What are the best practices for sending a one-time email to a large list of inactive users?

Email marketer from StackOverflow explains to prioritize cleaning your email list before sending any emails. Removing invalid or non-existent email addresses will significantly reduce bounce rates and protect your sender reputation.

Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that segmenting your list to isolate inactive users is crucial. By identifying those who haven't engaged in a while, you can tailor your one-time email to re-engage them or remove them from your active list to improve deliverability.

Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that if the email is classified as a mandatory notification by legal, you might be able to get budget for a third-party specialised service to do the send for you. And to inform your ESP prior to sending, and they may be able to give you another IP address.

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares to make unsubscribing easy. Respect unsubscribe requests immediately. Don't make people jump through hoops to get off your list.

Email marketer from ZeroBounce shares to use reCAPTCHA on signup forms to prevent bots from adding fake or invalid email addresses to your list, improving overall list quality and deliverability.

Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that when sending to a large list, warming up your IP address is essential. This involves gradually increasing the volume of emails you send over a period to establish a positive sender reputation with ISPs.

Email marketer from Gmass shares that throttling your sending speed, especially when sending to a large list of inactive users, is crucial to avoid being flagged as a spammer. Gradually increase sending volume over time.

Email marketer from EmailOctopus explains to A/B test different subject lines and email content to determine what resonates best with your inactive users. This can help optimize your re-engagement efforts and improve response rates.

Email marketer from Litmus shares that before sending, preview your email across various email clients and devices to ensure it renders correctly and provides a consistent experience for all recipients.

Email marketer from HubSpot Blog explains that creating compelling content is vital for re-engaging inactive users. The email should offer value, such as exclusive deals, useful information, or a reminder of the benefits they receive from your service, to entice them to become active again.

Email marketer from Reddit (r/emailmarketing) shares a strategy of dividing the inactive list into smaller segments and personalizing content for each segment based on past behavior to improve engagement.

Expert from SpamResource emphasizes maintaining strict email list hygiene, including regular cleaning and suppression of invalid addresses, to mitigate deliverability risks when sending to inactive users. They explain invalid emails are a major reason for bounces and spam complaints.

Expert from Email Geeks says that she doesn’t know of any legitimate ESP that will let you come up with a list of stale addresses that you have dubious permission to mail and let you send one message because there is too much risk to their infrastructure and it could lead to suspension for spamming.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that you should know your sending domain's reputation. You can use tools like Google Postmaster Tools to check metrics about your domain.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares to check your IP address against common blocklists *before* sending email. A clean IP address is crucial to high deliverability.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests to choose a drop-dead date in the future, put it in your AUP, advertise it publicly, and wait two years before shutting down the accounts.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests asking the legal team for their justification for possessing and using PII for users with whom there’s no ongoing business relationship, and also to get the responsibility shifted away from you.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests notifying inactive users the next time they log in, and to treat emails to recover those users as marketing emails.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that sending a blast email to a large audience of unengaged users can severely damage your regular mail streams and suggests avoiding it if possible and notifying users through the app instead. He recommends reading <https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/m3aawgsendingmandatedemailsbp.pdf>.

Expert from Email Geeks advises against sending the email and recommends brainstorming alternative ways to fulfill the business need with business, legal, and engineering teams.

Expert from SpamResource recommends implementing a 'sunset policy' where inactive subscribers are automatically suppressed or unsubscribed from the list after a certain period. This prevents sending to users who are unlikely to engage and reduces the risk of spam complaints.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests shutting down idle accounts without notification if your AUP allows it. If not, sending a huge email blast won’t change that because delivery is going to be poor.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if you’re doing 10 million a day of high-value email, you’re probably ok with 5-10% of dormant emails. If you’re doing 10,000 a day of medium-value email, maybe 1-2%.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests that if people are not logging in to your platform, they are not your customers. If they later log in, they become customers again, and viewing the message can be a requirement to log in.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that court-mandated means a Judge has ruled you must send a notification, and failure to do so results in contempt of court. It's not something you can opt into; it's something you try to avoid.

Documentation from Gmail Help emphasizes adhering to Gmail's bulk sender guidelines. This includes setting up authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, as well as ensuring a low spam complaint rate to avoid deliverability issues.

Documentation from Microsoft discusses monitoring your sender reputation through tools like Sender Score and Microsoft's SNDS to identify and address any issues that could impact deliverability before sending to a large list of inactive users.

Documentation from RFC 2369 explains implementing a List-Unsubscribe header in your email is a best practice. It provides recipients with an easy way to opt-out of future emails, reducing the likelihood of spam complaints and improving your sender reputation.