Are You Training Your List to Ignore You?

You send campaigns. You launch products. You write clever subject lines.

And yet you get nothing but crickets.

So you conclude that maybe email marketing just doesn’t work. It’s dead. It’s a relic of the past.

Not so fast. 

You might not realize it, but you might have TRAINED your list to ignore your emails. Most brands don’t realize every email shapes their lists behavior. 

But that also means you can retrain your list to pay attention again (and start buying from you).

This article will show you how — starting with the habits that might be sabotaging you right now.

Table of Contents

What Does it Mean to “Train” Your List? Common Mistakes That Kill Engagement (And Train Subs to Ignore You) How To Retrain Your List Train Your List to Listen and Engage What To Do Next

What Does it Mean to “Train” Your List?

Emails set expectations about the brand, your tone, timing, topics, and types of content you provide, and more.

These expectations solidify into habits as time goes on.

If your emails are consistently helpful, fun to read, or valuable in some way, people learn to open them…

But if your emails are repetitive, boring, or irrelevant, people learn to scroll past — or worse, mark you as spam.

Every email you send shapes your subscriber’s behavior in some way… and how they respond to you. 

Thus, firing off random stuff with no proper plan or strategy can dig you into a hole that’s harder to climb out of.

Your true goal is to build consistent sending habits that elicit positive reactions. That means engagement, sales, and loyalty.

Common Mistakes That Kill Engagement (And Train Subs to Ignore You)

So… what are the habits that quietly kill engagement?

The ones that slowly teach your subscribers to ignore you?

Here are some of the most common ways brands accidentally train their list to stop caring — and what to do instead if you want people to actually read (and click).

1. Only Sending During Sales/Holidays

Many brands ONLY email during sales and holidays. Christmas, Black Friday, Valentine’s Day, American Independence Day, and so on.

This trains your list to associate your brand with “We just want your money.” You only show up when it’s time for the average person to do some relevant shopping.

Furthermore, mailing ONLY during holidays can decrease campaign performance because you haven’t been building that relationship. 

You pop up out of nowhere. Your subscribers don’t really know, like, or trust you. They’re less likely to buy as a result.

How to fix it:

Send throughout the year to build the relationship and increase trust. 

That way, when promos roll around, you aren’t “some random brand” in the inbox… and customers trust your offers much more.

2. No REAL Content Besides Pitches

Let’s say you DO mail outside the holidays. 

If all you do is pitch products, subscribers stop engaging. They get nothing of value from the emails. They have no reason to open, so they stop engaging, unsubscribe… or even mark the emails as spam!

And if you do constant discount promotions, some also start to ask themselves why you charge $X if the product is constantly discounted.

The customer starts to think you’re overcharging. They are trained to see your product as worth the discounted amount.

Oh, and constant obvious promos and pitches throw your email into the dreaded promo tab. People check that FAR less than their main inbox.

Lastly, this cheapens your holiday sales. Why buy then when you could just buy at any given time throughout the year?

How to fix it:

It’s ok to SELL in every email, but you need some sort of valuable and/or entertaining content with that pitch.

Things like:

• Customer stories
• Product stories
• Tips on solving customer problems/achieving goals
• Product usage ideas
• New blog posts/YouTube videos/other content assets
• Educational content

You then tie the content to the product in some way. 

This is FOUNDATIONAL to proper email marketing.

3. Inconsistent Cadence

Sending randomly, with no rhyme or reason to the day and time, will confuse your list. But, more importantly, it won’t train them on when to expect emails.

This causes engagement to fall since they aren’t waiting for “the usual” email at “the usual” time.

And, of course, if your inconsistent cadence entails disappearing for a few weeks and then springing up again…

They’ll forget who you are and might unsubscribe.

I’ve been on the subscriber end of this a few times. I always thought, “Wait, who is this, and when the hell did I sub?”

How to fix it:

Establish a regular cadence at the BARE minimum. That could be as simple as sending Tuesday and Thursday at 10am every week. A good first step.

Eventually, you’ll want to build a content calendar so you can make your messaging more intentional and build it around a long-term strategy. You might send emails about specific themes or products on different days of the week.

For example, a supplement brand I worked with sent on the following thematic schedule:

• Monday: The Bestselling Product
• Tuesday: Weight Loss/Body Composition
• Thursday: Gut Health
• Friday: Energy/Sleep

Keep in mind that if you’re just starting to mail, you WILL get an unsubscribe spike. That’s a GOOD thing — it’s shedding “dead weight” from the list.

The key is to maintain your cadence through that “ripping the band-aid off.” 

Unsubscribes fall to an acceptable level and engagement rises once you get into your regular cadence.

4. Flat, Boring, “Same-ish” Subject Lines

Boring, repetitive subject lines get ignored. Boring ones don’t stand out, whereas repetitive ones train your list to tune out your sends.

Even if your offer changes, they’ll gloss over your emails should the subject lines fall flat.

That means constantly hammering “New Drop!” or “Back in Stock” or “20% Off Ends Soon” could soon be ignored. 

However, subscribers might even ignore content + offer emails if the subject line is always the same format OR it doesn’t tap into something relevant to a customer problem, goal, objection, etc.

How to fix it:

1. Know your audience: Problems, pain points, goals, objections, current events that resonate, etc. Work these into your subject/preview complex, and you’ll catch attention.
2. Switch up formats: Some classic formulas include curiosity + benefit, question, customer quotes, and storytelling (“He couldn’t fix X… until he tried Y”).

Eventually, subject line matters less as your readers are “trained” to expect good stuff from you every time (see mistakes 1-3 above). They start to open based on the fact that it’s you sending.

For example, I open at least 70% of Chris Orzechowski’s emails regardless of SL, even though I’ve been on his list for 7 years, bought everything he sells (except his brand-owner-only stuff), and worked for his clients.

He always has something valuable, entertaining, or, most often, both.

In the meantime, though, variation matters.

5. Hammering Cold/Unengaged Segments

Some subscribers go cold. They don’t open, click, check out your website, or do anything else. 

Don’t mail these people regularly. It’ll tank your metrics and harm your deliverability. That’ll make it harder to stay out of spam and trash folders.

How to fix it:

A few things:

• Clean the list of the “problem profiles”: Clean off people with email addresses that don’t work and those with other issues so that mass blasts don’t go to people you can’t reach.
• Create an Engaged Segment: Mail people who fall within an “engagement window” that keeps your open rates at 40-50%. For example, 90-day engaged. “Engaged” generally means opened, clicked, viewed product, or bought within the last X days.
• Build a Winback Flow: This sends to customers who have not bought in a while. It could secure their next sale and re-engage them without blasting them.
• Build a Sunset Sequence: This sends to customers who haven’t interacted with anything for a long time. It gives them one last chance to re-engage (or change their preferences)… then unsubscribes them.
• Only mail colder people for big promos: Such as product launches, BFCM, etc. And even then, do it only for 1-2 announcement emails and 1-2 last call emails. Don’t hit them with EVERY email in the promo.

A nice side effect of this:

You might save money. Reducing subscriber count can knock you down to lower pricing tiers with your email provider. 

6. Lacking a Brand Voice/Personality

Emails that sound “corporate” in DTC eCom generally won’t fly. Maybe in some high-minded academic niche, but that’s the exception that proves the rule.

Worse, clear AI-sounding copy. I 100% use AI to write copy for clients, but it’s still me adjusting and tweaking and refining it (I have a whole system for nailing this).

People connect with your brand when you have a distinct voice that resonates with them and remains consistent across all your emails.

Bland, uninspired copy will cause their eyes to glaze over and to stop opening your emails.

How to fix it:

Write in a more regular, “person-to-person” manner while maintaining a distinct brand voice and style.

You may need to develop this over time, or you can even hire someone (I know a guy) to do it for you.

That said, your emails don’t have to come “from” the founder if your brand isn’t a founder-led operation with a more public-facing founder who has a unique voice.

You can make them come “from” John in Marketing, or Doug the Intern, or Sarah, Marketing Strategist.

Some say “write like you talk,” and that’s half-true. Write in a polished, consistent version of how an individual might speak to another. Not just “write like you talk.”

How To Retrain Your List

Don’t panic if your list has ignored you. You can always reset things and train them in the other direction.

It takes a bit of time and effort, but the payoff (revenue, LTV, etc.) is worth it.

Here are a few quick tips for retraining them:

• Start with content. 

Don’t lead with a promo. Start with the standard content + offer approach. Educational content, product tips, storymonials, so on and so forth.

• Send a reintro email.

Reset expectations, reestablish your brand voice, and tell people what to expect going forward. 

This isn’t entirely necessary (I’ve started regular sends abruptly with clients who don’t mail, and things went fine) but it can help you psychologically ease into mailing.

• Don’t blast the whole list.

Send only to warmer subscribers (such as those who have been on your site) to avoid deliverability issues. Basically, an engaged segment that you widen or tighten based on open rates.

Isolate colder subs and try to re-engage them in small amounts.

It’s not the end of the world if you have to shed people. You should always be driving new leads (ideally BUYERS) to your customer list.

Train Your List to Listen and Engage

Email doesn’t just sell or communicate. Each send shapes the subscriber’s behavior with respect to your brand and your email marketing.

They’ll learn what to expect from you and how to respond over time. So if they’re ignoring you now… you can turn things around.

Regular sends containing content + offers with a distinct brand voice are key to doing this. Send to your engaged subscribers, with occasional attempts to reactivate colder ones.

It doesn’t take a massive overhaul to do this. Making moderate changes consistently can retrain and reset your audience, encouraging them to open, click, and buy.

What To Do Next

1. Share this article with someone who might find it helpful (or entertaining).
2. Get my free eBook using the form below to learn the 5 things stopping you from turning “one-and-done” customers into repeat buyers.
3. Reach out to me if you have a sizable email list and make less than 20% of your revenue through email.