Right up there with revenue, email list size is one of the HOTTEST business metrics to track. Why? 

Because list size is a proxy for reliable reach. If you had an important announcement to share with your audience right this very second, how would you notify them? Social media algos are inconsistent, 1-1 calls are impractical, but email—that’s your most dependable channel to communicate with your peeps. 

So how do you make your list size go up ‘n to the right? ツ

That’s the question we’re going to answer in this 4-part blog series.

*Fair warning* I’ve yet to meet one entrepreneur, including myself, who said growing their email list was easy. It requires a bit of sweat, grind, and hustle. But if you want to set your business up for success, you can’t keep pressing snooze on your email list. 

Let’s get into the first implementation idea. 

Idea #1 to Grow Your Email List: Find one person to collaborate with and do a live virtual event together. 

It’s not as intimidating as it might sound. Here’s a 5-step play-by-play of how this works.

STEP 1: Find someone who serves a similar audience and whose work complements yours. 

In our case, we help personal brands look expensive on a budget with a complete suite of branded assets. I’ve partnered with real estate agents, pilates coaches, and copywriting communities because these niches have people who rely on their personal brands to bring in revenue.  

STEP 2: Decide how you can serve and be valuable to their audience. 

How can you help the audience of the person you’re collab’ing with? What unique insights or unlocks can you dish out for them? How can you make your partner look good in front of their audience? If these questions are hard to answer, this person isn’t a good partner for you. Find someone else. 

When I do partnerships, I often do a live workshop-esque presentation on how to craft a conversion-centric color palette for your personal brand. People LOVE this topic because they want to know how to strategically pick colors that will help them grow their business. 

Fun fact I like to share with people during these workshops: It only takes 90 seconds for someone to form a first impression about your brand and up to 90% of that first impression is based on color alone. 🤓

STEP 3: Pick a time/date and a format.

It doesn’t matter if it’s an Instagram Live, a LinkedIn Live, a private Zoom workshop, or a livestream on YouTube. Pick the format based on where your audience is most likely to engage. 

I’ve been doing Instagram Lives and private Zoom workshops for closed community memberships. I dabbled on LinkedIn and decided it’s not a distribution channel to go after right now. YouTube is still a WIP for us—we plan to publish tutorials and design tips there soon, but we’re not ready to pour resources into growing our channel yet. 

STEP 4: Promote the collab.

If the session is open to both your audience and your partner’s audience, promote it on social media and email. Otherwise make sure to provide your partner with social captions, copy bites, and graphics so they can promote the event to their audience. Your goal = make it stupid easy for your partner to get their audience to attend your session. 

STEP 5: JFDI. 

Please don’t overthink it. JFDI (just effing do it) and then give people a reason and a way to keep in touch at the end. You can do this by sharing a free download or asking them to email you for an exclusive coupon code. 

Since we have a few juicy freebies, I usually tell participants to take our Brand Quiz, download the Color Meaning Cheat Sheet, or check out the Guide to a $1M Brand. I also like to give an exclusive discount code or bonus that’s only available to people who attended the session. 

I think it’s worth mentioning that one of the reasons I originally got into branding for personal brands was precisely because I preferred being behind the scenes. Where no one could see me. Safe and sound. 😌

But about a year ago I realized I needed to come out of my cozy creative cave to get more visibility for Digital Brand Kit. And so that’s what I did. I found people with audiences that could benefit from DBK’s visual branding and marketing getup and I collab’ed with them. 

And guess what? Partnerships have become the most fruitful source of subscribers and leads for my company. So if you feel icky by the mere thought of having to get in front of a live audience (albeit virtual), let’s smash that comfort zone, shall we?

Related: 10 Email Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business

List Building Idea #1 | List Building Idea #2 | List Building Idea #3 | List Building Idea #4