You probably protect your "real" email addresses—those where you receive emails from significant others, friends and colleagues—with the ferocity of a mother bear. You might give them to trusted sources when downloading a whitepaper or subscribing to a newsletter, but there's a good chance you have temporary "fake" accounts for everyone else.

"I hate to break it to you," says Jared Kimball at the Spamspert blog, "but if you've done it then probably others have done it too."

Accordingly, in either case, you cannot allow too much time to lapse between the messages you send to leads:

• If you reach a "real" account, you risk the wrath of a recipient who cannot remember who you are.
• If it goes to an abandoned "fake" account, you reach no one.

So what do you do when you've neglected your email list?

• If it's been six months since your last email, don't bother. When that much time has passed, argues Kimball, it's better not to renew contact at all. But he also acknowledges that many readers will disregard that advice; if that's the case, he warns, don't send more than one message. "If they are not interested in your first email then they won’t be interested in any other emails from you. If you keep attempting to email them they are just going to get annoyed and click the spam button."
• If it's been a few months since your last email, re-engage. Demonstrate authenticity by acknowledging the lack of communication and including a special offer—for example, a free webinar or a discount on your product or service.

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