What usually goes wrong
I've cleaned up enough of these to know the pattern.
The list is old — dead addresses bounce, and bounces damage your sending reputation
Mail is sent from a shared address rather than your own domain
Your domain's sending records were never configured, so providers don't trust it
Nobody looks at the numbers, so a third of it never arriving goes unnoticed
The email doesn't say anything — a newsletter sent because it's the first of the month
Unsubscribing is hard, which is the fastest route to being marked as spam
What I do
Clean the list first
Remove dead and invalid addresses, deduplicate, and separate people who actually engage from people who never have. Unglamorous, and the difference between landing and not.
Set up sending properly
From your own domain, with the records configured so providers trust it. Built into Wix if that's where you are; same job, different screens elsewhere.
Design and write them
Emails that match your site, work on a phone, have a reason to exist and one obvious thing to do next. I'll write them or edit what you write.
Set up sequences
A welcome when someone joins, a follow-up after an enquiry, a reminder before an appointment, a note when someone hasn't been back in a while.
Report in plain numbers
Delivered, opened, clicked, replied, unsubscribed. What that means and what I'd change next time.
What I won't sell you
I don't do cold emailing to purchased lists. It damages your domain's reputation, it's regulated differently depending on where your recipients live, and it puts at risk the email address your actual customers use to reach you. If someone is offering that cheaply, that's why it's cheap.
Common questions
Which email platform do you use?
Whatever you're already on, if it's decent. If you're on Wix you already have email marketing built in and there's usually no reason to pay for anything else. I'll tell you if what you have is genuinely holding you back.
How often should I send?
Less often than you think, and more consistently. Once a month that people read beats weekly that people ignore.
How big does my list need to be?
Smaller than you'd guess. A few hundred people who know you is worth more than thousands who don't.
Will this get me marked as spam?
Not if the list is yours, the setup is right and unsubscribing is easy. All three are part of the job.
Can you help me grow the list?
Yes, though that's usually a website change rather than an email one — something worth signing up for, and a form that isn't hidden at the bottom of the page.