#245 - How I grew my list from 0 to 20K in the first year for free

I then asked if everybody would mind sharing it. I was like, guys, I really am passionate about this. You know, I really want, you know, to get the word out. I would love it if everyone could please share this email with five friends that you think might be interested. So I didn't have to do a thing. I sent two emails and I had my first 200 or so people on my list. Pretty good start.

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you you that I went from 0 to 20,000 plus email subscribers in my very first year of business without spending a cent on ads. But it's true. And inside this episode I'm going to tell you exactly how I did it.

Hey, hey guys, it is Kate here from hello Funnels and welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. Today we are talking about your funnels best friend and that is the power of building your email list. Now, I'm not going to get into the email versus social media debate right now. That's a whole other episode. But I'm going to assume if you're listening or watching this episode, then you're on board with just how important it is to have an email list. And not just important across the board, but it is never more important than right at the start of your business. And I'll tell you why. Because the thing is, when you are in the beginning phases of business, when you are still trying to figure things out, you need to be able to test and you need to test a lot and get feedback. You need to see what is working and what isn't working. And you know what, you don't want to be setting fire to money to do that. And by that I mean having to spend again and again on ads just to get feedback. Maybe something isn't working. It is so, so much easier to nail your messaging, to make amazing products and to really be able to set up, you know, a sales system and a marketing system that allows you to grow even faster when you have that initial pool of people that you can use to get that feedback from without having to pay for it. So that's what I'm talking about. Now the problem is that pool, that first 500 or a couple of thousand even of people on your email list, that is the hardest ones to get, but they are also the most important. And a lot of people get stuck here because you don't know which one of the 10 million different strategies you should be focusing on to get that initial boost forward. And that's what I want to help you with today because my Very first business, which I started back in 2007, guys. So there wasn't much going on social media then. I didn't really have much of a choice but to build an email list. It also was an email based business, so that kind of helped with my focus. But you know, I was so, so lucky back then that I did stumble across a couple of strategies that worked really well and that allowed me to not just get first 500 or even first couple of thousand, but to get over 20,000. I think it was almost 25,000. It was in what it was called, it's a, it's a email system that doesn't even exist anymore. So I can't go back and get the exact like, get the exact numbers, but it's around about 25,000, like maybe a little under, a little above in that first year. And the reason I know it's that number is because like we had to go up to the next plan and I was like, oh my gosh, it's too expensive. I don't want to pay 60amonth or whatever it is when we go up to the next plan. But anyway, that's another story for another day. So I was just super lucky. And not everyone is so lucky. And that's why I want to walk you through exactly what I did today. These are short episodes, guys. They're, they're quick, they're snackable, they're designed to, you know, to get in, tell you what to do so you can go and implement. But if you would like a bit more of a step by step breakdown, including a bunch more list building strategies. Because it's been a little while since 2007, let's be honest, I've actually put together a totally free guide called 0-20K. And so in that guide I'm able to go deep. It's like 46 pages long of list building strategies that work. And there are a couple of page ones in there, but most of them are totally free. So we're going to go through in that like what I did in that first year as well as all of the ones that I've picked up along the way in the last like 17 years of list building. So all you need to do if you want to grab that guy, like I said, it's totally free, super value packed, just head on over to our Instagram account which is at hellofunnels. We'll pop a link below and then just DM us 20k. So that's 2,0k and we will send you the link and you can grab it all from there. But you know, if you'd rather the audio version, that's what we're here for. All right, let's dive in to the three main things that were able to really kick off that list. Building. And then took it to the next level and the next. Again, as I said, that business that I was launching and building was an email based business. So it was a daily email newsletter. So day one, I didn't want to send that to nobody. So the first thing I did was I went, and this is probably slightly illegal, so I wouldn't recommend you do this, but basically I took every email address that I had that I knew of, all of my personal contacts, and I put them on my email list. And that probably got me my first, what, 100 or so? And in that first email that I sent out, I let them know, I'm like, hey guys, I'm creating this thing. You know, I've invited you to it slightly again, against your will. If you don't want to keep hearing from me, here's the link. And that was, you know, that was fine, but that got me my first bunch. Then the next thing that I did, which I still would put under this same category, was I then asked if everybody would mind sharing it. I was like, guys, I really am passionate about this. You know, I really want, you know, to get the word out. I would love it if you, if everyone could please share this email with five friends that you think might be interested. So it was kind of like a bit of those, you remember those old chain letter vibes that used to get like, you don't pass this on to 35 people when you're 30. You'll get hit by a truck or something random. Like it was, it was kind of inspired by that, but it worked. And that got me up to about 200 or so people. So I didn't have to do a thing. I sent two emails and I had my first 200 or so people on my list. Pretty good start. I was pretty happy. And it didn't help that or sorry. It did help that the emails I was sending, they were short, they were entertaining, they were value packed. So people were happy to get them. All right, let's move on to the second thing I did. Because I stayed stuck at that 200ish number for a while and that was no fun. So I was like, okay, I've kind of exhausted my existing network. What can I do now? I want to go bigger. I had big dreams like this in my head. This was going to be a multibillion dollar company in like 18 months. And I was going to be retiring on an island soon. I love the naivete of someone in their early 20s who's creating a business. So the next thing I did was, and this was again, I was using really the context I had and the experience I had. Cause I was a journalist. I was like, whoa. When brands want to get exposure, they come to us and they ask us to write about them. So I want other people to write about me or maybe I can go and write for other people. So again, I was a writer. I had, you know, that definitely was a help. But I went out and did a bunch of guest blogging. Now that's not really that much of a thing anymore. It still is a bit, but I would say the modern day equivalent of that would be going onto people's podcasts and going on doing a podcast tour. So finding podcasts that have related audiences, coming up with a couple of really killer topics you think their audiences might love and reaching out to them via email. Yes, it's a bit time intensive, but you know, this is number one focus. This is so, so important and so it's worth it. So that was the next thing I did that gave me like another bump, but it was a bit of a slow burn, bit of hit and miss. So the third thing I did was what I would call a joint venture or you know, something that, you know, when you're looking at the different types of audiences, you've got paid, you've got owned, which is like your email list, or borrowed, which is other people's audiences. And it's also called a joint venture. So this JV opportunity, someone emailed me and they said, look, we're creating this big giveaway. I feel like it was maybe for Mother's Day or something. There was definitely like a theme to it. But we're getting a bunch of online businesses. We're all going to get together. What we all did was actually we put in money to create this amazing prize. So it was like a really juicy prize. And then we all committed to promoting it to our email list. The legalities of that exact setup. Back then it was a bit more the wild, wild west. Right. Like, things have tightened up a lot since then. But you know, comparable today would be someone doing a bundle or a summit or yes, a group giveaway. But you probably set it up slightly differently. But yeah, this big competition ran. Some of the people who were part of it had massively, some of us had smaller lists no one really seemed to mind because it kind of got this bit of momentum of its own. It was definitely over 10,000 people who opted in from that one activity alone. And it was so many in such a short period of time that my email service emailed me and they're like, hey, are you spammer? Is this, you know, we're not going to allow you to add half of them. So bunch of them I wasn't actually even able to add. So that gave me a really big boost and it also showed me the power of teaming up and working together and collaborating. And so I did that a few more times at different scales with different people and each one of those gave me a big bump. And by the end of the year, you know, my email list as it was 20,000 plus people and I hadn't spent a cent. Like even if I had wanted to spend a cent, Facebook ads weren't really even a thing back then. So there wasn't, there wasn't many options. I was just kind of going with what was there. But funnily enough, all of those things, 17 years later, they're still the things that I would recommend. Like if you're getting started and you don't have a budget, obviously if you do have a budget and you want to speed things up, get a killer lead magnet and run some low cost ads to it, that can be definitely another way to do things. But a lot of people in the beginnings, they don't have a big budget or you know, that budget's needed for other things. So there are ways that you can get big bumps quite quickly. And that was the sort of the steps that I did. So if this sounded like something that you want to give a try, if you want a bit more of a step by step breakdown of it, guys, don't forget you can grab that totally free 0-20k guide. All you need to do, head on over to our Instagram account at hello funnels and just DM me the word 20k. So 2,0k and we'll send it straight to you. So guys, if you have found this useful, if you are going away with at least one aha, one thing to get done, it would mean the world to me if you could go old school, you know, 20, 22,007 style and share this with at least one other person in your network who you think could get some value out of this. It helps me to get the word out there and you know, as I said, it would mean absolute world to me. So thank you again for joining me guys. I hope it has been help helpful and I will see you all same time next week. Have a lovely nerdy week and I will see you then. Bye.