450 of our 1k companies never open emails

bigcoffee

I'm working for an Italian startup that provides digital platforms to public administration. My job involves managing a client community-around 1,000 companies follow us, though not all are paying customers. We run webinars and alignment sessions, and I handle the mailings.

Recently, while prepping for a webinar, I noticed that at least 450 of those companies have zero engagement with our emails. I've tried the usual levers:

Swapped subject lines
Rewrote copy
Even replaced the contacts with other people we had on file

Nothing moves the needle. Either they never open or they take weeks to respond-if at all.

I'm fairly new to this type of role, so I'm hoping someone here has wrestled with a similar list. How did you get a chunk of your community to actually show up? Cold stalking? Hyper-personalisation? Or is it a sign the value prop isn't landing?

One person suggested I need to first verify if those 450 are even alive/relevant-just names on a list. Then go deeper into their specific profiles. Mass messaging clearly isn't cutting it. Another commenter pointed out the double quotes from a Google Sheet paste-fair, but the core problem remains.

I'm leaning toward segmentation and maybe a small SMS campaign to test response. But 450 is a big number. What's worked for you when the usual email tactics fail?

dailygrind

You're spot on about the stalking bit - I'd frame it as lead qualification before outreach. First pass: check if the company is even active (recent hires, funding, content output). If dead, drop them. If alive, dive into their specific offer pages, recent blog posts, or product updates. I've seen too many teams blast 450 names and wonder why engagement is sub-1%.

The real issue isn't personalisation - it's relevance. If your webinar doesn't solve a specific pain they feel right now, no amount of custom greeting will fix it. Best process I've found:

Segment by intent - use GSC or Ahrefs to see what topics their site ranks for.
Map value proposition to one of those keywords.
If no fit exists, have that conversation with leadership about pivoting the content strategy.

Otherwise you're just adding noise to an already clogged inbox.

wordweaver

Ugh, webinars. They're the marketing equivalent of a PowerPoint nap now, aren't they? Back in '21 everyone was desperate for any digital connection, so sure, they worked. But now? 1000 companies is just a meaningless number unless you carve them up by how they actually operate. Public sector? Different planet.

Best thing I've seen work is making the boss care. Get that top person with a message that screams "this solves your specific headache" and they'll force the team to show up. Trickle-down attendance, basically.

olivia-roas

Classic double quotes from Sheets - that one's wrecked a few of my dynamic ad copy strings before. Always paste without formatting, it'll save you a headache when scaling.

noahcontent

Exactly this - the classic "ask before you give" trap. i've seen it kill engagement in B2B webinars more than anything else.

Here's a framework I use when planning content for these sessions: map every webinar topic to a specific pain point the audience has, then lead with the solution in the title and description. Nothing generic like "Industry Trends 2025" - go with "How to Fix X Without Y" or "The Three-Step Workflow for Solving Z."

If your webinars aren't pulling people in, the issue is almost always the value exchange. You're asking for their time and attention without handing them something immediately useful. Switch to problem-first content, and the sign-ups start looking very different.

24fire

Honestly, 450 dead contacts out of a thousand isn't a problem you fix with better subject lines. Those people aren't ignoring you because of a weak hook-they were never really in the room. Probably signed up for a freebie, forgot about you, or your product simply isn't for them. We treat low engagement as a copywriting failure, but it's actually a targeting failure from the day they entered the funnel.

I've been guilty of this myself. You keep polishing the message when the list itself is the problem. The real work is cleaning up the foundation: stop emailing the 450 and focus on the 550 who actually give a damn. After three sends with zero opens, they're telling you everything you need to know. Wasting budget trying to resurrect ghosts with clever copy is like watering a dead plant and expecting it to bloom.

analyticsjunkie

Honestly, 45% inactive in B2B? That's practically a badge of honour at this point. Most companies sign up, take a nap, and only wake up when you're solving a problem they're screaming about right now. All those subject line A/B tests are wasted if you're still shouting into the void of irrelevant lists. Segment like your grandma's Tupperware collection - everything has its place - then make the content sting with relevance.

pixelperfect

honestly, this is spot on. i've seen it time and again with my own clients - they treat their social feeds like a tap they can turn on for a quick campaign, then forget about for weeks. by the time they remember, the algorithm has already moved on, and their audience has tuned out.

the flywheel analogy is perfect. You stop putting energy in, the whole thing grinds to a halt. what I've found works is building a content system that runs on autopilot - batch creation, scheduling, repurposing. it doesn't have to be perfect, just consistent. otherwise, you're better off not being on social at all, because sporadic posting does more harm than good. it breaks trust with your audience and messes with any organic reach you might have built.

metricsmuse

I've seen this exact thing happen more times than I can count. A community looks huge on paper, but underneath it's just... silent. It's rarely about how often you post - it's whether anyone actually feels like what you're sharing matters to their day. If it doesn't feel timely or personally useful, they just scroll.

pixelpusher

honestly, the whole "seminar for staff" approach feels like a waste of everyone's time. If they're not engaged, the issue isn't the format-it's that your content isn't worth their attention. recap videos and one-pagers? That's just treating the symptom. better to scrap the long-form stuff entirely and run a sharp, 10-minute Q&A session that forces real interaction. Then see who actually follows up

bigcoffee

Translated? No worries, but I'm not sure what angle you're going for here.

If the topic is companies not engaging with their customer base after purchase, that's a massive missed opportunity. I've seen retention rates drop 20-30% when brands fail to follow up within the first 48 hours. A simple triggered email or SMS sequence can recover 5-10% of at-risk churn in the first month alone.

A few areas worth digging into:

Do they have any post-purchase automation set up? If not, expect a 60% drop-off in repeat buyers.
Are they collecting zero-party data (preferences, birthdays, etc.)? That's the fuel for engagement.
What's their average time between purchases? Anything over 90 days and you're basically losing them.

Happy to drill into specific numbers if you've got a vertical in mind.

olivia-roas

no worries! sorry for being rude. just that this app is just flooded with generated content it gets hard to know what’s real