How To Increase Your Email List 100X In Less Than 6 Months

I think the best thing that you can do is have some kind of email sequence that goes out automatically that kind of introduces yourself like remembering. Anybody that comes in from a landfill is literally a cold person they don't know you they haven't met you they don't know they know like or trust you yet. So having an email sequence on the back end of that will be really important that introduces you.

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Welcome back, my friend. I'm so excited to share my special guest with you today. Her name is Kylie Kelly. She is a visibility and email marketing strategist and she helps female business owners grow and monetize their email list. And she serves him through her membership called the spotlight club. She loves to teach simple relationship based strategies, think summits and bundles of freebie swaps and more and believes that business and email marketing gets to be fun. She's also a podcast host and a boy mama of two. Her sons are Spencer and Samuel and she's coming to us from Australia today, I'm pumped for you to listen to this conversation because we pretty much covered everything to do with growing your email fast even if you don't have an email list to start with. How to Leverage bundles and build relationships so that you can grow an audience and ultimately be able to sell your products. So I can't wait for you to dive in.

Hey, hey, Kylie. Okay, so excited to have you on the show today. We were just discussing like are synergistic things in life like your last name was my first name is actually fun fact. It was my mom's maiden name. So maybe we're related actually.

Oh, my God, wouldn't that be a twist to the storyline?

Coming to us all the way from Australia. So I'm very pleased. Thank you for getting up and making the time to be part of the show today, because we're gonna talk about some of my favorite things to talk about.

I'm excited. I'm so excited to be here. And I mean, I feel like I always say this for timezone to like the bane of my existence. So I appreciate you being up late as well.

Oh, yeah. It's like, seriously, I found this new website called World Time, buddy. And I'm like drawing the lines between it because you're tomorrow, like, you're like a whole day ahead. It's a whole crazy thing, huh. But amazing that we have the internet, we have the internet to reach people. And we're going to talk about one of your favorite ways to do that into particularly to grow your email list, which is like, when I first came across you I have to share the backstory for everybody. I think we got connected somehow through a Facebook group because you were hosting a bundle. And I was like, boo, what's a bundle? This sounds fun, where you can essentially share a free while you don't share if you give it away for free, but it has value and you normally share you normally sell it digital product, then it goes out to a specific audience. And I was like, and your bundle was called the visible ABS bundle. And I was like, yes, because that is exactly a very targeted audience for me as also a visibility coach and you were using that language for yourself for a while too. And I know you're like, so good at email marketing, and creating these bundles. And so I want to share this because I think that like it's been one of the secrets for me as well, as far as like the most email growth I've ever seen in my whole business has been since I started incorporating bundles here and there as part of my growth strategy. So tell me how you discover this and how you do it differently.

I love this. So let's just be real as well for everyone listening. So really, I thought of doing this as a strategy. Since I had no money to try paid ads. I was like, I've got nothing to you know, to put into the paid ad machine. And I hate social media. Like I'll just say that the way it is so because they hate social media and then didn't have money for paid ads. Like how can I grow my email list and it was a new business. So I pivoted away from a service provider. I've been a wedding photographer for a decade COVID happened but it's canceled. I had two kids like leftover Right, so I wanted an online business. But I knew the audience has to come first because otherwise nobody knows what you're doing to buy from you. So I knew I had to grow an email list. And I didn't want to put a freebie up on my website and wait five years because my website gets hardly any traffic. So relationships were the way to go. And I did dabble. Firstly, in Summit. So I hosted two summits in 2022. And if you're listening, and you know me already, so I'd be surprised, but I don't do small things. I'm very much a, you know, go big or go home and type of person. So the summits were like big events, and they took a lot of work. And I had a blast, but they were like three months in the making each time. The results were great, I got, you know, five 600 people signing up to the summit. So my list went from like zero, like, not even with my mom on my list, to 600 in one event to then 1200. But it took too much time. I'm also stubborn and impatient. And I just wanted it done. And I want to guess today, right? Then I started playing with bundles. So I was actually in a bundle as a contributor, and grew my list by a couple 100 by just giving them digital products that they could share with their audiences. And as well, if I host this surely that's got to be better. So I started hosting bundles. And so the one that you were in was the third bundle that I'd hosted. And so much less work. And the results were the same or, or even better. So now I've got my list is at about 6000. And it's all been through these like relationship based strategies.

Okay, there's so many good things that you said in there, like around, first of all, hating social media and not having money for ads. I'm like, yes, yes, thank you. This is because like, there's other ways that I've a lot of people teach around, like how to create, you know, your build your email list with ads and paid stuff. And, oh, it's so stressful to like, put money into meta and like, cross your fingers and hope that it comes back out on the other end. And when it doesn't, it's very sad. But like also wanting to, you know, not wanting to post all the time on social media. And also you sit around, you've been doing it the freeway, like having a freebie, which is another common way that people talk about growing your email list. Having a freebie, but that requires you to still get traffic to that freebie in order for people to download it in order for them to join your email list. So thank you for clarifying the ease of all of this, especially with like, and I've also done some of that as well. And I was so nodding along with you like yes, it is the multi month planning process. And it can be fun. And speaking, it's fun. And creating again, those relationships with people is fun. But sometimes we're like, can we just like, take a little bit of an easier route, please?

Yes, absolutely. I think I always encourage even my own clients and members like it always just to come back to what feels good for you. Right? Like some people love social, they love being on Instagram or dancing or doing other things or they love posting on their grid, or they might absolutely love paid ads, and they get a kick out of getting that cost down on everyone have the right lingo but you know, like they love it so that it works for them. Whereas I think the best thing that I did was to slow down and be like, What do I actually want to do? Like what's not not? What is everybody else saying? Like what actually feels exciting and fun for me. And at the time, I was also really lonely like it was post pandemic life I, you know, moved away from friends. And I think the world could probably relate to that feeling of isolation. And so doing things in a way that allowed me to make friends like, like, like that feels really fun and good to me. So that's kind of another part of why I went down that route, I suppose.

Why I love it. So let's just give everyone a breakdown of what is involved in a bundle if you want to, to participate in one, first of all, but like, let's do the training wheels version. Like, you just want to be part of what what does that look like? What can somebody expect.

So really, it's pretty simple. All you need to have is a digital product. So a course checklist or whatever it is some kind of digital product that you would sell, right doesn't have to be for sale on your website right now. But it has to be something of value. Generally, there's not a requirement as to how valuable it could be $9, it could be 90 could be 100. Like, generally check of course, the requirements the bundle host has made but generally there's not really a requirement around the value that has to be something that your company selling. And you're gonna give it to the bundle for free. So that then makes the value of the bundle even even better as a collective. The main thing though, with that is that it attracts the right people onto your email list. It's no good making a digital product or putting one out there that just attracts anyone because then we're growing a list below just anyone's. We want our perfect people on our list. So think about your ideal client, if you will. But what is the problem that they have? How can you solve a problem that they have in this resource and speak to that ideal client? And then you simply once you have that piece Stan, you're simply filling out a form, submitting it to the bundle, and then promoting it while the bundle is live. Having an email sequence on the back end is like, you know, the best strategy to have. But I mean, even if it's just a Delivery Email, like, Hey, here's the thing. That's fine. Keep it simple to start with. But that's really it, it's just coming out, I think the biggest piece is coming up with that product so that you're attracting the right people onto your list.

Yeah, and like you said, making sure that it's like it's solving a specific problem and as specific as possible to like, then the other layer of that is then making sure that it's going into a bundle that's also aligned to your ideal client, like I was mentioning how you're, like, really spoke to me. And then I've done several of them now and evaluated, like, how many new leads have come as a result of those different ones? And, and it's got a lot to do with, like, how specific the bundle was, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think as long as the reads are specific, he can because there are broader bundles out there, like, you know, live your best life, that it's a really bad name. But you know, there's a really broad bundles out there. And I think as long as your resources specific and it's going to attract your ideal client, it's okay to still put it into those ones that aren't as aren't as narrow. But I will say the ones that are niched down, like you're talking about those bundles are really just for that, solving one problem for that person, the leads that come in are gonna be much better and much more aligned to where you want them to be. And they're going to be ready then for what else do you have to offer a lot quicker than the ones that will come in from abroad or bundles? So yeah, best case scenario, look for one that actually attracts your ideal client. Just for some examples, if anyone's like, Oh, what do you even mean? So, you know, I am visibility, email list growth, I don't know, I call myself sometimes me no email lists first. So I look for bundles where female business owners are going to be going to that for their marketing, email list building visibility, anything where a female entrepreneur will be attracted to, that's my ideal client. Right. So rather than putting it into a bundle for homeschooling moms, or about the, you know, like ones that they there might be, there might be a few people in that in there that will be there, but not really my ideal clients. Keeping it as as intentional, I think, is the best word as you possibly can.

Yeah, and so Okay, good. So now we've identified like how to figure out what kind of bundle to be part of and how to create a good product to put into those, then what comes next, like how so now we're just we're talking about collecting email addresses and collecting leads, aka leads for we're going to use marketing terminology, then you you just kind of brushed over the whole idea of having an email sequence on the back end. So I want to connect the dots for everybody to understand what that means. Just even from a communication perspective.

Yeah. So I think the best thing that you can do is have some kind of email sequence that goes out automatically, that kind of introduces yourself or like remembering, anybody that comes in from a landfill is literally a cold person, they don't know you, they haven't met you, they don't know they know, like or trust you yet. So having an email sequence on the back end of that will be really important that introduces you, I always recommend sending out that Delivery Email straightaway. And then putting a few days delay on the next email that you send out. Because, you know, if people go and sign up for 20, things as 20, new email lists that they've just joined, and they're probably gonna be really overwhelmed. So put a bit of a delay. And then that second email is just like, hey, I know your inboxes be crazy. By the way, my name is Kylie. If you haven't met yet, this is what I do. And hey, if you miss the league for what you set up for here it is, again, like a super simple re introductory kind of email. And then I like to then send a couple more just to set my values and expectations, how often I email them what kind of content if I have anything else I want to give to them, like, Hey, this is a bonus resource you might like or a podcast episode that I think you'll really enjoy just things to get them involved in your world, right and and with those welcome sequences, the higher this is getting into a bit of email, jargon, I guess. But the higher you can get your open rates, your click rates, people engaging with that sequence, then they're going to be in a habit so that when you're sending them the weekly content and your weekly emails, they're opening and clicking More, so your email list will be healthier. So best practice is to have one of those sequences if you're listening and you're like, oh, that sounds way too complicated. Just send the Delivery Email and then get into the habit of sending weekly emails out. You don't need to have this perfect sequence to make this work but it is best practice.

And sometimes you have them and it takes you forever to get them to actually work so

we want to latch on or like they're like,

Yeah, I'm gonna do a bundle I'm gonna get two to 300 new people and they're all gonna go through these emails, okay, nobody bought anything yet. So now I have to go in another bundle and try different emails and etc, etc. Not not talking to is asking for a friend, you know?

Well, can I say as well, my own experience, it's not as simple as like, send the emails out. And people by the end, like my people, they need maybe three or six months of my email content to get to know me. And I feel like this might be generalizing. But I feel like at the moment, people need more time, like I need more time before I spend my money. So I like to always think of that and give them as much time as they need to get to know whether it is right for them. So don't expect Yeah, don't expect to send out an email sequence, put a sale on the end and be like, Oh, my God, they keep voting because that's, that's quite normal.

I love that you said that. I totally agree that there's like just people are being more conscious about, about, you know, investing in things, even doesn't matter what the price point is. And so yeah, consistency with your communication is important and building up those relationships with with the potential clients on the other end, like you're saying,

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a good thing. Because if people are intentionally purchasing, they really want it when they get in there like that. They've put a lot of thought, and it's not this impulse decision and then regret, they're going to actually be a better client for you as well. So I think it's a good thing.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Okay, so I'm wondering, I'm just thinking through all the questions that everybody might be having, if they're like, who gets bundles? Ooh, how do I get a bundle? How do I get in a bundle? Where do I find opportunities to get into bundles? What would you say to that?

Well, definitely, let me say, first, when you're going down this, this route, don't do too many. I know, when I first started, I was like, applying left, right and center. And suddenly, I had like five in a month, and I had to promote them all and sent my own things. And it was a lot. So I always recommend to a month is like a good sweet spot, ideally. So you can then alternate their promotional email. So you're sending out like a bundle, promo email, and then your weekly it up in a bundle promotional and then your weekly email, that cadence, it works really well, in terms of where to find them. Facebook groups, your best friend, there's a couple, I'm not going to name them because they do change all the time. But if you get onto Facebook, and you search bundles, you're going to find people talking about it, people putting out calls for contributors, when you see a bundle that is being promoted, that might be live for you to go and sign up to have a look at who the host is, don't be afraid to reach out to the host, like, Hey, I just saw that you're hosting this, if you do it again, I'd love to be a part of it. That kind of thing works really well. And then of course, I do have a membership that I can give you guys the link to that I have a dashboard there that has like a list of all the open collaborations at any any one time. Because you'll find once you're in this world, you'll also then get invited to them all the time. So it is something that happens quite naturally as well.

Mm hmm. Yeah. And I want to circle back to what you were saying at the beginning to just about how you define this as a strategy as a relationship based visibility strategy. So like, can you I just don't want to I know, I'm not the only one who has the same message. So I would like you to echo what I know, you're gonna say, around building relationships, because like, as we started this conversation, I was like, I was in a bundle that Kylie house did back in the fall. And now that I spoken your spotlight club, and now you're here on my podcast, and then we're going to do another collaboration, which we're going to share about at the end of the episode, as well, which is going to be live when people are listening to this. So this is how businesses grow by building these collaborations and these relationships

100%. How good does it feel like I would much prefer to spend my time deepening relationships like ours, you know, and then posting on an Instagram grid. Like, I just think that when we peel back all the layers of all the shiny things that are out there, relationships are at the core of everything, right? It's how we connect as humans, it's how, you know, even you invited me onto the podcast me inviting you to my membership, like, the trust that we have dealt with our own audiences gets them passed on to each other because we're like, Hey, I vouch for this person, like, come and share. You know, if it's of interest to you, and I love the fact as well we practically do the same thing, right? But there's no like competitive nests, or it's not like, I've always loved that, you know, rising tide lifts all ships, because there's enough to go around, right? And I think that when you can have that mentality and mindset and just be in it to help each other. And there are people in my audience that will prefer the way that you speak there's probably people that listening here, they're like, Oh, I really vibe with Tyler. Like there's enough. There's enough. Yeah, so I think that that's also really good to remember because I think it's easy, especially if you're just on social and and I'm like ditching all over Instagram or dissing I rents for the moment. But when you're on social, it's really easy to just get to that comparison, when actually there's enough so you can build these relationships and serve the same clients in different ways. And it's all it's all good. And that's how, yeah, I do think it's how business is intended to be right. What our life is intended to be.

Yeah, exactly. Like let's apply that we I was Just listening to a book, in the chapter was listening to was just about, like, do the reaching out for help and asking for help and also receiving help, right? And that truly, in every aspect of our life, we need to start being more open to that connected collaboration support systems without feeling like we're failing assembly if we lean on it.

I do wonder like, where did you know, I've always had Mike and the generations before us, it takes a village and they all had their villages. And I don't know where it happened. Like, I don't really have a village on that. Now I do. So I've gone out and made one with relationships. But I think it's easy, especially if you're a work from home, business owner, busy life, kids, all the things, all the different roles we have, I think it's really easy to just get busy living life that way. And suddenly, we turn around and there's no village like there's no one there. So I would encourage anyone that's listening, like relationships can change the game for everything. Yes, business, but also personal life and connection and friends, and all of that too. And it doesn't need to be somebody that lives next door, like all of my relationships, I would say 95% of all of my members in the spotlight club are all in the US or Canada or the UK, I've got hardly any Australians. All of my like business friends, like you don't live in Australia, like, all of my relationships are worldwide. And now that we can communicate and build relationships, and that doesn't have to be a barrier. It just means that we're even more empowered to build like the most amazing village, but we just need to be intentional about it and actually reach out.

Yes, I love everything that you just said, for sure. And it is just it is amazing that we have this opportunity. And like on one hand, it is almost like overwhelming. And then if it and then like you said, well we can get on social media, and we start doing that comparison thing, which is just what you like, we're just gonna stay away from that whole topic. And I talk about it a lot. Now on every other episode of this podcast, and people who are here, they really know that I think, you know, people were just getting tired of it too tired of feeling that it's a requirement in order to be successful. So I'm here to amplify the voices that are showing us that it's not the case, there's a lot of other ways that we can grow, and we can connect and create opportunities for ourselves. So that's what it is you got to put your hand up to say that you are willing and available. And then on the other hand being open to having and providing the opportunities to because relationships really work best when there's something to give on both ends, right? Yes, two way street 100%.

And circling back to the bundle conversation, you know, host, and we can talk about hosting or hosting a bundle and being the person that puts it together is a perfect place to start these new relationships, right? Because you're actually saying like, hey, I want to help you grow your email list I'm putting on this event, can I be a part of it? And you'll very quickly find your people in those types of online events in those types of collaborations. So if anybody is listening that thinking like where do I get started, then a couple first contribute to a couple bundles first so you can see how they work. But hosting a bundle is a great way to like fast track that relationship growth as well.

Oh, yeah, I remember first for me, because it was summits first, it was like a such an easy ask to be able to say, Hey, can I like put you in the spotlight in front of people who potentially want to buy your stuff, I'm like to give you a platform. So it's an easy ask to invite someone to be part of an event bundle, whatever it is. Podcast, was like, Look at what I can do for you. And instead of it's not about me, right?

Yeah. And you could do it when you don't have an email list yet because that's a lot trips a lot of people out say, Well, you know, who am I to do it? I don't have something to like, I don't have my own email list. Yeah, I don't have my own audience yet. But you don't need one because what you're doing is just creating a platform for everyone else to come and bring their audience and you're leveraging each other's audiences so you don't need to be super established yet to make it work which I think is so good because so often that holds us back I think we're like Oh, I'm not big enough or I'm not I'm not there yet. Well actually, yeah, you could do this like there's no barrier or

Yes, that's so true. Now I'm like well you have to host lead before we wrap up Kylie let's talk about your current bundle the bundle that's live and available as this episode is live because it's your birthday.

Yeah, so it's called Kylie's birthday bash now, I'm you get this obviously from us talking but I've obsessive birthdays. It's like my birthday month. It's like I celebrate for a long time. Like I love birthdays. So this year, I was like, well, it could be really fun to do a bundle around my birthday. Like how fun will that be? So I've put it on. From the 10th to the 16th of June, my birthday is on the 12th thing in the middle. And we have over 200 contributors, again, providing super valuable resources that it is for female business owners, but they're not just business related resources. So there's a variety of things that could help in all aspects of your life. The asset, I'm really excited to have you it's so much fun, so much fun.

I love it. And I just want to underscore for everyone listening that how much you're just like making the decisions about what makes you what feels fun and good and, and write about things because I think sometimes we just get over analytical trying to think about what's going to be the best strategy will did listening to this sound fun. Does it sound like fun to participate in a bundle? Why don't you go download and subscribe to Kylie's birthday bash, if you haven't experienced about at all, and now you'll experience it on the consumer end? And then join one and then maybe host one and then report back to us?

Absolutely. Yes, yeah. So I've given so you have a special link. So put that in the show notes. So you can go and jump in, there is two tiers to this bundle. So because we have so many contributors, I thought it'd be fun again to split it up so that there's a free tier. So there's one sexual bundle, you can just sign up for free get some incredible resources for any products that were valued between 105 $100 A lot of them are put into like a VIP tier VIP party bag. We've even got a themed you guys like party that. Yeah, that's just $97. So you can grab that and it's worth 1000s. So either option to, you know, regardless of what your budget is, there'll be something in there for you. Which Yeah, it's fun. And yes, I love it. So one last thing for all of our listeners, how I make decisions in my business now is by asking myself what feels fun right now. It doesn't feel fun. It's a no, because I learned the hard way that following somebody else's cookie cutter strategies doesn't always work for us, right? We need to make our own decisions in business and in life. So fun is always the answer. Always.

Yes, let's cheers. I felt like I wish I had a glass of champagne right now be like cheers more fun in our business.

Well, it's like 10am For me, so I better not do that. Or I'll have to laugh later, but

most of it's fine. Attended Saturday, whatever. You run your own business, you make your own decisions. Okay, that's true. And it does feel flawed.

You're right. You're right.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Kylie.

No, thank you so much for having me. This is really fun.

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