How to Grow Your Email List With Collaborations
You can publish for a year and still grow slowly. That is not a work problem, it is a reach problem. Your content mostly reaches people who already found you, and the algorithm decides how many of them see it.
Collaborations get around that. Instead of waiting for new people to find you, you go where they already are. Someone else spent months building an audience, and for one email or one session or one guide, that audience is looking at you.
There are five main ways to do this, and they are not interchangeable. Each one asks for different work, returns a different kind of subscriber, and suits a different point in your business. This post covers all five so you can pick the right one instead of trying all of them badly.
Where collaborations fit in your business
In the Creator Growth Flywheel, which is the five-stage model I use for creator businesses, all of this lands in Attract. That is the stage where new people first find you.
Attract is the stage most creators think they have a problem with, and it is usually not the one that is broken. If people join your list and then nothing happens, more of them arriving does not help. You just get a bigger list of people who do not know you.
So before you spend three months on partnerships, check that the next step exists. When someone joins your list this week, do they get a welcome email that same day? Is there something to buy that costs less than a hundred dollars? If the answer to either is no, fix that first. Collaborations are worth much more once it is in place.
Collaborations bring people in, but they do not keep them. What you have built behind the signup form is what decides whether a partnership is worth the effort or just a spike in your subscriber count.
The five ways in
Here they are, roughly in order of how much work each one asks of you.
Newsletter swaps and cross-promotion
You mention another creator's newsletter in your issue and they mention yours in theirs. Nothing changes hands except a short blurb and a link, and no subscriber lists are ever shared. This is the fastest one to set up and the easiest to repeat, and you can run your first one this month.
Podcast guesting
You appear on someone else's show for 30 to 60 minutes. The audience is small compared to a summit, but the trust is much higher because people listen to podcasts alone and for a long time. Episodes also keep sending people for years, which almost nothing else on this list does.
Collaborative guides and bundles
A host gathers contributors into one free resource or one paid bundle, then promotes the whole thing. You contribute one asset and get in front of every other contributor's audience. Most of these need no live time at all, which makes them the easiest yes on a full calendar.
Virtual summits and workshop events
You teach one session inside a multi-day event. This is the biggest audience on the list by a wide margin, and it comes with a real time commitment for the session, the free resource, and the promotion. Done well it can bring in hundreds of subscribers in a week.
Joint webinars and co-created content
You and one other creator build something together and both promote it, whether that is a live workshop, a shared course, or a co-written guide. The effort is the highest here, but so is the depth of the relationship, and these often turn into ongoing partnerships rather than one-time trades.
How to pick the first one
Most people pick based on what sounds impressive. Pick based on what you actually have.
If you have very little time
Start with swaps or a collaborative guide. Both take an hour or two of work total and neither one asks you to show up live. You can run a swap in the time it takes to write two paragraphs, and a guide contribution is usually one asset you have already built.
If you have a small list
Swaps get harder when you have very few subscribers, because the trade has to be roughly even for the other person to say yes. Summits and collaborative guides do not have that problem. Hosts are filling a lineup based on what you can teach, and plenty of contributors get accepted with modest lists because their session is good.
If you want buyers and not just subscribers
Podcast guesting and joint webinars bring fewer people, but those people have spent 45 minutes with you. They arrive knowing your voice and your point of view, and they convert at a much higher rate than someone who clicked a link in a swap. If your offer is above a few hundred dollars, this matters more than volume.
If you want the biggest number
Summits, and it is not close. One good session in a well-promoted event can outperform a year of swaps. It also asks the most of you, and the results vary the most, so it works best once you have the follow-up figured out.
"Pick the collaboration that fits the time you actually have, not the one that sounds the most impressive."
Dr. Destini Copp, Creator's MBAThe mistake people make with all five
Every one of these can work, and most of them fail for the same reason. People treat the collaboration as the finish line.
They get the swap booked, or the session recorded, or the guide published, and then they wait to see what happens. New subscribers arrive, get added to a list, and hear nothing for two weeks. By the time an email goes out, nobody remembers where they signed up.
The creators who do well have the next step built before the collaboration goes live. They have a free gift that solves the very next problem, a small paid offer waiting on the thank you page, and a short sequence for the people who do not buy. That is the whole difference, and it takes a weekend to put together.
If you only fix one thing from this post, fix that. I wrote a full breakdown of it in how to turn summit subscribers into buyers.
How many should you run in a year?
Fewer than you would think, as long as you do them properly.
Four collaborations a year, all pointing at the same free resource and the same offer, will beat twelve scattered ones, and the reason is repetition. When the same person sees you on a podcast in March, in a bundle in June, and on a summit stage in September, you stop being a stranger and start being someone they keep running into. That is worth far more than three unrelated appearances in front of three unrelated audiences.
So pick one channel, run it three or four times, and keep the destination the same each time.
One swap a quarter, two podcast appearances, and one event. That is seven collaborations, it fits around real work, and it will do more for your list than any posting schedule.
Where to go next
Each of these has its own post with the specifics, including the outreach, the setup, and what usually goes wrong.
- Newsletter swaps that actually grow your list
- How to get booked as a podcast guest and grow your list
- How to join a collaborative guide or creator bundle
- Events accepting speaker applications in 2027
- How to turn summit subscribers into buyers
If you want the fastest way in, applications are open now for several 2027 events. You can see every date and deadline on the Creator's MBA event calendar.
Get in front of an audience someone else built
Twelve Creator's MBA events run in 2027 and applications are open now. Every one is free to contribute to, and every subscriber you earn is yours.
See the 2027 Calendar →Not sure which stage of your business is holding you back?
Take the free scorecard and find out which part of your growth flywheel is dragging the other four. It takes about three minutes.
Take the Free Scorecard →Frequently Asked Questions
A newsletter swap is the quickest one to set up. You and another creator each mention the other's newsletter in an issue, which takes about an hour of work total and can be set up this week. It works best once you have a list of your own, because the trade needs to be roughly even for the other person to say yes.
Not for every type of collaboration. Swaps do need a roughly comparable list size, but summits, collaborative guides and bundles select contributors on what they can teach rather than on audience size. Plenty of contributors get accepted with modest lists because their session or asset is strong.
Four done well will beat twelve done carelessly. Pick one channel, run it three or four times, and point every one at the same free resource and the same offer. Repetition in front of overlapping audiences is what makes people remember you.
Usually because nothing happens after they join. New subscribers pay the most attention in the first few days, so if there is no welcome email and no next step waiting, the attention is gone before you follow up. Build the resource and the follow-up sequence before the collaboration goes live.
Podcast guesting and joint webinars bring the warmest people. The audiences are smaller, but those listeners spent 30 to 60 minutes with you and arrive knowing your voice and your point of view. They convert at a much higher rate than someone who clicked a link in a swap.
