Hi Rabbi [LAST_NAME GOES HERE],

Just because you have an email to send, it does not mean that you should be emailing everyone on your list.

I know this sounds ironic, especially coming from the person who’s always talking about why you should send MORE emails (and HOW).

But blast your emails to everyone always, and you wreck your deliverability, reputation, and – eventually – your revenue.

Why?

1. You Spamify yourself

Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, etc. don’t read your emails (no matter how value-packed). They ‘read’ subscriber behavior.

When Mr. Everyman doesn’t want your words of wisdom…

• He won’t open
• He marks you as spam
• He ignores you (repeatedly)
• He deletes without reading

The algorithm takes note: “This sender is unwanted.”

Do that enough times, and you slide from the prime Primary Inbox spot…to Promotions…to Spam…to DBD (done before delivery).

2. You torch your domain/sender reputation

Think of your email reputation like a credit score. One bad stretch and your credit goes way down, which can take years to undo.

A damaged reputation means…

• Appeals fall flat
• Campaigns underperform
• Launches land in unread folders

To rebuild your reputation takes months, and it’s sometimes impossible to reach the same reputation you once had.

3. You waste money (and data)

A big list feels impressive, but an unengaged list lies to you. It makes you think you have more potential donors than you do, because if you’re list is bad, you’ll have:

• Worse open/click rates
• Worse conversion data

You might be sweating over better subject lines, but many of your recipients won’t get the emails, won’t open the emails, and won’t respond to the emails.

If you have a list of 20,000, but only 23% open your emails (and even fewer give), you’re doing WORSE than if you cleaned your list even to a number as extreme as 4,000, but had a much higher percentage of those people donating.

So what do you do?

Segment by engagement.

• If people are active, email them more often
• If people don’t touch your emails generally, leave them out of most

The goal isn’t to email more people, but to email the right people.

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