitting idle on your computer, and you’d love to move it to an email platform to see if you can revive it.
How do you go about it?
First, put your list through something called an Email Hygiene Service. You can find several of these from a simple Google search.
Your goal here is to remove invalid addresses and spam traps, so that you get better deliverability and higher opens. Plus, you won’t be paying for bad addresses.
Once you’ve cleaned your list, it’s time to move it to an autoresponder. Many autoresponder services will NOT allow you to migrate a large, unverified list.
However, a few of them will allow it. As of this writing, GetResponse, ArpReach and SendEagle will allow you to do this.
And ArpReach is a self-hosted alternative you might explore.
When you send out your first email, it’s a good idea to explain who you are and how they got on your list, as well as your intentions. Expect to get a good number of unsubscribes, which is fine. You don’t want people on your list who don’t want to be there.
You might want to give them an idea of what to expect from you in the coming days. Offering bribes can work wonders (I’ll be sending you a free ___ and a free___) as well as using enticing, curiosity provoking bullet points.
Most of all, have fun and put plenty of personality into your emails.
If you’re having fun writing emails to your list, then hopefully they will have fun reading them, and will stay on your list and click your links.