216: Grow Your List 10X Faster By Leveraging Existing Audiences
If you've been struggling to build your email list, this week's episode is a game-changer. I'm breaking down why creating more content isn't actually the fastest path to growing your audience (yes, you read that right!).
Instead, I'm sharing my proven framework for ethically "borrowing" established audiences to rapidly grow your list with qualified subscribers who are genuinely interested in what you offer. You'll learn four specific methods that have helped my clients go from zero to thriving email lists in just months—without spending money on ads or burning themselves out creating endless content.
What You'll Learn:
Why leveraging other people's audiences is more effective than creating endless content
How to arrange newsletter swaps (even if your current list is tiny)
The smart way to participate in content bundles for maximum subscriber growth
When podcast guesting is worth your time (and when it isn't)
How to secure virtual summit speaking opportunities that deliver high-quality leads
A practical 5-month action plan to implement everything step-by-step
Whether you have 5 subscribers or 500, these strategies work at any stage. I walk you through exactly how to implement each method to accelerate your growth, and I've included tools and resources to make the process even easier.
Stop struggling to build your audience in isolation and start leveraging the power of collaboration to grow your business faster.
Mentioned in this episode:
Newsletter Profit Club Collaboration App
Episode Highlights:
[00:01:00] Why leveraging other people's audiences is more effective than creating more content
[00:03:00] Method #1: How to arrange newsletter swaps (even with a tiny list)
[00:05:00] Method #2: Participating in content bundles to gain new subscribers
[00:06:00] Method #3: Using podcast guesting to build visibility and credibility
[00:07:00] Method #4: Speaking at virtual summits for high-quality leads
How to Rapidly Grow Your Email List by Leveraging Other People's Audiences
Building an email list from scratch can feel overwhelming. You pour hours into creating content, designing the perfect lead magnet, and tweaking your opt-in page—only to see a trickle of new subscribers. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Nearly every successful digital entrepreneur has faced this challenge.
But what if I told you that the fastest path to a thriving email list isn't creating more content or perfecting your freebies? The truth is, the most effective strategy for list building is leveraging other people's audiences. This approach can help you reach hundreds or even thousands of potential subscribers without spending a dime on advertising.
Let's dive into why this strategy works and how you can implement it in your business right away.
Why Leveraging Other People's Audiences Is So Powerful
Before we get into the tactics, let's understand why this approach delivers such impressive results:
Instant Credibility Transfer: When someone with an established audience recommends you, their trust factor rubs off on you. Instead of spending months building credibility from scratch, you can "borrow" it from someone else.
Pre-Qualified Leads: The people you'll reach are already interested in your niche—they're following someone who offers similar content. These aren't random internet users; they're qualified prospects who have demonstrated interest in what you talk about.
Cost-Effective Growth: You can reach a significant number of potential subscribers without spending money on ads. This is particularly valuable when you're just starting out and might not have a marketing budget.
Valuable Industry Connections: These partnerships create relationships with other creators in your space, which can lead to collaboration opportunities beyond list building.
Now that you understand the power of this approach, let's explore four specific methods for tapping into existing audiences.
Method 1: Newsletter Swaps—The Perfect Starting Point
Newsletter swaps are exactly what they sound like: you feature another creator's content in your newsletter, and they feature yours in theirs. This simple reciprocal arrangement can be incredibly effective, even if your current list is tiny.
Here's how to make newsletter swaps work for you:
Find Compatible Partners: Look for creators who serve a similar audience but aren't direct competitors. Ideally, you want to find newsletters with subscriber counts similar to yours or slightly larger.
Craft Compelling Pitches: When reaching out, clearly explain the value you can provide to their audience. Be specific about what unique insights or resources their subscribers will gain from your feature.
Make It Easy: Provide everything the other creator needs—your article, bio, any relevant links, and images. The less work they have to do, the more likely they are to say yes.
Use Matchmaking Tools: Consider using services like Newsletter Profit Club, which connect newsletter creators looking to grow together. These platforms make finding swap partners much easier than cold outreach.
The beauty of newsletter swaps is that they scale with you. As your list grows, you can partner with larger newsletters, creating a continuous growth cycle.
Method 2: Content Bundles—Collective Power for Exponential Growth
Content bundles bring together resources from multiple creators into one package, usually offered for a limited time. These collaborative projects can rapidly expand your reach to multiple audiences simultaneously.
Here's how content bundles work:
A Bundle Curator: Someone takes the lead in organizing the bundle, inviting contributors, and managing the technical aspects.
Value Contribution: Each creator contributes something valuable—perhaps a guide, template, mini-course, or other digital resource.
Collective Promotion: All contributors promote the bundle to their audiences, creating a multiplier effect.
Lead Collection: Everyone who contributes gets access to potential leads from the bundle. When someone signs up for the bundle, they can choose which individual resources they want and opt into those creators' email lists.
The key to success with bundles is ensuring your contribution stands out. Create something so valuable that bundle participants feel compelled to choose your offering from among the many options.
What makes bundles particularly effective is the variety of audiences you can reach. Since each contributor brings their unique following, you gain exposure to multiple communities at once.
Method 3: Podcast Guesting—Deep Connection Through Conversation
Appearing as a guest on podcasts in your niche can significantly boost your visibility and credibility. Unlike written content, podcast interviews allow the audience to spend time with you, creating a deeper connection.
The benefits of podcast guesting include:
Time-Depth Connection: Listeners might spend 30-60 minutes with you, creating a stronger relationship than a brief social media encounter.
Long-Term Lead Generation: Podcast episodes can continue generating leads for months or years after they're published as new listeners discover the content.
Perceived Authority: Being interviewed positions you as an expert, especially when you appear alongside recognized names in your industry.
However, podcast guesting does have some drawbacks to consider:
Time-Intensive: The process requires preparation, recording, and follow-up, making it one of the more labor-intensive list-building methods.
Variable Results: Some shows have highly engaged audiences that will take action, while others might not drive much response at all.
Pitching Challenges: Securing spots on relevant podcasts can be difficult, especially when you're just starting out.
While podcast guesting certainly has value, it's not necessarily the most efficient method for list building specifically. It works best as part of a broader visibility strategy rather than your primary list-building tactic.
Method 4: Virtual Summit Speaking—High-Quality Leads Through Teaching
Speaking at virtual summits might be the most powerful way to leverage other people's audiences for list growth. These online events bring together multiple speakers around a specific topic, with attendees signing up to access the presentations.
Virtual summit speaking provides several unique advantages:
Pre-Qualified Audience: Summit attendees have already demonstrated serious interest in your topic by registering for the event.
Visual Connection: Unlike written content, attendees see your face, presentation style, and teaching approach, building stronger relationships.
Expert Positioning: Being featured alongside recognized names elevates your status as a peer with other authorities in your field.
Built-In Lead Generation: Most summits have systems for speakers to collect leads directly from their presentations.
To maximize summit speaking opportunities:
Monitor Industry Events: Get on the email lists of leaders in your industry to see what summits they're promoting.
Reach Out to Hosts: Follow up with summit hosts to express interest in speaking at future events.
Create a Relevant Lead Magnet: Develop a resource specifically connected to your presentation topic.
Deliver Exceptional Content: Focus on providing genuinely valuable, actionable information during your talk.
Include a Strong Call to Action: Clearly articulate why viewers should sign up for your resource and email list.
Virtual summit speaking consistently delivers some of the highest-quality leads compared to other audience leverage methods, making it well worth the effort to secure these opportunities.
Setting Up Your Email System for Success
No matter which audience leveraging methods you choose, you need to ensure your email system is properly set up to welcome and nurture new subscribers. Here's what you need in place:
Welcome Email: Send an immediate email after someone signs up that delivers whatever resource you promised and sets expectations for future communications.
Integration Decision: You'll need to decide whether to put new subscribers directly into your regular newsletter sequence or send them through a dedicated welcome sequence first.
For summit speakers and bundle participants, consider sending just one welcome email and then integrating new subscribers directly into your regular newsletter flow. These subscribers are often already receiving many emails from the event or bundle, and overwhelming them with daily messages might lead to unsubscribes.
However, if you don't email regularly yet or your content isn't designed to nurture new relationships, a lightweight welcome sequence might be better.
Tracking Growth Channels for Optimization
To refine your list-building strategy over time, you need to know which methods are delivering the best results. Here's how to track your growth channels:
Use Unique Landing Pages: Create separate landing pages for each audience source so you can see exactly where your subscribers are coming from.
Implement UTM Parameters: For more advanced tracking, use UTM tags in your links to identify traffic sources.
Monitor Engagement Metrics: Track open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates by source to identify which methods bring in the most engaged subscribers.
This data will help you decide where to focus your efforts as you continue growing your list. Remember, quality matters more than quantity—1,000 engaged subscribers are far more valuable than 10,000 who never open your emails.
Your 5-Month Action Plan for Email List Growth
Building a substantial, engaged email list doesn't happen overnight, but with a systematic approach, you can make significant progress in just a few months. Here's a simple action plan to follow:
Month 1: Build Your Foundation
Set up your email service provider
Create your newsletter template
Develop 1-2 powerful lead magnets
Month 2: Begin Leveraging Audiences
Implement 2-3 newsletter swaps
Apply for one virtual summit
Month 3: Expand Your Reach
Participate in one content bundle
Continue newsletter swaps
Month 4: Deepen Engagement
Speak at your first summit
Analyze your results
Month 5: Optimize Your Strategy
Double down on the methods delivering the best results for your specific situation
Conclusion: Generosity Leads to Growth
Building an email list doesn't have to be a slow, painful process. By leveraging other people's audiences through these strategic methods, you can accelerate your growth dramatically while providing genuine value to your new subscribers.
The key to remember about this approach is that it's fundamentally about reciprocity. Always focus on how you can deliver exceptional value to the audience you're "borrowing." When you lead with generosity, list growth becomes a natural byproduct of serving others well.
Which of these methods will you try first? The sooner you implement these strategies, the sooner you'll see your email list—and your business—grow.
Pin this and save for later
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Creator's MBA podcast, your go-to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desk.
Hi there, destiny here, today we're tackling something that many of you struggle with growing your email list. Especially when you're starting from zero. But here's the good news, you do not have to build your audience in isolation. In fact, the fastest way to grow isn't creating more content.
It's not perfecting your lead magnet. It is leveraging other people's. Audiences.
[00:01:00] So today I'm going to walk you through exactly how to ethically borrow established audiences to jumpstart your email list growth, and I'm going to share some of the methods that I have found that works better than anything else for getting quality readers to your newsletter.
first, let's talk about why this strategy works. Before I get into any of the specific tactics, I want to expand upon why leveraging other people's audiences is so powerful. The first thing is you get an instant.
Credibility transfer. So when somebody with an established audience recommends you, their trust factor kind of rubs off on you too. Secondly, when you are accessing
[00:02:00] people who are already interested in what you have to offer, what your niche is. These aren't just random people out there in the world.
These are very qualified leads. The third thing is you can reach hundreds or maybe even thousands of potential subscribers without spending a dime on advertising, and that is. Huge, my friend, when you are just starting out. And finally, these partnerships create valuable connections with other creators in your space.
And that can lead to all kinds of opportunities down the road. Now let's get into, and I wanna walk you through my four favorite methods for tapping into existing audiences. the first one is newsletter swaps. newsletter swaps are.
[00:03:00] Pretty straightforward. You feature another creator's content in your newsletter and they feature yours and theirs.
Even if your list is tiny right now, you can still find people out there, other newsletter creators who are in a similar growth stage as you, and here's how you can make it happen. look for creators who serve a similar audience. But might not be direct competitors Ideally, find creators that have a similar or slightly larger subscriber count than yours, and when you reach out, craft a very compelling pitch that explains why a swap would benefit their audience specifically.
So you wanna be very clear about what unique value you can offer their readers. I do have a tool to make this process a lot easier I
[00:04:00] want you to check out the Newsletter Profit Club Collab App
It is basically a matchmaking service for newsletter creators who are looking to grow together, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes. The second method is participating in. Bundles. these are content bundles, and they bring together resources from multiple creators into one package, usually offered for a limited time.
So basically there's gonna be a business owner curating the bundle. they're gonna ask you to contribute something valuable, maybe a guide template, or mini course all the contributors are going to promote this bundle to their audiences. And here's the key part, everyone who contributes.
Get access to the potential leads from the bundle. So basically
[00:05:00] what's gonna happen, there's gonna be a landing page where all the gifts are listed there. People who are signing up for the bundle, they're gonna go to this landing page. They're going to pick the gifts they're interested in, and sign up.
When they sign up, they're gonna go to your specific landing page to opt in to your gift and to your newsletter, And that's how you grow your leads and your email list Method number three is podcast. Guesting. So appearing as a guest on podcast in your niche can also significantly boost your visibility and credibility.
podcast guesting works because these listeners are spending a good amount of time with you, creating a really deep connection. Plus these podcast episodes can continue to generate leads for months or years I have to be honest
[00:06:00] with you, podcast guesting does have some drawbacks.
It's pretty time intensive, so you're gonna need to prepare. You're gonna need to record, you're gonna need to follow up. You're gonna need to pitch other people to be a guest on their podcast, can be difficult and time consuming, and the results can also vary. Some shows have highly engaged audiences that will take action while others might not drive much response at all.
That's why I do think podcast guesting is valuable, but it's not necessarily on my top. Recommendation for list building specifically. Now, one method that I absolutely love and do myself and would be one of my top recommendations for you, is speaking at virtual summits. you get some of the
[00:07:00] highest quality leads here, and let me tell you why.
First, you're getting a pre-qualified audience. These people have already demonstrated interest in your topic by signing up for the summit. Secondly, you get a visual. Connection. attendees are gonna see your face. presentation and teaching style, which builds a stronger relationship with you.
Third, being featured alongside recognized names. Elevates your expert status. You're positioned as a peer with other authorities in your field. fourth, most summits have built in systems for speakers to collect leads, So if you want to maximize. Summit speaking opportunities.
Here's what I want you to do, one of the things that I would recommend is to get on the email list of some of the leaders
[00:08:00] in your industry and see what they are promoting, what summits are they promoting.
If any of 'em look good to you, follow up with that host and say, you know, if you do this again, I'd be interested in speaking here. that's a really good way to get involved there. But I wanna make sure that you are fully taken advantage of your speaking opportunity here.
And there's a couple of things that you can do. First, you're gonna want an irresistible league magnet that specifically relevant to your speaking presentation. So when it is time to present, focus on delivering exceptional, actionable content that showcases your expertise. And you're going to follow up and have a very strong call to action that clearly articulates why the person watching your presentation should sign up for that gift
[00:09:00] and for your email list.
Okay? The next thing I wanna talk about. Is setting up your email system for your new subscribers. So no matter which of these audience leveraging methods you choose, you wanna make sure that your system is properly set up to welcome people who are coming in. To your world. at a minimum, you're gonna need a welcome email that goes out immediately after signing up.
in this email, you're gonna set expectations and deliver whatever resources you promise them. here's a crucial decision you're going to need to make next. Do you put these new subscribers directly into your regular newsletter sequence, or do you send them through a dedicated welcome sequence first?
Now for some of these methods, especially like Summit
[00:10:00] speaking or participating in a bundle, I recommend that you add that new email subscriber directly into your regular newsletter flow And here's why, I would recommend this over. putting them in a welcome sequence where you're sending them an email a day for the next, week or so when somebody is an attendee at a summit or signing up for the gifts in a bundle.
Here's the thing, they're already getting a lot of emails from that particular event and from other people who have signed up. I've done a lot of testing and what I found is just sending them that one email that delivers the thing I promised them.
I would send them and then put them directly into my. Newsletter. I generally send out my newsletters on Sunday. So if they signed up
[00:11:00] during the week, maybe on a Wednesday or Thursday, when it came Sunday, they would get my regular, creator's, MBA newsletter there and there. You know, I'm gonna continue to.
Nurture them and give them my regular content that I would normally give everybody on my email list so it does maintain that momentum with them after they initially sign up with me without overwhelming them. However, if you're not emailing regularly yet. Or your regular content isn't designed to nurture new relationships, then I would say doing some type of lightweight welcome email sequence might be better.
The next thing I wanna talk about is tracking your growth channels. you need to track what's going on so you know what's working and what's not working. a couple ways you can track this is use unique.
[00:12:00] Landing pages for each audience source so you can see where your subscribers are coming from. if you are speaking at a particular event, set up a landing page for that event and so you will know in your email service provider. Okay, all of these leads. Came from this event. The other thing, if you're a bit more advanced, you can certainly set up UTM tags, so that would be another way that you could track where they came from.
you can monitor your engagement metrics, like open rates, click through rates, and conversion rates by the people who came in from that particular event. And that will help you decide. What methods are actually working to deliver the highest quality subscribers for your email list?
And there's some things you definitely want to avoid here. The first thing I would say avoid over promising, just to get more signups. you don't
[00:13:00] wanna sacrifice lead quality for quantity by making unrealistic claims. The other thing is, don't neglect. Following up, these new people are coming on your list.
They need attention. So don't just get them on your list and then neglect to send out your weekly newsletter. You need to be emailing them on a regular. Spaces, so that's very, very important.
Okay, so now let's talk about your action plan. I'm gonna give you a very simple action plan that you can follow in the first month. The first thing I want you to do is set up your email foundation, get your email list set up, get the template for your newsletter, and create one to two powerful lead magnets
In the second month, implement two to three. Newsletter swaps and apply for one virtual summit in month three. Consider participating in one bundle and
[00:14:00] continue those newsletter swaps. in month four. Speak at your first summit and analyze your results
Now in month five, I want you to start doubling down on the methods that are delivering the best results for your specific situation. Building an email list doesn't have to be a slow and painful process. When you are leveraging other people's audiences, especially through these events, you can accelerate your growth dramatically while providing genuine value to your new email subscribers.
The key to remember about this. Approach is that it's about reciprocity. always focus on how you can deliver exceptional value to the audience that you are borrowing. when you lead with generosity list growth becomes a natural byproduct of
[00:15:00] serving others well. So before I sign off here today, I love to hear which of these methods are you planning to dry?
First, drop me a message, respond to any of my emails if you're an email subscriber, and let me know. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend who's also building their email list. I would really, really appreciate it. Until next time, keep growing that email list by leveraging other people's audiences.
Talk with you soon.