Email list growth is hard. It often feels like this big gray cloud looming over us—but it’s not impossible. Today, we’re talking about how you can connect with a larger target audience and grow your email list with customers who are ready to buy from YOU. 

This first appeared in The School of Marketing for Entrepreneurs. If you’d like to listen to the whole thing, click here to listen on Apple Podcasts or here to listen on Spotify.

Here’s the thing—even though I wasn’t actively working this summer, my email list still grew by over 850 subscribers. We’re going to talk about strategies that you can implement today in a fun and innovative way to grow your email list that sets you apart from everyone else’s PDFs. You’ve heard my friend Dolly DeLong on the podcast over the last few weeks. In 2021, she used these strategies to catapult her email list by 3,500 subscribers in one week. My own email list grew by 2,500 subscribers in that same week. By getting away from the industry-standard PDF, putting in a little work, and collaborating with other business owners, we were able to grow our lists in one week to an amount that takes some people years to do. 

We don’t all have the funds to pour into ads…or our own marketing teams to help us build out our email list like the big gurus do. 

But email is one of the top marketing tools we still have. More than half of the world’s population (over 4.2 BILLION people) are active email users globally (as of 2022). By the end of 2026, that number is projected to grow to over 4.7 billion. Email is far from dead.

There is a whole list of reasons why you might think email marketing isn’t working. But the truth is, you can have an email list that works for you and makes money while you sleep—seriously. Email list growth can help you achieve the business growth and freedom that you want.

So let’s talk about what that looks like without spending an arm and a leg on ads. (Spoiler—it is up to you to take action.) 

Business bundles

The secret to our email list growth? Business bundles. We’ve talked about business bundles a lot lately on the podcast (you can check out the show notes here), but a business bundle is a package of digital products that are bundled together at a discounted price. It offers value to its customers, it leverages the audience of the bundle contributors, and it is a great way to attract new leads. 

A compelling bundle can act as a powerful lead magnet for your email list—and for the lists of those who are contributing.

How to create an effective bundle

There is an art to creating the perfect bundle for your business. It boils down to solid planning and strategy. 

Step 1: decide the topic

You want to have an overarching goal for your bundle. Dolly’s bundle in 2023 was specific to digital funnels. We’ve seen bundles that have tons of products tossed in with no relationship to one another, or bundles with contributors who have nothing in common. 

If you are thinking about putting together a bundle, you want to make sure every product in the bundle makes sense together. For example, you don’t want to host an email marketing bundle and include a product about home organization. That contributor is going to have an audience that is very different from the rest of the contributors, so they are not going to be a high-converting audience. 

Having a strategy in place for your bundle topic and contributors who are participating in the bundle is key to the success of growing your email list with the type of growth that Dolly and I have seen. 

Step 2: have a solid marketing strategy

“If you build it, they will come” is not true for digital marketing. You need to have a plan in place for the weeks and months leading up to the bundle.

You can have a pre-bundle event to get your audience excited about what is going to be in the bundle and ready to sign up the moment the bundle goes live. This is where Dolly really saw some solid growth with her first bundle. She used my signature course, The Pop-up Podcast™, and used that as her pre-launch event. 

It is beneficial to have a pre-launch event, but it’s not absolutely necessary. However, I believe that’s where Dolly gained some more traction as she went into the live launch of her bundle. 

Step 3: follow up well

You’ve finished your bundle and it was a wonderful success. Congrats! Go take a nap—but then make sure that those people who are brand-new to your list are continuing to be nurtured. 

I’m not just talking about writing a welcome sequence and calling it a day. I want you to take that extra step to make sure they are taking full advantage of the bundle they just purchased or downloaded. This also takes care of your contributors by reminding the purchasers to actually take advantage of the products that are in the bundle. 

Here’s the thing: contributors to the bundle do not automatically get the email addresses of the people who signed up for the bundle. 

Purchasers have to go through each product and sign up for the offer, which gives their consent to be on the contributor’s email list. This is true for both paid and free bundles. Reminding purchasers to take advantage of every product in the bundle should be a huge part of your nurture strategy after the bundle launch is over. 

Business bundles are not just a clever marketing tool. They are a transformational strategy that can elevate your business to new heights. I believe they will continue to be a successful strategy for email list growth. 

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There are a lot of pieces and moving parts that go into creating a bundle. That’s exactly why Dolly and I created The Bundle Intensive. We help you put together a solid bundle that sets you apart from the fly-by-night bundle creators out there. We have figured out the secret strategy to building a bundle so that you don’t have to figure it out on your own. We teach our signature framework that has changed our lives, the contributor’s lives, and the lives of those who have purchased our bundle. 

What if you could grow your email list by 1,000 or even 5,000 subscribers in one week without spending a dime on ads? Participating in a bundle is helping me grow my email list even now—and even when I was away on family medical leave this summer as I cared for my father who had open heart surgery. 

This formula works even if you’re not the best at organizing or if you’re not an email-list growth expert. Over the years, we’ve also found a lot of things that you should NOT be doing when hosting a bundle, which is pretty valuable information. We’re teaching you what we know so you can shortcut your path from being stuck to seeing results…finally. 

You’ll get the templates and trainings and everything you need to get going, yes. But you also get access to Dolly and me for that ultimate clarity and direction of building your bundle. 

Imagine having a great rinse-and-repeat marketing tool to use in your own business year after year. You can create bundles over and over again, and that’s exactly what the Bundle Intensive will show you how to do. 

Ready to get on the waitlist for the next Bundle Intensive? Click here! 

True email list growth is not impossible. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, but it is possible for you. The Bundle Intensive is there to help you do that. We are going to open the doors twice a year—once in the fall and once in the spring—so get on the waitlist now! 

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If this episode inspires you, leave a review and share your biggest takeaway with me! And while you’ve got your phone out, go ahead and do these 3 things:

1. Give this podcast a follow (click here for iTunes or here for Spotify, or look up “The School of Marketing Podcast for Digital Entrepreneurs” wherever you listen to your podcasts). 
2. Head to the Email Template Shop™ and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off your first purchase.
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Want more of where this came from? Check out other show notes here.