The past few weeks, we've been talking about how to market when it's not a "busy season" so you don't have huge breaks in your marketing consistency.

(Find part 1, part 2, and part 3 here.)

Is it best to be consistent and keep up marketing? Yes.

But, life happens.

What do you do if you've already taken a significant break from marketing?

Instead of tell you, I thought I'd show you.

In October of 2025, I had our third child. I am stereotypically horrible at actually taking a maternity leave, so I told myself that under no circumstances was I going to do any work prior to the New Year after she was born.

Which meant that I knew I'd have at minimum 3 months where I wasn't sending any of these newsletters.

Here's what I'd recommend as a marketer if you have a planned break:

✅ Plan and schedule out your marketing in advance. Poof! Now you don't have a break in communication, and you keep up your relationship with your people.

Here's what I actually did:

❌ Not that.

Life was life-ing, and I simply didn't have time to prep newsletters before she was born.

Do what I say, not what I do.

So, I sent out a "hey I'm going to be out on maternity leave, see you when I see you" newsletter and blissfully closed out of my email marketing software tab.

Then went radio silent for three months, during some of the busiest times of the year, and thoroughly enjoyed my maternity leave with zero regrets.

But then January rolled around, and I had some ideas cooking, and decided it was time to come back to this space.

But I knew I had to do it strategically.

Taking a break from emailing can not only affect your relationship with your audience, it can also cause deliverability issues if you see a huge increase in unsubscribes and spam complaints (not because you're doing something wrong, but because people just don't remember they signed up for your list. It's not you, it's them.).

Prior to the break, I would average about 52-56% open rate, and my goal was to get back to that within a few newsletters.

So here's what I did (and didn't do!) that helped me reengage my list and maintain my open rate after a three month break:

What I Did Do

Segmented My List

I decided to send my first email to the most engaged part of my list so that I could develop domain authority again.

Anyone who hadn't been engaging before I went out on leave didn't get the first few emails I sent because I knew they wouldn't open them and would tank the open rate, which could flag my domain as phishy (pun intended).

So I made sure to send an email first to those who I absolutely knew would open it and engage (the people who had been in my course cohort last year) before trying to reengage those that were already on the fence before I stopped emailing for a bit. That email had a 75% open rate.

Next, I sent the first newsletter only to my previously most engaged subscribers on my church list. That email had a 76% open rate.

After that, I folded everyone back in and have weekly hit 54%, 50%, 56%, and 52% open rates.

What I would have liked to have done: I would have liked to have kept up with sending to only the most engaged subscribers a bit longer. (I consider an engaged subscriber someone who has opened at least one email from me in the past month.) However, because of how my email marketing software works, since I hadn't emailed in the past month initially, it was counting engaged subscribers incorrectly, so I was only able to do that for one week before having to bring everyone else back in in.

Encouraged Clicks and Replies

In my first two emails, my main call to action was asking people to reply. Getting people to reply to your email is one of the easiest ways to make sure your emails end up in their inbox, because it shows to Gmail, Yahoo, etc. that you consider the sender to be safe.

I asked some intriguing questions that got people to reply, but you could also incentivize this by offering a free resource to everyone who replies to your email (this would have to be done somewhat manually, but you could create a "script" once that then you just copy and paste for each person who replies).

After that, I then encouraged people to click links in my emails. Clicks also show that you consider the sender to be safe, so I encouraged people to click by linking to past emails in the series or free resources on my website.

Created a Series

Instead of sharing all of the tips on marketing content to create in down time right away, I spread it out over multiple weeks. This encouraged people to keep opening my emails each week to get the rest of the tips, helping stabilize open rate and getting people used to the weekly cadence again.

Prepared Myself for Unsubscribes

It happens. It's just life.

When you take a break, you're going to get some unsubscribes.

It speaks nothing about me or my worth or my business's value, it's just what happens when you don't email for a while. Circumstances change, people don't need what you're offering anymore, they weren't really engaged before and are reminded to unsubscribe — it is what it is.

That being said, using the strategy above and because I was so consistent before the break, unsubscribes were minimal (1-3 per week, which was my average previously), and I had zero spam complaints.

Planned Content for a Bit for Consistency

Before I sent a single email, I had newsletters planned out for 1-2 months. What I wanted to avoid was coming back with a big bang and then fizzling out and having another break because I didn't know what to say. Having the idea all laid out and some of the newsletters even partially written helped me to stay on track.

Thought About My Audience

I sat down and thought about you all before I wrote a single word. What season are you in right now? What could I help you with? Realizing the "busy season" was past, I came up with this series because I know you all well enough to know that many of you might be feeling in a rut post holiday rush and that January is often one of the slowest months for small businesses.

Used a Super Intriguing Subject Line*

My first newsletter back, the subject line was "What's missing in my most read blog post." It creates intrigue because your natural next thought would be "Wait, what's missing? Why hasn't she fixed her most read blog post?" It creates curiosity with a word like "what" (another of my favorites is "this") that shares enough to get you interested without giving so much away it makes it pointless to open the email.

*More on this in another upcoming newsletter, as there's a deeper story behind this particular subject line.

Prayed!

I really wanted to make sure that I wasn't just coming back to newsletters just because, but rather because I actually had something valuable to offer that the Lord wanted me to share.

I am trying to be increasingly aware of making sure that I'm not getting ahead of the Lord and that I'm waiting on His timing. So I came back only once I felt peace from the Lord in doing so.

What I Didn't Do

Change Email Marketing Software

I had actually considered switching email software during maternity leave, but decided not to because switching requires caution and carefully following best practices to reestablish domain authority. Switching during maternity leave when I wasn't sending emails could have affected my deliverability greatly, and I didn't have the time to send consistent emails to my most engaged subscribers for several weeks to establish that authority. So I decided to save that switch for another time when I can be more consistent.

Change Newsletter Formats

I've also considered making some changes to the format of this newsletter, but again, decided to wait to make those changes until after I've developed consistency again. This decision was more for A/B testing and getting feedback than for making sure my open rates stay okay, but keeping things normal certainly doesn't hurt inbox rates.

Imagine you hadn't heard from me for a few months and you suddenly opened this email and it looked completely different visually than it did before. Your first thought wouldn't be "Oh, she's back!" and instead would probably be "Wait, who is this?"

Get Rid of Unengaged Subscribers Right Away

I have about 25% of my list who has not engaged with my emails in 6 months or more (which means that even before the break, they hadn't opened an email in at least 3 months). I decided not to do a reengagement campaign to them right away, as those kinds of campaigns encourage people to unsubscribe if they're no longer interested, and I didn't want to do that at the same time as my unsubscribe rates would already naturally be higher because of the break.

Heavy Sales

In the past month since I've been back to newsletters, I have not pushed a single sale once. That's because I wanted to focus solely on rebuilding and re-nurturing my relationship with all of you.

Now, I could have probably had a general consult push or shop button at the bottom of my emails, but I decided not to so I could focus solely on re-nurturing relationships versus sales. You may not have that luxury to do that and that's totally okay! This was just what I decided to do.

I would highly recommend though not making your first few marketing communications back from a break heavily sales-focused. Reminding people what you offer is completely fine, but having the marketing focus on heavy sales pushes can turn people off after a break.

To use the analogy, if you took a break from dating someone and then got back together, probably not the best idea to propose two days later.

Wait Around for It To Be Perfect

Life with a newborn and two toddlers during cold and flu season is certainly not perfect. I don't have a good rhythm back yet of when I'm working, when I'm writing these newsletters, or pretty much anything.

If I waited until I had all of those things perfectly lined up, you likely wouldn't hear from me again until my kids are in college.

So, when I felt the prompting from the Lord to return, I did.

Most of these newsletters have been written in 5 minute chunks here and there.

Several were done with one hand, on my phone, which is basically my least favorite method of writing ever.

But rebuilding relationship with you all was more important to me than waiting until things were perfect.

So that's my final piece of advice: If the reason you're taking a break from marketing is that you're waiting for it to be perfect, you'll never actually do your marketing.

Marketing is about relationship with real people. And real people are messy.

It's okay if it's not perfect. In fact, it's not going to be — and in a world where everything is automated, I kind of think that's a good thing.

It's been over a month now since I've resumed newsletters, and my average open rate is at 54%, right where I was prior to going out on leave.

I want to be clear: All the glory goes to God on this. He's the one who gives me ideas, and the blessing of being able to write to all of you, and bringing all of you to this little corner of the internet in the first place.

Any success in reestablishing the open rate is all credit to Him — I just wanted to share the strategy I used in case it helps you too.

Remember: The strategies I share here are simply to make way for His grace. God invites us to co-create with Him — what a gift! — and so our marketing efforts are simply preparing the paths for Him to do His work in us.

More important to me than analytics, though, I've also had several of you reply that you're excited to see me back here, so I feel content knowing that relationship has been reestablished.

So if you take a break, don't let that break be forever if He prompts you to return. Just say a prayer, follow all the best practices you can, leave the results up to Him, and just dive back in.

With Him, you've got this.

For His greater glory,

Emily