From a cold list to $203k in revenue in less than 2 months - using zero fake urgency

When most people hear “$203k in under two months,” they imagine a lucky launch or an aggressive sales push.

It wasn’t.

It was strategy, patience, and a lot of behind-the-scenes groundwork.

A previous client, in the higher-education sector, was sitting on a list of 25,000 subscribers that had gone almost completely cold.

No regular campaigns, no segmentation, no clear plan. Just a list collecting digital dust.

They were ready to give up.But they knew the audience had potential, and they were open to doing things differently.

“We’re not expecting any miracles, or anything at all,” the client said, “but we know this list has so much potential. We just don’t know what to do with it, and don’t have the time to learn how to do it ourselves.”

We put together a strategy that covered the crucial steps that made the upcoming launch a success, and I took the lead on bringing it to life.

What we did

1. Planned and sent a re-engagement sequence

We needed to gradually rekindle the relationship with our subscribers before springing any sales on them. I crafted a simple strategy for this sequence, that let our subscribers know that they will see our emails more frequently in their inboxes from that point on (expectation management). We also asked our subscribers to tell us more about themselves so we can send them more relevant emails in the future (or, of course, opt out from future marketing emails). 

During this sequence, I spotted an opportunity to generate additional sales - which resulted in 20 new leads for the business, which was something the business has never experienced with a short email sequence before.

2. Smart sending for deliverability

Aside from determining who was on our list, it was important to send this sequence in batches rather than to the entire list in one go - starting from the most engaged group of subscribers. There is always a risk with sending more than 5k emails a day to a list that hasn’t heard from a brand in a while, because inbox providers can flag such activities as spam, and as a result, the domain reputation will be harmed (in other words, emails won’t even get delivered to subscribers). 

It was extremely important that our deliverability wouldn’t be an issue in the following month, when we start sending more sales-related emails. 

That “warm up” period proved itself: the re-engagement sequence had a 97.5% delivery rate and only 0.3% unsubscribe rate (for context, a good deliverability rate is generally 95%+, and a good unsubscribe rate is below 0.2%-0.5%). 

3. Cleaning segments and tags

Another planned result from the re-engagement sequence was improving our data quality. That allowed us to clean and organize our tags and segments, as well as improve our naming conventions (to improve Email Service Provider navigation).

That was an important building block for the upcoming launch, because the promotion was intended for two substantially different segments that needed to receive different emails. Making sure that we knew more about our subscribers and letting them “self segment” was crucial for the launch’s success later on.

4. Integrations between the ESP and the Sales team

As a part of the strategy, I worked closely with the team to make sure that both the subscriber-facing and the back-end processes were smoother, for example:

• Whenever a subscriber took an action on a website, we created an automation that would tag/segment/include or exclude subscribers from getting an email

• Whenever a subscriber filled out a survey, the information was automatically “fed” to the Sales team’s CRM

• If a subscriber talked to the Sales team and purchased a product, that information was sent back to the ESP with a corresponding tag (which then, included or excluded the subscriber from getting additional sales emails)

5. Planning, implementing, and launching the sales campaign

During the re-engagement period, the team and I had already worked on the sales campaign. I worked with the copywriter to get the emails to where I wanted to get them. It was important that the emails suit each segments and their needs. 

We used psychology-backed levers to increase engagement, but focused on ones that made subscribers intrigued and empowered to learn more about the offer, rather than pressured to make a purchase (so, for example, the emails didn’t include any countdown timers or text in red). We also had a strict deadline and didn’t have any intention to prolong the sale.

I also made sure that the sales pages we redirected to were built on time, functioned well, and were technically connected to the various systems we used (both ESP and CRM). 

I built and tested the automations for both segments and made sure they were ready for sending.

The results

• 203k in revenue generated from the launch - offer started at $2k, with zero social media promotion or paid ads

• 20 additional leads from the re-engagement sequence

• 20.7% average open rate*

• 4.3% average click-through rate*

• 0.32% unsubscribes*

• 187% increase in traffic to their website

*These are the 2025 email benchmarks in the education + training industry, as my client’s ESP 2025 report:

Average open rates	Average click-through rates	Average unsubscribe rate
35.64%	3.02%	0.18%

It’s important to always understand these stats within the greater context and look beyond these somewhat superficial numbers - but at the revenue attribution. Even though our opens aren’t as strong, our clicks were higher than the industry average. 

A higher than the benchmark unsubscribe rate was to be expected, considering that we sent more sales emails in a shorter timeframe and that the list was almost completely cold less than two months prior. Still, for a launch, it is relatively low.

You spent time, money, and your team’s efforts building your list - but now it’s colder than an icy blizzard in Patagonia. Ready to defrost it, strategically, and discover the hidden 6-figure potential in it?

Let's have a no-obligation chat.