What percentage of your email list is inactive?

You might be surprised to discover that 60% is a pretty average number for most businesses.

If inactive (aka cold) subscribers make up such a high percentage of your list, you might be “average” — but you’re also in trouble.

Inactive subscribers lead to …

• Higher spam complaints
• Skewed open and click-through rates
• Higher bounce rate
• Wasted $$ if your email marketing service charges by subscriber numbers

On the flip side, cleaning up and re-engaging your email list can make a HUGE difference in the results you’re getting from your email marketing program.

So how do you go about that?

Email Monks posed this question to me and 23 other email experts (including Ann Handley and the ever-elusive Ry Schwartz) — and got a pretty wide range of responses. To sum it up: There’s no one strategy for email list hygiene. How you approach it really depends on your business, customers and goals.

BUT the post has some amazing ideas to get you started, so I highly recommend you check it out.

>> 24 Experts Speak: How to Improve Engagement with Your Email Subscribers and Re-Engage Inactives

For the record, when I sent my own answers to Email Monk, I was talking about The Content Lab — and that’s not clear in the post. I’m actually in the process of redoing my entire email strategy for Horizon Peak Consulting. So if you’re not on the HPC VIP list, get on it right here!