Ideas for Redesigning, Relaunching, and Revitalizing a Community of Bloggers

[blogcarnival]

As a longtime user (now the owner) of a great site that was down a few times over the last couple of years I am looking for advice on how to let the over 100,000 members that have used us know that we are back and now supported fully by a team of people that love the site and what we stand for (quality, curated content and blog carnivals).  We did a complete redesign, removed old carnivals, removed inactive users, deleted lower quality carnivals, and fixed some portions of the site that were less than optimal (aka broken).  Should we attempt to email everyone, or let them naturally come back? In case it's not clear, we are from BlogCarnival.com.

[BenRWoodard]

I guess it ultimately depends on the audience but I would say that I would give it a few weeks and generate some sort of written response to the new features/design from the more active users.  Then I would include those in an email blast letting everyone know what is different and that they should give it another shot.  The testimonials (responses) would garnish much more upfront trust and generate a more positive attitude among those who were disappointed with the way things were handled in the past.

Starting fresh with a soft launch and then with the testimonials of a few, conquer the world! Or something like that.

[blogcarnival]

The audience is generally pretty savvy which is why I wanted to see what everyone thought (lots of SEO's and very active bloggers).  It makes sense to me to get their input, continue to refactor the code, and enhance the site even more.  Then, I do really like the idea of working with the most active users to get some testimonials on our support team and the site in general.  Thanks!  That's exactly the type of advice I was looking for.  When I first asked the question I realized it might seem obvious to do an email blast, but we really want to do it right and that usually means taking it slow and being more strategic.  Thanks again!