4800 email subscribers in 6 months - here's how she did it!

Sales Coach Dallas Travers is SPILLING today... She's telling the tale of how she turned her business around from a slow and steady decline, to massive list growth and an influx of sales within 6 months.

⭐️ Join BUNDLICIOUS:  https://parkdale--dallastravers.thrivecart.com/bundlicious/6824f1400f601/

(Ps. this is my affiliate link for Dallas' program!)

ALSO IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00
The Importance of Email List Growth

02:59
Understanding Bundles for Email List Building

05:50
The Mechanics of Hosting a Bundle For Your Business

08:49
The Benefits of Collaboration and Community for Growing Your Business

11:53
The Bundlicious Program and Its Impact

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Music by Jordan Wood

Hosted by Jenna Harding (Warriner), Creator of Magic Marketing Machine

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)
I've never talked more about email list growth in my life, but I'm on such a kick about it now and I am like, cannot wait to hear about how you got 5,000 names on your email list. Tell us everything, don't leave out a single detail Dallas.

Speaker 2 (00:18)
I'm so glad to be here because just to give a little bit of context, I realized like mid-year last year my business was on a falling feather. So this is the analogy I use, right? If you and I are sitting side by side riding a feather that's just floating to the ground, the ride is smooth and it's so graceful and subtle. We don't notice we're falling until we hit the bottom, right?

Speaker 1 (00:43)
You took us such a beautiful feather and I was picturing this nice feather and then we...

Speaker 2 (00:49)
Now we're dead.

So that's what, why does it feel harder to sell? Right? And we could blame a lot of things, right? That like the climate of the world and like all of those things. But when you look at the numbers, the online coaching space and the online course creation space is still growing even in 2025. There's more people selling, right? There's 26 % more people.

selling online courses or offering coaching than there were back in 2021. But it's still growing. But anyhow, the competition is still there. so I realized why is it harder to sell? Oh, that's because I have a completely ignored list building. So list building became my sole focus last year. And I decided the fastest way to get aligned subscribers to my email list without playing roulette.

with meta ads, that just feels like too risky for me, was to host a bundle. So we're wrapping up, by the time this episode drops, we'll be wrapping up our third bundle in six months and coming in at about 4,800 new subscribers. ⁓

Speaker 1 (02:01)
Okay,

a bundle. have a million questions. But if we go really micro on this, I've heard the rumors and I have been meeting people in some bigger circles of some fancier entrepreneurs. And then there's all this hubbub about like how things you can't sell online right now. And I hate it. I don't want to buy into that at all because online courses and not everyone listening has an online course or program or as a coach, but still like

Sales is different, the online course creation industry is still like multi-billion dollar industry. So things have shifted. Things are different than they were in 2020, 2021. But a big thing is just that people don't trust sellers. They don't trust business owners. They don't trust service providers. So if we can find ways to reignite

that trust and to earn it, like list building, like collaborating with other people, like affiliate partnerships and aligning yourself with different communities and letting them get to know you before they make a big purchase. We get that trust back.

Speaker 2 (03:09)
Exactly, exactly. And which is why I love prioritizing list building because if I'm in your inbox consistently, even just the regularity of that is a different way of building trust than if I only follow you on Instagram, because you might show up on my feed and you might not. And those two things work together really beautifully, but without email marketing, it was harder for me to sell.

So that's my primary sales mechanism is selling through email, even if I'm promoting through email my launch or my webinar. So email for me is where it's at and bundles has been the quickest, easiest way to grow my list.

Speaker 1 (03:47)
Yeah, absolutely. And like you need people to get on your list from somewhere that I don't mind. Sometimes when people come on this show, I'm like, please don't shit on Instagram. Please don't shit on Instagram. Right. But the fact is you need a top of funnel, something to get people on to your list. So like you said, they're sisters. They work together they're totally they're not in competition. bundles would be another way to get people onto your list. OK, so I did not know what a bundle was. I.

started getting invited to them maybe a couple two years ago people would always ask me if I wanted to be a part of a bundle I didn't really know what it was and I'm sure there's lots about it that I still don't know so just explain to old me what you're talking about

Speaker 2 (04:29)
Great, so a bundle essentially is a free online event, that's kind of a big word, because there's no, like no one's showing up live, but an event that you would host where you invite, and the math is important here. So for me, it's 40 contributors who all have a freebie, a lead magnet. I know you've been talking a lot about lead magnets lately, right? So I know your audience is familiar, right?

They all have a lead magnet that is aligned with the audience that you serve. Right now, every contributor agrees to promote the bundle and their email subscribers in order to get access to all 40 freebies, they have to opt into the bundle first. So as a bundle host, I get all subscribers and then once

People are on the inside of the bundle, they can pick and choose which freebies they want to opt into.

Speaker 1 (05:27)
Yes, see, I already didn't realize that.

Speaker 2 (05:30)
Okay, I'm so glad we're talking.

Speaker 1 (05:33)
I guess I hadn't thought of it because I've participated in one, but I've never hosted one. So you, yes, it's a lot of work to find 40 contributors, but you are coming out seriously on top, but it is a rising tide lifts all ships. Everyone is going to get list growth when they have that really good lead magnet with the perfect topic and title, which is what I'm always on about.

Speaker 2 (05:56)
Yes, yeah. So when we look at the numbers with our bundles, the average contributor gets 112 new subscribers and we're asking them to send one email at some point within a month. So it's a very low lift for them. We also have curated the other contributors so everyone's audience fits together well. But we've had some, you you had almost 300 opt-ins when you were in my bundle.

Speaker 1 (06:25)
Yeah, that might've been the first one that I did, honestly. It might've been. cause I thought it was akin with summits. And so when you get invited to a summit, if you don't know, dear listener, you, I know you know Dallas, but you'll get invited to speak and you have to promote it to your list. But then you speak virtually in front of a group of people and people sign up and over two days there's a whole bunch of presenters. And that is another great way to grow your list.

but it is not low lift because you need to create that presentation. You need to promote it probably multiple times. Usually you need to have at least a certain number of people on your list. So you need like 5,000 names on your list to participate in the summit and then you have to go and teach and schmooze people. So I like kind of ignoring some, if I'm busy, like I can't always do a summit, but what you're saying with the bundle, it's easier. It sounds too easy.

Speaker 2 (07:18)
It is, it is. So let's give everyone like a quick win right away. The biggest thing that I have seen make a difference in my bundles in terms of getting an easy yes from contributors is having the, letting the contributors pick any day in a 30 day period where they're going to promote. So a lot of times with a summit, for example, or some sort of list swap,

It's much more time bound. So you have to commit to sending two emails in this 10 day period or something like that. And if you're in a launch, that's just not going to fly. But now if you have this 30 day window where you get to choose when you send your email out, it's way more enjoyable for you, the contributor and way easier for you as a contributor to say yes to the invitation, which I think Jenna is the hardest hill to climb in the whole bundle process.

is like working up the courage to invite people that you may not know and might be nervous about inviting, but also setting it up to really be a win-win and an easy yes for them. And that larger promo window has worked like a charm for me.

Speaker 1 (08:25)
That is so smart, because I just said no to one recently because it was right when I was launching something else. So I'm like, I'd be promoting your thing midway of promoting my thing. If they'd have given me a month, I could have, I could have swung it.

Speaker 2 (08:38)
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:39)
Although it's also a good excuse if you don't actually want to do it and you're too afraid to say no.

Speaker 2 (08:47)
I mean, don't do that to me, because I'll be doing another bundle in two months and I'm going to keep inviting you until you actually are brave enough to say no. So for the record.

Speaker 1 (08:56)
it look like for you? How often do you do them? how are you making money from this this list after the fact?

Speaker 2 (09:02)
Great, so let's just look at the timeline first. Beginning to end, so the phases of a bundle, the heaviest lift you have is in the beginning. So let's just say it's the first three weeks of a 90 day process. This is where you are researching aligned contributors, inviting them to confirm their participation, okay? We should do that 60 days-ish before your bundle starts because people, especially people with lists,

They have marketing schedules and things that they are doing and they need time to plan. So one really cool resource everybody to research potential contributors is listen notes.com, which is a podcast search engine. So let's just say I'm a parenting coach, right? I can go on to listen notes and just research the topic of parenting and it'll give me hundreds of podcasts where the hosts

are speaking into that topic. Plus, each of these shows has countless guests who also can speak into the topic of parenting. So ListenNotes is a fabulous resource for research.

Speaker 1 (10:12)
so smart.

Speaker 2 (10:14)
It's like my evil plan, right? So we're doing listen notes to get our invites going. And then, you know, I rely on some, and I give my students these really cool chat GPT prompts for them to easily fire off really well-written personalized invitations, but also all the marketing copy that contributors are going to need to send to their list. So that's face to the production face.

where you're just getting links to people's freebies and getting their headshot and all of those little pieces. And then what I love most about a bundle is how lazy it is when the bundle's actually going. I don't do anything. tell my list about it maybe twice, but it's all of the contributors who collectively are promoting the bundle on my behalf.

Speaker 1 (10:59)
What was the name of the one that I did with you? Okay, so did you make the art to promote each person's thing?

Speaker 2 (11:02)
It was called the profitable coach bundle.

Okay, I'm gonna make a confession. There were, I'm a bit of a snob. And there were a few people who gave me really ugly art that I did go into Canva and make better. Yours may or may not have been one of them.

Speaker 1 (11:26)
was because I was it was because somebody sent me a picture of my face and and I was like what is that that is so much better than my strategic stories are

So nice. And then I was scared because I didn't know I had just met this girl and she's like, hey, look, you're everywhere. And so she sends me this screenshot of like, haha, you're everywhere. And I was like, actually don't know where where am I? Where is that? And then I thought somebody had like ripped off my product and was reselling it. But no, but it was beautiful. I loved it. I was happy because like I'm not a graphic designer and we've been in like graphic design limbo for several months. have a graphic.

coming in in the summer and she's gonna like fix everything. So I can admit that it was not cute and you made it cute. But usually you would be asking people to send that to you. Not normally what you would. ⁓

Speaker 2 (12:18)
But let me tell people why. You're listeners. So because hopefully people are getting excited about this idea of hosting a bundle, right? We want contributors to have a great experience. We also want potential email subscribers to take us seriously. So if you have a graphic and I'll give everyone another tip around this, whether you're hosting a bundle or you're a contributor to a bundle, we have found by far the

Offers that get the most opt-ins have a picture of your smiling face on the image. Anything that is like a PDF download or something else that doesn't have a smiling person on it got dramatically fewer opt-ins. So I want to make sure you get opt-ins as my contributor. I want to make sure that people looking at the bundle feel like, this looks good. I want to be a part of it. So for me, it is worth taking the time to

Make sure everybody's graphic looks great.

Speaker 1 (13:17)
Hey, literally Dallas, I submitted another crappy graphic to someone today and I'm going to email her and replace it.

Speaker 2 (13:24)
Do it. Send it to me and let me redo it for you. I love it.

Speaker 1 (13:29)
Right? But yeah, I'm just thinking because what else do they have? the lead looking at this list, they're going to see this whole overwhelming page of 40 offers. Of course, the smiling face is going to win just kind of like on Instagram or Graphic Design or anything. Okay, I'm going to fix that. That is such a good tip. So you you teach people how to put these on to be the host of the bundle.

Speaker 2 (13:52)
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (13:54)
Tell us about Bundalicious.

Speaker 2 (13:57)
Okay, so Bundlelicious, this is where I, can we just like stop, pause and celebrate the name for a second? I love the name so much. this is my program where I teach coaches, service providers and course creators how to host a bundle in 90 days. And I'll give you, let's just use Clarissa who just wrapped up her bundle kind of as the case study here. Clarissa is an autoimmune coach. She is the

best student you'll ever meet. does all the things, checks all the boxes, does all the work, and was really stuck at list growth. She only had 165 email subscribers, which is the case for a lot of people. Through the bundle in the first seven days, she got past 700 subscribers just in the first seven days. But even cooler than that, just by being the host, the prestigious host of this bundle,

She got five sales calls booked from complete strangers who had just opted into the bundle and then booked a sales call with her. So within the first week, she's already on track to be generating revenue. So you asked earlier, like, how do you make money from the bundle? Yeah. Our biggest challenge in 2025 is how do we cut through the noise enough to build trust so that people want to buy from us? Email marketing is one branch on that tree that's essential if we want to make sales.

So by adding subscribers to your email list, you literally have more people to sell to. ⁓ And the numbers, what are they? On average, 3 % of your list is going to buy anything you sell to them over email. So if you have 1200 email subscribers, that's 36 buyers from your bundle ready to say yes to your offer. So while Jenna, the bundle itself does not sell, the bundle builds your list and it's through emailing your list that you're able to sell.

And Bundlelicious just takes people step by step through that process so they feel confident enough to host a bundle. Some people may feel like they're not ready to take that responsibility on, but they'll feel confident enough to host a bundle. They'll know how to pull it off in a way that makes them want to do it again versus already planning her next bundle. And they'll reap the benefits of new

subscribers on their email list who are actively seeking the solutions that they offer.

Speaker 1 (16:26)
So good.

I'm already thinking about mine. And I did not get onto this call going like, okay, this is for me. Like I'm like, okay, other people, other people, like literally like other people might want to bundle. Oh, Dallas will teach other people how to do it. But now I'm just like, okay, why not?

Speaker 2 (16:42)
I'm realizing there's this other side effect. Like you and I are friends now. And I don't know that that would have happened if I hadn't worked up the courage, because I'm like a bit of a fan girl of your Instagram, right? But I worked up the courage to invite you. You said yes. And now like I've been an affiliate for you. Here I am on your podcast. Like we're buddies. Yes, yes. I signed up for your program. Like it's just been awesome.

Speaker 1 (17:04)
You took my big marketing machine.

Speaker 2 (17:09)
And that's another awesome, especially if you're newer and ever feeling like I don't belong here or I'm not ready. What a great way to build a community of peers who respect you as a collaborator.

Speaker 1 (17:23)
And one more thing that I'm kind of seeing is if you do have only 300 Instagram followers and you only have 15 names on your list, like I don't like using only, but like if you feel like those platforms, the numbers are still small. This is a great bootstrappy way to reach out to people with an offer that they benefit from and just put your name into people's mouths.

Speaker 2 (17:46)
Yep, exactly. And you don't have to worry about feeling too small, I'll use that term, or not ready yet, because it's not your audience that the bundle is being promoted to. It's a collected effort of 40 different people who are equally going to share the bundle to their audiences. So as you said, a rising tide, it lifts all boats.

Speaker 1 (18:11)
Yeah. Okay. Amazing. We're going to link everything about Bundlelicious. I have a sneaky affiliate link. we're going to link everything in the description for this episode. And Dallas, where can people follow you?

Speaker 2 (18:25)
Great, find me on Instagram, I'm at Dallas Travers and my website is dallastravers.com.

Speaker 1 (18:30)
Beautiful, thank you. I'm genuinely excited.

Speaker 2 (18:31)
Thanks Jenna.