How I Doubled My Email List In The Last 12 Months Without Social Media [Ep 176]

Today I'm pulling back the curtain and revealing exactly how I doubled my email list in the last 12 months - without relying on social media. If growing your email list feels overwhelming, this episode will give you a clear roadmap to focus on the right strategies that actually work!

What You’ll Learn:

• My exact list growth numbers and why her email engagement is higher than industry standard.
• My V² Visibility Framework she uses to grow her list sustainably.
• Why I don’t use social media for list growth (and why you don’t have to either!)
• The bundles, summits, and collaborations that brought in thousands of subscribers.
• The biggest mistakes business owners make with email marketing.

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Transcript

Kylie Kelly [00:00:00]:
And 12 months ago to the day, I had 2,862 subscribers. So I had an established email list. Of course, I am also 2 years into the journey, right? So 12 months ago I had 2,862. Today my list sits at a very healthy 6,108 subscribers. And let me tell you, this is a dream audience to build a relationship with. My average open rate over the last 90 days is sitting at 55.7%. Pretty amazing, way higher than industry standard. And my click rate is 2.14%.

Kylie Kelly [00:00:36]:
Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don't involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to the Email Growth Show. I'm your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from 0 to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than.

Kylie Kelly [00:00:56]:
2 years., and the same is possible for you too.

Kylie Kelly [00:00:59]:
Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let's head into today's episode.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:08]:
Hey, hey, welcome back to the Email Growth Show, episode 176.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:14]:
Now, today's episode is a little bit.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:16]:
Special because I'm sharing with you an audio recording that I did for my audio interview series, Inside the Inbox. Now, I created Inside the Inbox, which was a completely free 3-day audio-only event so I could share what's actually working right now to grow, nurture, and sell through email. It was an incredible event. We had over 1,200 business owners register and dive into these short value-packed interviews. There was no fluff. There was no outdated tactics or confusing strategies. It was really simple and the feedback was incredible. I will have an episode coming up soon where I break down exactly how the event went and my plans to run the next one.

Kylie Kelly [00:01:53]:
But today I wanted to share with you my contribution to Inside the Inbox where I pulled back the curtain and I revealed exactly how I doubled my email list in the last 12 months without relying on social media. I talked about my exact list growth numbers and why my email engagement is higher than industry standard. I shared a little bit more about my V2 Visibility framework and how I use that to grow my list sustainably. I shared why I don't use social media for list growth and why you don't have to either. And then I will say I got.

Kylie Kelly [00:02:21]:
On my soapbox a little bit about.

Kylie Kelly [00:02:22]:
The biggest mistakes business owners make with email marketing. All right, let's dive in.

Kylie Kelly [00:02:27]:
I just really wanted to share with you exactly how I've doubled my email list in the last 12 months without social media. So I wanted to peel back the curtains on exactly how I've done this because that is exactly what we're here for. So in preparation for this, I just went back and looked at my KIT account and 12 months ago to the day I had 2,862 subscribers. So I had an established email list. Of course, I am also 2 years into the journey, right? So 12 months ago I had 2,862. Today my list sits at a very healthy 6,100. Subscribers, and let me tell you, this is a dream audience to build a relationship with. My average open rate over the last 90 days is sitting at 55.7%.

Kylie Kelly [00:03:12]:
Pretty amazing, way higher than industry standard. And my click rate is 2.14%. Now I know if you're new to email marketing, that just sounds like a load of numbers, but the real magic is that my subscribers, the dream clients on my email list, they reply to my emails, they engage with me, and most importantly, as a business owner, they also buy my offers. But the reason why I'm sharing all of this with you is I wanna share exactly how I got here, because if I can do it, I can guarantee that you can do it too. So that's exactly what I'm gonna share with you today. No fluff, no secrets, no BS, just real strategies that you can use yourself. And I wanna say at the very outset of this, please don't let this overwhelm you, because I'm gonna show you that there are multiple options available to you, and you can choose what works best for you, what you think will fit in the stage of life that you're at. You might not have the same circumstances that allow me to do what I've done.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:05]:
Just start with one thing, okay? Don't let overwhelm stop you. Take one action. It's better than no action, and any progress is what we're going for, right? So let's dive in. Firstly, I wanted to just mention why I don't use social media for list growth. So if you've been onto my social accounts, I do have an Instagram account. I have a 9Grid app, so I don't post to my actual profile at the moment. I've got 3 pinned posts at the top to advertise this event, but that's kind of the extent that I go on posting to Instagram. I do show up in my stories.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:38]:
I like having fun with that when I want to, but there's no pressure there. I don't sell in my stories. I don't even get that much engagement, if I'm being completely honest. It's not really a make-or-break account for me. If Instagram went down tomorrow and I lost my account, I wouldn't really notice. And I don't use any of the others. I'm on Facebook, but I don't really use it. I'm not on TikTok.

Kylie Kelly [00:04:57]:
I have an account on TikTok, but I don't use it. For me, I found it all exhausting. Now, if you don't know my history, I used to be a wedding photographer, so I am very visual. I'm a perfectionist. So I found the pressure to post beautiful content and, uh, stuff that was aesthetically pleasing, stuff that I thought was perfect— I found it too much. I couldn't keep up with the algorithm stuff. I didn't want to dance and point. Uh, I didn't like the pressure that I felt to show up daily, and I'm a mom of two little boys, so that is almost impossible for me anyway.

Kylie Kelly [00:05:24]:
And then there was the uncertainty of whether what I actually posted or shared would even be seen. And I didn't even own the platform. So like, no thanks. Instead, when I pivoted from my wedding photography studio to an online business, I wanted to double down on relationship-based marketing strategies that allowed me to grow my email list with aligned, high-quality leads. I call them dreamies, my dream clients, while focusing on connection and sustainability. And you can probably guess what I'm going to say next, but like, it worked, uh, hence why I am here with you today. So the growth strategies that got me here— so over the past 12 months, I've grown my list without social, using proven, repeatable strategies that fit into my V2 framework. So I have a V2 visibility framework that I teach all my members in my membership, that I take all my clients through, and the framework consists of two things.

Kylie Kelly [00:06:12]:
So there's a search and SEO side of the V. So if you imagine a capital V, there's a search and SEO side of the V which leverages Pinterest, YouTube, blogs, traditional PR, anything that's based around search and SEO. And then there's that other side of the V that's all about collaborations and relationship-based marketing.. So that is your bundles, your summits, your freebie swaps, your guest speaking, your podcast guesting, your networking, all of those things that allow you to connect with aligned business owners, leverage each other's audiences, and tap into their own warm audience. So with that in mind, that visibility framework, with that in mind, I haven't done all of them. By God, I haven't done all of them. But what I chose to focus on over the last 12 months was mostly bundles and summits. Podcast guesting, and freebie swaps and email collaborations.

Kylie Kelly [00:07:00]:
So over the last 12 months, I participated in over 15 collaborations, bringing in thousands of new subscribers. The standout collaborations, I will say, are the ones that I hosted. They are the ones that have gotten me the most signups, the most income, the biggest results. As some examples, so I hosted a birthday bash bundle back in June last year, and I had 2,700 subscribers sign up to it. I will say that was a very generic bundle bundle. It was meant to be just like a party with all my online friends, so it was not just targeted at my ideal clients. So a lot of them have left. I just had a look now prior to recording this, and I've got 1,300 subscribers left.

Kylie Kelly [00:07:40]:
So I mean, like, that sucks, but I'm kind of not surprised, and that would be expected. Where these types of things really shine is where you can be really specific and really targeted and create something that speaks exactly to the problems your ideal clients have. Similar to this, right? Like, I'm an email marketer, and I'm hosting Inside the Inbox teaching you how to get started or to take your email list and your email marketing to the next level. It's absolutely perfect for what I do. So I digress, but Kylie's Birthday Bash was one of them. And then I also hosted the Ultimate Email Marketing Bundle, in which I saw almost 1,500 subscribers added to my list, and majority of them are still there, which again speaks to the fact that we need to be really intentional when we are hosting, or even when we're contributing to bundles or summits, to make sure that our ideal client will be a part of that audience, that we are filling our list full of our dreamies, right, our dream clients, not just as somebody that likes to play ping pong. I don't know, that's a bad reference, but you know what I mean, not somebody random. So I did bundles and summits.

Kylie Kelly [00:08:38]:
I also did podcast guesting and speaking. So I made guest appearances on podcasts and inside masterminds, which helped build my credibility and also drive some opt-ins from aligned audiences. I will say they're not the same sort of numbers that you'll see from a bundle or a summit because it's a smaller group, generally speaking. And with podcast guesting, people are normally driving or folding the laundry or doing whatever when they're listening to a podcast, so to get them to opt in can be challenging. However, it definitely still helped paint me as the expert and helped build my credibility in the space. Still very important. And then the last thing that I pointed out there was freebie swaps and email collaborations. So multiple times I exchanged my lead magnet with other business owners who serve similar audiences, bringing in high-quality engaged subscribers who are already interested in what I offer.

Kylie Kelly [00:09:22]:
So an example of this is Alison Hardy that's in Inside the Inbox, is a dear friend of mine. We did a freebie So she teaches automation and selling on autopilot, and I teach email marketing and how to grow your email list, right? So our audiences are perfectly aligned, and what we do is quite complementary. So that kind of collaboration, that kind of list growth strategy, is a great one if you can find somebody that's super aligned, that serves your ideal clients in a complementary way. Now I want to say, I know this list of strategies might feel overwhelming, like, holy hell, Kylie, you've just hit me with a friggin fire hose. I don't even know what to do next. Here's the thing, you do not have to do everything. All I want you to do is think about one or two strategies that feel aligned with how you like to show up. Do you want to speak on podcasts? Great, start there.

Kylie Kelly [00:10:14]:
Do you love creating resources for bundles? Amazing, try that out. Do you want to leverage SEO for long-term growth? Cool, head over to Pinterest or YouTube, right? The beauty of this approach is that it's sustainable, it's scalable, and it's tailored to you. And you're building something that you own. You're building your email list. So all of these things lead back to email, helping you grow your email list so that if your Instagram goes down, if TikTok gets banned, if like whatever happens in the social spaces that we don't own, whatever happens happens, you still can be like, huh, I'll just send an email to my list instead. That's what I want for you. It's not that you have to abandon social. If you enjoy it, like keep on keeping on.

Kylie Kelly [00:10:52]:
But I want you to make sure that you're also building an email list on the side because that is something that is only ever gonna be an asset to your business. I also wholeheartedly believe that your ideal audience, they hang out on social, but they buy in the inbox. The inbox is where you're going to make sales. So if you can start to build your list, if you can start to get confident in sending your normal weekly emails and then sending sales emails, if you can start to get used to that and flexing that muscle, you are going to see nothing but positive ROI on your time, on your efforts. Sales happen in the inbox. Now, the biggest mistakes that I see business owners make— now keep in mind, I have hundreds of business owners in my membership. I've had conversations with even more through my own email list. The biggest mistakes that I see business owners make all the time is one, not tracking what's working.

Kylie Kelly [00:11:38]:
If you don't know what's growing your list, how can you repeat it? And also, if you don't know if it's not working, you don't know to stop it, right? So make sure you're tracking what's working. Another mistake is only focusing on social media. Like I just said, likes don't pay the bills. Email does. Grow something that you own. If you enjoy social, awesome, keep doing what you're doing, but make sure you're growing your email list as well. And the last one might sound like a bit of a contradiction, but it's kind of like taking email too seriously. We have to remember that on the other side of someone's inbox is a human being, and we're building a relationship.

Kylie Kelly [00:12:08]:
So I always encourage my clients, my members, when we're emailing, we just want to sit down and write like we talk. We want to share like we're talking to a friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. Like, what would you say to your friend right now about what you do for work, about your industry? What problems are you seeing? What advice would you have for her if she had that problem? Like, just sit down and write the way you speak, and you are going to build the most beautiful relationships that way, rather than worrying about whether you have the right punctuation or worrying about the formatting of the email, right? Don't worry so much. Just write like you talk and then just hit send. One of the biggest bits of advice that I have if you struggle writing your email is don't write the email first. Sit down, go into your private Zoom room, hit record, talk to your computer like you're talking to your friends, you'll feel stupid, but talk to your computer, talk to your Zoom camera like you're talking to your best friend. Imagine that. What do you want to say to her right now? Record it, download the transcript, chuck it into ChatGPT, and ask Chat to turn it into an email using the words you just said in your transcript.

Kylie Kelly [00:13:11]:
Do that. Don't sit there looking at a blinking cursor for 12 hours because that is going to turn you off email and you're not going to give it a good go. So I hope you found that valuable. Again, go back, listen to the things that I talked about in my V2 framework, the different options you have to build your list using search and SEO, or using collaborations and relationship-based marketing, right? Go back, listen to those options, choose one or two things that feel like they'd be exciting that you wanna try, give them a crack, try them out for 30 to 60 days, track your results, and then either do something different or continue doing what you're doing. If you want support with this, if email feels overwhelming, if you don't know what to send, if you aren't sure, if you want support, I have something for you. I would love for you to join my membership, the Email Growth Club. Inside my membership, I teach you the exact strategies strategies that I use. I provide you with done-for-you email templates, and I give you the support that you need to grow.

Kylie Kelly [00:14:04]:
They are like my insiders, they are my fam. I am obsessed with every single person inside this membership. So you can stop spinning your wheels on social media and finally grow your email list in a way that feels really aligned, it feels really sustainable, and I can also say that I promise you're going to find it fun. The second thing that I want to say is that the doors to my Mastermind headliner open after this event. Inside the Mastermind, I take you through my RISE Framework. So the difference between experts who stay invisible and those who dominate the industry is a visibility system that actually works. That's why I created the RISE Framework, so you can stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and finally step into the spotlight with strategy and confidence. What does RISE stand for? It is Reach— we talk about expanding your visibility in attracting your dream clients.

Kylie Kelly [00:14:51]:
It's influence. I take you through my process to build trust and create a loyal community. It's scale. I want you to grow your audience and revenue sustainably, and we even put on a mini virtual event together so that you can really start to do that. And it's all about empowering you, stepping into your CEO role with so much fucking confidence. So if you're ready to rise into 2025 as a household name, this is your time, there is a link in the show notes so that you can book a chemistry call with me and we can see if you're a good fit and I can send you more details. The doors will be publicly opening after Inside the Inbox, but spots are limited. So if you want to reach out and have a conversation now, simply email me at hello@kyliekelly.com or send me a DM on Instagram and we can chat more about what this would look like for you and your business.

Kylie Kelly [00:15:38]:
This is a tailored experience where it's not a cookie-cutter strategy. We go through exactly what your goals are, what your dreams are, how we're going to get you there, and we start to fucking take action. So again, email me at hello@karliekelly.com or DM me on Instagram if you want to set up one of those chemistry calls. Otherwise, the doors will open to the public after the event, and you will find out more via email. Okay, so I hope you found that helpful. Enjoy the event. Go and binge as many audios as you can that apply to the situation that you're in right now that you want to listen to. You can listen to them on 2x, 3x, as fast as you want.

Kylie Kelly [00:16:10]:
And if you have any feedback, if you have any thoughts, thoughts, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via email. Again, hello@kyliekelly.com, and I would love to hear any feedback that you have. All right, my loves, enjoy the event, and I will see you in the interview that's up next.