Re-engaging cold subscribers is super doable! Today, I’ll share a 14-day strategy to help you do just that.
But here’s the thing. Building an engaged email list starts with not being afraid to lose subscribers who aren’t meant for your business!
So if you’ve been struggling with cold leads, listen in on this AskLiz session for the fix!
Today’s question is coming from Nadalie Bardo of YourPinCoach.com, who I know does a lot of collabs to reach new people. That’s a fantastic way to grow an email list, but what happens when we forget to reach out to our new leads for a while?
The tactic I’ll share today is all about being upfront to re-engage the people who actually want to stick around with you.
It’s also a great way to get a bunch of unsubscribes! That’s right. We’re letting some people go today. If you tune in, you’ll learn why that helps your brand level up!
Don’t miss this session, and please keep sending me your business questions at SpeakPipe.com/LizWilcox!
You’ll Learn
- What happens when a collab brings in the wrong audience
- Assimilating new leads into your main email marketing list
- Why you shouldn’t worry about people unsubscribing
- The two-week daily email strategy to re-engage cold leads
- Overcoming the fear of removing people from your list
- How paid ads can help boost the re-engagement strategy
Resources
- Send in your online business questions at SpeakPipe.com/LizWilcox to be featured on the show and get some awesome free swag
- Subscribe to Superfans Secrets—our weekly newsletter on the strategies behind building real relationships with your audience, delivered free, straight to your inbox
- Check out our special deal at SmartPassiveIncome.com/2026 and use the code SECRET50 to join the SPI Community at 50% off your subscription for life
- Connect with me on Instagram
AL 018: How Do I Re-Engage My Cold Subscribers?
Liz Wilcox: Hello, my friend. It is another episode of Ask Liz. You already know this is that mini little podcast episode where you get to be featured. You get to ask me just about anything. So before we get started, I just want to personally say thanks for listening. It means a lot. Literally, every single download blows my mind.
So I’m glad you’re here. So I just said “so” twice, but we’re, we’re gonna keep that in because I want you to know around here, podcasting, it ain’t easy, baby. I mean, we can make it a lot easier by just being ourselves and just letting ourselves ramble, right? And letting ourselves be unedited, unfiltered.
Listen, you do not have to be perfect to start a podcast. You do not have to be perfect to start on the path to smart passive income, okay? So I’m gonna let Nadalie take it away, and Nadalie is an amazing Pinterest coach, and also she’s really good at teaching people collaboration. She didn’t introduce herself in the clip, so I’m introducing her now.
Take it away, Nadalie.
Nadalie Bardo: Hey, Liz. I need your help. I have around 2,000 subscribers within my Kit account that I gained from hosting a summit a few years ago, and it’s totally my bad. I have not been emailing them regularly, mostly because, like, they’re focused on a topic that is not my main business topic.
So here I am trying to re-engage them, but unfortunately, nothing is really getting the click-through rate up around… I’ve noticed that every time I send an email it’s usually the same amount of people who unsub as click, and I’m just not sure what to do here. Do you have any ideas on how I can re-engage this audience and almost like assimilate them into the focuses that I do have?
Because I feel so stuck. Help!
Liz Wilcox: All right. Have no fear, Liz is here. So I wanna point out a few things that you said, Nadalie. First and foremost, these 2,000 people, not my main biz topic, right? So if I’m teaching smart passive income but I do a summit around, I don’t know, gardening, right, it’s, it’s not really gonna make any sense, right?
Or let’s say, you know, I used to only teach email, right? So if I’m teaching email, all of a sudden these are people simply interested in Pinterest, you know, it might not be the exact right fit, right? But I’m assuming that, Nadalie, while they’re not the exact right fit, there’s probably some sort of adjacent thingamajig going on here, right?
So the unsubs and the clicks are great. It’s 50/50. Nadalie, you are in a good spot, baby girl. I’m so excited about this because that means about half of the people that are opening are not interested and about half are interested, right? So this is really, really good. And the, and the other half that’s just not opening or doing anything, we are either going to get rid of them by the end of this strategy, or they will just naturally fall off and unsubscribe themselves as we go along.
So you’re in a really, really good spot. First and foremost, before I give you any sort of strategy, I want to say, do not be afraid to let these subscribers go. Y’all listening, it is a mindset thing that Nadalie is going through. Like, yes, of course, 2,000 subscribers, that is no small feat. We wanna save them if we can save them, but a lot of them are, are not meant to be saved.
A lot of them are meant for that summit, that event that Nadalie hosted, and then we’re releasing them back into the World Wide Web, okay? So we must be willing to let them go. So first and foremost, I want you, for 14 days, I want you to write an email every single day. I want you to keep these emails short and sweet, and these are the ones that are being sent to about that 2,000 people mark.
These emails are about the focuses you do have, right? So if this was an summit around gardening, but you teach smart passive Income, talk to them about the different facets and aspects of SPI every single day. Y’all feel me? You feel me. So again, keep them short and sweet. “Hey, this is my number one tip for this.
Hey, I’m doing a 14 day…” You could even tell them it’s a 14-day series. Actually, I like that idea because they’re going to unsubscribe faster. We want unsubscribes. That’s me gasping. Yes, we want unsubscribes because we want to get rid of the people that aren’t meant to be there. So, “Hey, I’m doing a 14-day series on X topic.”
I know Nadalie teaches Pinterest, so let’s just assume this is Pinterest, right? “Hey, I’m gonna teach you a few different aspects about Pinterest over the next 14 days.” And then those people that don’t really wanna be there, that makes them take action, either open and start clicking and start learning, open and unsubscribe, right?
Right. So you’re gonna get loads of unsubs And then you’re gonna get those clicks, right? You said about half clicks, about half unsub. So we’re gonna get lots more clicks very quickly, and that is gonna be really good for your deliverability. At the end of the 14 days, we’re gonna identify who is a cold subscriber, and a cold subscriber is someone who hasn’t opened in the last 30, 60, 90 days, whatever, right?
But because, you know, Nadalie’s been emailing sporadically kind of here and there, right, we probably have a lot of cold subscribers. But when we send the 14, we are gonna know, like, yes, they are cold because I’ve sent 14 emails over 14 days, or now I’ve engaged them. I’ve moved them out of cold into warm leads.
So we wanna identify those cold subscribers, and we wanna delete them at the end of the 14 days. You might wanna wait till, like, day 17 or 18, ’cause some people, you know, maybe they only check that inbox once a week or, you know, they are ignoring you because they’re cold. They’re not exactly the right audience, but then they see you emailed three or four days in a row.
On the fifth day, you finally get the email, right? Email opened. So you might wanna wait till, you know, send 14 days of emails. Wait till day 17. Identify those cold subscribers, and then delete them. Delete them from or unsubscribe them, whatever. It doesn’t matter. Same thing. Now, if you wanted to go extra and be extra, which you might, while you’re sending those 14 days of emails, you could also run ads to those same people, right?
You could download that CSV from Kit and upload it onto Facebook and run meta ads to those people, and those ads would be, you know, maybe even the same content. Maybe you’re running it to blog posts. Maybe you’re running it to your freebie, like your regular lead magnet that is more you focused, right?
It’s not off topic like how they joined. It’s on topic. So you could run, uh, lead generate. Even though they’re already there, they’re already on the list, this is them opting in. This is them switching their mind. They, now I see Nadalie’s face on meta. Oh, she’s got this awesome lead magnet I want. I’m gonna grab it, right?
So th- then they’re gonna be turned into a warm lead. Again, that’s extra. That’s, like, extra credit, A++ work. Personally, I don’t really run ads, but if you wanted a more comprehensive, you wanted to really maximize the opportunity, I would suggest running ads if you already are.
All right, Nadalie, let me wrap this up by saying, again, you must be willing to let those subscribers go. But I would try like a 14-day sequence.
Again, short and sweet emails. Send them out, identify who really just doesn’t give a crap, right, because they’re not opening, right? Right? And then remove those people from the list, and then hopefully you’ve got all those clicks, and you’ve got some warm leads. I’m excited for you.
Psst, are you still listening? Quick, while Pat’s away, I’ve got a special little secret just for you and me. If you love this episode and want more, like a lot more, you need to get yourself into the SPI community. You know that’s where I’m hanging out as the director. My friend, it really is where the magic happens. You get access to the full Superfans System, you know, Pat Flynn’s entire framework for turning strangers into ride or die fans of your business that actually buy from your business, right?
We’ve got courses, resources, implementation guides. It’s all in there. Okay, okay, listen up. This is the part where you and I can get really close to your monetization goals. I do office hours inside the community. That’s right. You can bring your business questions. You can screen share. Whatever’s holding you back, we will figure it out together.
But here’s the secret. The SPI Community, normally $99 a month. But with the coupon code SECRET50, you get 50% off. That’s less than 50 bucks a month for life as long as you stay active. This deal is just for the people listening to this AskLiz episode, so don’t sleep on it, babe. Head to SmartPassiveIncome.com/2026 and use code SECRET50 at checkout.
I will see you in there.




