Your heart is racing when you see people unsubscribe from your email list.

“What did I do this time? Did I say something offensive in my last email?” You ask yourself, puzzled when people decide not to want to hear from you anymore.

Maybe you won’t be in such a panic mode if you only have one or two people pulling the plug.

But the issue is people leaving your email list in droves!

You can’t seem to figure out what it is that causes people to leave your email list for good.

Well, here’s something controversial I’d like to impart to you – rejoice when people decide to unsubscribe from your email list.

Those people already do you a huge favor when they decide to leave your email list on their own accord.

The cost of having an email list

We all know the importance of having our own email list.

It’s because of this reason we put so much effort into building our email list.

Heck, I even have a dedicated post on how you can get started with building an email list in the simplest way possible.

But the thing about building an email list is that it doesn’t just cost our time to build one. Maintaining an email list can cost you money especially when you outgrew the platform’s free plan.

The larger your email list, the higher the cost will be.

No matter how much you’re raking the dough with your book sales, you still need to factor in the cost needed to maintain an email list.

Despite the cost involved, it can still be the best thing you’ve ever invested considering it has a much better conversion than social media.

And not to mention, it’s much easier to connect with your audience at a much deeper level with emails too.

You don’t get such a deep connection with your audience and vice versa on social media.

While it’s wonderful to have a large list of subscribers, it can only be worth the cost if you have subscribers eager to hear from you.

Even if you’re using a platform like Brevo which only charges you based on the number of emails you send, having people who have no interest in connecting with you can still be deadweight in your list.

And as much as it pains you to see them go, it’s even more painful when they’re not engaging with any emails you send them, even the fun ones.

The best thing to do if you want to keep your sanity in check

If they decide to leave your email list, then let them be.

You don’t need to deal with people who have no interest in what you have to say and the kind of book you write.

And your email stat will look a lot better too now that you finally get rid of the deadweights.

Of course, having people unsubscribe from your email list on their own accord will help you to save money in the long run too.

As I said, it costs money to maintain an email list especially when you have a large list.

You’re better off having a list of people who are looking forward to hearing from you even if your list isn’t as big as it used to be.

So, be glad you don’t have to nudge these people for unsubscribing from your email list since you don’t have to deal with the feeling of being ghosted anymore.

But what should you do with those subscribers who ghosted you?

We can’t just delete them all and call it a day, can we?

Well, you’re right. I don’t recommend you to purge them from your email list no matter how tempting it is.

But you can do any of these things to gauge their interest in remaining on your email list.

Let the email marketing platform do the heavy lifting for you

Email marketing platforms such as MailPoet have this amazing feature where it will stop sending emails to inactive subscribers after a specified period.

Let’s say you set it to 12 months, then it will stop sending emails to subscribers who never open any of your emails within 12 months.

From there, you can delete them from your email list or choose to engage with them instead.

You can ask them if they still want to remain on your email list.

To be honest, I don’t see any reason for you to do that since they never engaged with any of the emails you sent during that period.

It won’t make any difference anyway when they stop receiving emails from you after 12 months.

And if they decide to engage with you emails once again?

Well, let them go through the tedious process of joining your email list again.

Ask them if they would still be interested to hear from you

So, what if you don’t know whether your subscribers still want to hear from you?

If that’s you, then the best way to go about it is to send an email, asking them if they still want to hear from you.

But rather than sending a plain email, let them know they need to click on the link in the mail if they still want to remain on your email list.

You can even tell them to unsubscribe from your email list if they no longer wish to hear from you.

Doing so will make it easier for you to gauge their interest in your future communication with them.

And those people who never open the email, let alone click on the link?

Well, you can remove them from your email list without any remorse feeling.

You also don’t have to worry that you’re removing them by mistake since they make it clear that they’re fine with you removing them from your email list.

Don’t let the unsubscribe ruin your day

Okay, I won’t deny that building an email list is hard. So, it can feel rather heartbreaking when you discover that people no longer want to hear from you.

But here’s the thing you have to remember – some people join your email list just to claim your free offer.

They couldn’t care less about you and your future releases.

So, don’t be surprised if they ghost you after getting what they want from you.

Whatever reason they have to join your email list, let them leave if you no longer serve their purpose.

You feel a lot better too now that you don’t have to deal with these freebie-seekers anymore.

Rather than obsessing about people unsubscribing from your email list, you should be focusing on those who remain instead.

The fact that they’re still on your email list means they’re eager to hear from you.

So, go and send emails to these people if you haven’t already.