Issue 39: Moving a List Without Losing the Room

Dear reader,

A few of you have asked the same thing in different words: how do you move your list somewhere new without losing half of it? I've done it twice. The first time went well. The second time I got excited, flipped a switch on a Tuesday, and spent a fortnight apologising to people who'd stopped hearing from me. So this is the order I'd follow now, learned the slow way.

I'm not going to tell you where to move to. That's your decision, and it depends on things I can't see from here. The how matters more than the where.

Tell people before you do anything

The biggest mistake is silence. Readers who find out about a move after it happens feel managed. Readers who hear about it three weeks ahead feel included. Write a plain letter that says what's changing, why you're doing it, and what they need to do (usually: nothing). Send it twice, a week apart. You'll be amazed how many people missed the first.

Overlap, don't cut over

Run both homes at the same time for at least two issues. The old one sends as normal; the new one sends to a small group of readers who've said they're happy to test it. Check that links work, that the layout looks right on a phone, and that the email lands where it should. I once discovered, only because a reader emailed me, that my footer pointed to a page that no longer existed.

Keep the voice exactly where it was

Don't change the tone, the day of the week or the length of the letter during a move. People notice when the thing arriving in their inbox feels different, and they interpret it as a loss even when the content's better. You can redesign later. For the first month, be boring on purpose.

Make leaving easy

This one feels backwards, but it's the one that earns trust. Put a clear, one-click way out in the very first letter from the new home. Some readers are going to drift away regardless of how carefully you plan. If they can leave cleanly, they tend to leave kindly, and a few return months later.

And then wait

For about a month your numbers will look strange. Some people will have filtered the new address into a spam folder. Some will have gone quiet because they were already half gone. Don't read too much into the first four weeks. Look at who writes back, who forwards, who keeps opening.

My own list shrank a little during the second move, and the replies I got afterwards were better than any I'd had in a year. Fewer people, more actual readers. I'd take that trade again.

If this raised questions, write back and tell me what you're planning. I answer everything, eventually. For the story of the unsubscribe that taught me the most, come back next Friday.

Yours, from a half-unpacked study, Hollis