Do I ever review or remove subscribers?
Good question from Frazer on my earlier post this week, worth a deep dive
A few days ago I posted about how I did an audit of my social media and content creation (post here in case you missed it).
To which loyal subscriber Frazer asked:
“In your audit do you review followers subscribers and remove/unfollow unproductive ones?”
Great question, although my answer may be underwhelming.
When it comes to social media and also email lists, I don’t really do follower reviews or mass unsubscribes or unfollows, largely for 2 reasons.
First, is because I do that on an as-needed basis. This is moreso on social media than email but if I get connected to someone who ends up being spammy, salesy, lame, etc., then I just un-follow or mute or unsubscribe right away. There is no point in waiting and the benefit there is if I mute them, they can still follow/read/like my content and I don’t have to see theirs.
It really doesn’t happen very often, but I do this on an on-going basis, not something I want to wait and do during my audit that I only do a few times per year (again, read my previous post linked above for the full reason why and how I do audits).
Second, I’ve heard mixed reviews about doing things like email list scrubbing, especially since the email providers that be (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) have made it even harder to track emails.
What I mean by this is that no matter which email platform you might use for your email list (Substack, Convertkit, etc.), their open rates may not be 100% accurate, so I don’t want to lose subscribers for no good reason.
For those who don’t know, one thing people used to recommend is to “scrub” your email list a few times per year (as in, filter by subscribers who have not opened your emails for a minimum of X months and just delete them). This helps ensure you have an engaged list and higher open rate.
But with email being harder to track than ever, you just never know whether some of those people may actually be reading some (or all) of your emails, so I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Plus, even if they haven’t been reading your emails, maybe it’s your next email that hits their inbox, piques their interest and converts them into a loyal reader.
So for those reasons I don’t do any subscriber reviews, scrubs, etc.
Hope this helps Frazer, and of course, always open to your thoughts or questions in the comments.
And if you need any other help, don’t forget I have a few more slots for free business coaching calls that you can book with me here to talk about your business, struggles, sales, content creation, etc.
Have a great day,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai