Episode 103 - Live Coaching: How to Grow Your Email List Without Ads

In this episode of Create Online Business Success, you’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at a real coaching conversation all about how to grow your email list without ads. 

I’m joined by Heather Black, a Stage-Driven Visibility Strategist who helps entrepreneurs grow their visibility through speaking opportunities, events, and stages. 

Inside this episode, we talk about:

 • How messaging impacts whether someone opts in or keeps scrolling
 • The importance of aligning your social media, lead magnets, and landing pages
 • Why strong email open rates are a sign you’re attracting the right audience
 • How to start more conversations in the DMs to turn followers into subscribers
 • Simple ways to nurture your email list beyond a monthly newsletter

If you’re creating content, showing up consistently, and still not seeing your email list grow, this episode will help you identify what might be missing and how to fix it. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Heather:

Website
https://www.phoenixcollaborations.com/

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoenixcollaborations/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/phoenixcollaborations/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/heather.black.90410834

Free Resource
https://subscribepage.io/lemGbG

Tired of building your business in a vacuum?

Constantly creating content, promoting your offers, and navigating mindset wobbles without real-time support?

Entrepreneurship isn't meant to be a solo sport. That’s why I created a space that gives you visibility, community, and encourages you to promote your offers, connect with other members, and build meaningful business relationships.

Inside my free Facebook group, Be A Confident Entrepreneur: Get Visible + Grow Your Email List and Income, you’ll meet thousands of other online business owners who are building real momentum together.

Come introduce yourself, answer the quick entry questions so we know you’re a good human, and when you join, shoot me a DM and let me know you found us through the podcast. I’d love to welcome you in personally.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if you could grow your email list consistently without running ads, constantly creating new lead magnets, or spending hours on social media every day? In today's episode, you're getting a behind-the-scenes look at a real coaching conversation with a visibility strategist who helps entrepreneurs get on more stages and grow their authority. I'm going to be coaching Heather on how to take her content and visibility and turn it into list growth. If your list growth could use a jump start, this episode is for you. Ready to grow your online business without losing your mind? You're in the right spot, my friend. Welcome to Create Your Online Business Success. I'm your host, Tracy Beavers. And this show is all about practical strategies, creative ideas, and sanity saving solutions that you can use right now. Let's crank up the dial on your business growth and make it fun. Let's create your online business success. Hey there, Heather. Welcome in. I am so excited to have you here today on the podcast and on my YouTube channel as well. So for my audience listeners on both channels, tell us a little bit about your business and like who you help and what you love most about your work.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me today, Tracy. Um, so my name is Heather Black, and I am a speaking strategist and event expert. And my business is Phoenix Collaborations. And what I do is collaborate with my clients to help them really identify what stages they need to be on. We focus truly on their stage-driven visibility, which is anywhere you're talking to more than one person at a time and making sure that they're truly in the right rooms and on the right stages. So help them figure out how to get booked on the stages they want to speak on, how to host events and fill them with the right people, how to make sure they're networking all of those things so that it's legitimately driving revenue into their business. And the thing I love about what I do is a lot of times, um, because I serve mission-driven, heart-centered entrepreneurs, um, and they're really trying to get their message out there. They're trying to make a change in the world and they're trying to do all the things. And a lot of times we can make some really minor tweaks to what they're doing and create much more impact as well as eliminate a lot of the fluff that's on their calendar sometimes. So I just love that.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, that's amazing. So your audience is sounds like it's my same audience, coaches, course creators, service providers, or is it a broader scope than that?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Um, so it is a lot of coaches, a lot of course creators, content providers, thought leaders, you know, those visionary CEOs who have this big idea and I want to get this out into the world. Those are my people. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

And have you been doing this work for a long time?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

So I have been in the event space for um 26 years and um started my own business um a little over three years ago, thinking that I would help people plan their events, manage their speaking engagements. But when I started working with my clients, what I found was they just really didn't have that foundational of a clear strategy. They weren't organized, they just had things everywhere, and they really had no idea if it was bringing revenue into the business or not. And so that's how I created my signature process.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah. Okay. I love that. I love when we end up creating stuff out of necessity, when we see that need and we want to fill that gap. Um, that's amazing. So, all right, let's dive in. So I know this is a live coaching, and thanks so much for agreeing to do this because I know this conversation is gonna help so many other people. Um, when we got together to talk about this, you mentioned that what you wanted to focus on was growing your email list through your content. You mentioned that that's kind of tough. So, when you think about that, share a little bit more with me and with our audience about what you mean and and really kind of what feels hardest about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yep. So my email list is relatively new, even though I've been in business for three years. I really got focused on creating a newsletter and creating an email list last year, at the end of last year. So today, the fifth issue of my newsletter went out. So it's really, really new. I have like a hundred people on the email list, so it's small. And so a lot of times I have content that goes out and be like, sign up for my newsletter or sign up for my email list or sign up for this freebie. And it just doesn't get like it might get some comments, it might get some engagement, might get some views, but they're not taking that next step and signing up for the thing. And so they're just not getting the value of the information that's going out. And so I just struggle to get people on it, and part of that's probably because I struggle to ask for the thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

I mean being real because I'm heart centered, and so I don't want to I want to be of service, but I don't want to be a pest. Right. Um, and so just trying to figure out what's that balance between putting content out there that's like gets them to take that next step and sign up, and then being able to use that.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Got it. So in looking at your list growth that you've had so far, what's been working well? Is there anything in particular that you're like, okay, I know that part is working?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

So one of the things I have started doing is when I do go into groups and speak, um, that's my CTA, is to have them to sign up for the newsletter, to sign up for my email list. Um, and then anybody that signs up, I'll do a drawing to give them a comp a free consult call.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So that seems to work well. Um, I've had some growth doing that. Um, and if I post it in like some of the groups I'm part of, that gets, but my social media, I got I did it yesterday because the newsletter was going out today, and I got one person that signed up.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Got it. Um, so your your calls to action to grow your list are sign up for your newsletter. And then do you have some free lead magnets?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I do have two free lead magnets. One is to identify your your strategic stage-driven visibility match, like what type of stage-driven visibility matches your personality.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

And I have a free mini course.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Okay. What's the mini course?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

It basically helps you. It's a three lessons. You you identify your why, your who, and your where, and your when you're going to work on your stage-driven visibility.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Okay. Got it. And I'm making some notes here. If they're if people are watching me on YouTube and I'm looking down with my pencil, that's what I'm doing. I'm just making some notes because we're doing some live coaching. So the newsletter and the two lead magnets are all focused on your stage-driven visibility. Yes. Okay. Got it. So, because I know you also help people plan events. When you're doing your content, so when I look at you on social media, and are you leading with both things or are you leading with one of those things?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

I lead with the stage-driven visibility because events falls into that. So if they're looking to host their own events, it automatically falls into that category. Got it. And if you're hosting events, you already have a message, you should be leveraging other people's stages. Okay. To spread that message. So they go hand in hand. So I talk exclusively about um stage-driven visibility, getting on stages.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Perfect. Because sometimes when we split our message, oh, I'm an event planner. Oh, I can help you speak on more stages. That is confusing to an audience and it will dilute both messages. So I'm really glad to hear you're just going forward with the stage-driven visibility because that'll make it crystal clear and you'll become known for that over time. Um, now tell me, in terms of you started your email list last year. Um and do you send out a newsletter once a week, once a month? Right now it's just once a month. Okay. So you started a year ago with the list growth and then have in the last five months have started emailing them regularly.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Um I started probably about six months ago with the list growth, and then it's been about five months of emailing them regularly. Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Do you know what your open, just out of curiosity, do you know what your average open rate is on your newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Um, yeah, it usually hits uh 60 to 70%. And it went out today at 10 o'clock and it's already at 30, about 35% open already.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Fabulous. So that indicates to me that the people that you have attracted to your list are your perfect people and that they are interested in what you have to say. And to me, that's an excellent indicator that you're on the right track. We just need to get more eyeballs on your stuff. So when it comes to um your three, I consider that you've got three lead magnets. One is, you know, like talking about what's in your newsletter, and here's a link to sign up. That's a call to action to join your list. Then you've got your two other traditional, we'll call them traditional lead magnets. So a newsletter and then two traditional lead magnets. How often each week are you promoting a lead magnet?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Probably of my three to five posts that I do, three to three to four of those have a CTA to sign up for one of the one of them.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Okay. So in the course of a week, you're doing like five posts, and you're saying that three of those have a call to action that leads to your list. Yep. Okay. Can you tell me in your software provide software um analytics, are you able to see what what I'm wanting to know is are people seeing this on social media and not clicking at all on the link? Or are they seeing it, clicking on it, going to the landing page, and they're not opting in at that point?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

I think they're seeing it, but they're not clicking on it.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

They're seeing it, but they're not clicking on the link. That tells me that we have just a messaging issue. Um your newsletter, once it sounds like once you get these people to opt in, you're giving them value and they're excited about it because you've got a great open rate. But what we need to do is rework that social media copy. I'm so glad to hear that you're posting three times a week with your lead magnets because so many times my clients and students, I'll ask them that question and they'll be like, um, I think I'm posting about about it every couple once every couple of weeks because we get in our head about being salesy, about being spammy or or wanting to looking overly assertive or, you know, all the things we tell ourselves when the reality is that we have to promote our free things and our paid things more than we are comfortable with. Because as you know, there's a small percentage of people on social media that's gonna see every single thing you do. And so we're kind of, you know, we need to, we need to be sure it's there every week. So I love that you did that. That's so, so key, Heather. But what that says to me is we need to work on the social media copy because for some reason it's not resonating with them enough to get them to click. And then what we need to do is make sure that the landing page copy um is cohesive with the social media copy that they saw. Because, and that's why I asked you that question of are they seeing it, clicking on the link and going to the landing page and not opting in? Because that's an indicator that the landing page messaging is not matching the social media copy. There's something that's making their brain hesitate when they get to that opt-in page. Um, so what I would encourage you to do is to take some of your email newsletters, and you may have already done this, um, take some of your email newsletters, put them into your favorite AI tool. I use I still use ChatGPT, but a lot of people I know love Claude and some of the other tools, uh Gemini and some of the others. So take your newsletter content, put that into AI, and then take the content of your lead magnet and put that into a in the same uh project, put that in, tell if you if you need to, you might, your your chat probably knows you just as well as mine knows mine by now. Um, but if you need to, remind it who it's for, who it's not for, and then feed in the copy that you're using on your social media posts and prompt it by saying this is what's happening in my business. My email open rate is outstanding, so I know these newsletters are valuable, people are loving them. My lead my lead magnets, let me ask you this question too. Were your lead magnets based on market research and actual information you got from your clients that this is what they want?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

So the mini course is yes, because that was basically I took my workshop that I was doing and created it into a mini course to make it more accessible. Okay. The visibility match guide, not so much based on market research. It just felt like it was a good lead-in into the mini course, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yes. And so in your paid offer, I I'm assuming these lead magnets pertain are are cohesive with your main your paid offer, right? Okay. Was that paid offer based on research?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

No.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Okay. Um, so we may have a little work to do with regard to what do your clients actually want? Because this is a mistake I made in the beginning, Heather. I built a whole course that I thought was gonna just sell like hotcakes and be the next best thing. But I didn't do the right research to discover that's what my people really wanted. And that's why it didn't sell very well. And that's why the lead magnets that went with it didn't convert very well. So, but before we throw all that out, I bet you there's a way we could rework these lead magnets and not throw everything out, start completely from scratch. But I think when you put all of that stuff into AI and you ask it, is this does this messaging all line up with my right person? And I want you to um, and I'll give you the recording for this. Um, I want you to ask it, do I have the right blend of their pain point and their aspiration as to what they want to achieve by speaking on stages? And then do I have the right com those two things with the right level of authority from me? And I think you might be surprised because I thought I was hitting the mark on some of my messaging until I started rework reworking it just in the last few months. Um, but I think then we'll get some really good answers. Um Let's see. Um one of my questions was when somebody finds you through your content, do you have that invitation to join your list? And you said yes, you do. So I think that's amazing. Um, when you currently speak or present somewhere, uh, one of the questions I had was, how are you inviting people to join your list in that instance? Is it join my newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, a lot of times it's you know, sign up for my newsletter, it comes out once a month and it gives you two easily implementable steps that you can take in the next 30 days to improve your visibility. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Okay, perfect. What what other questions do you have for me, Heather, based on what we just talked about?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Um, so this is really helpful and um definitely probably need to get back and do a little bit of research and and just do some things. But um once I get like how do I nurture my email list once I get a solid, I mean I probably already should be doing this, but how do I nurture them beyond just a monthly newsletter without like filling up their email inbox?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So I would like you to work up to emailing them twice a month. And then if you can work up to emailing them uh once a week. But it also depends on like is your newsletter like something that takes you a lot of time and that's why you're just doing it once a month, or is it so it when I first started it did take a lot more time than it does now.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Like the one I did this month probably took um half a day, maybe you know, six hours, something like that. Um so obviously you get in that rhythm and it goes much faster. Um, so I was just starting off small so I could maintain it and not feel um overwhelmed. Yeah. That's really why I was doing once a month.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Got it. Okay, so the first place we want to nurture that list is in the inbox. Um, but a great next thing would be if you had a free Facebook group. Do you happen to have a free Facebook group? I do not have a free Facebook group. Okay. And that's okay. If you can somehow find this person that's joined your list on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can nurture them in the DMs. Um, I love a free Facebook group because it depending on the way you set it up and what you're offering, it can be a very easy yes for your audience. So my audience is this is kind of the same as yours, coaches, course creators, service providers. They're all looking for actual communities of support where people are not spamming each other, people are not overly promoting, they're actually paying attention to each other, you know, they're um offering things of value and they're encouraged to connect. They're looking for places like that. And so by setting up a community like that, it gives you an extra layer to invite them to. And then the nurturing process there happens obviously within the group, but also in the DMs. Because when somebody joins my free Facebook group, they're gonna get a welcome DM from me. Because, in my opinion, they have knocked on my front door. My group is like my house. I consider it to be like my house. And I've invited you into the party. And so they're knocking on my front door and I'm gonna let them in. And you know what we do when somebody comes over. Oh my God, so good to see you. How far was your drive? Are you totally exhausted? Let me help you unload your car. Do you need some water? Do you need a cocktail? Do you want to go, you know, the ping pong table's over there and the remotes on the, you know, and the snacks are in the pan. You know, that's how we do. And so when somebody joins our group, that's how I want them to feel. Like I'm in the DMs going, Heather, I'm so excited to see you. Welcome in. You know, um, we want you to engage. We want to encourage you to do da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then let me know you got this message. And then you're gonna reply back and go, I got it. And then I'm gonna be like, awesome. Tell me how we connected. Oh, well, I saw you over in the XYZ group. Oh my gosh, that group's great. I've been in it a long time. How about you? And we're having this conversation where we slow, you slowly are able to uncover my needs and you get to know me on a deeper level. So the inbox is great. We need to have this year in 2026, we need to have conversations with our people in order to convert them into buyers faster. And that happens, as you mentioned, in the inbox through getting fun, having fun ways uh to get them to reply back. Are you, when you're sending your newsletter, are you asking them to reply back about something that that will cause them to reply back to you?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yep. So there's a couple of places where um I'll ask them to reply if this blah, blah, blah. And so at the end, the last thing in my newsletter is like one more minute before you go. And it gives them, here's a question to think about, reply with the answer, and I'll give you some accountability around that. And so actually, right before I hop on this call, the first time ever, I got a response to that email. I've never gotten a read. Yeah. So nice. They are reading it.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yes, I love that. I'm so excited. You're doing so many things right, Heather. It's just a couple of little tweaks, and I think we're just gonna explode your list. But I love that because now you can do what we would have done in the DMs. I'm so excited to hear from you, Tracy. How have you been? Um, and if you and obviously, if you know anything personal about me, you're gonna say that. Oh, okay. Last time we connected, you know, like before you and I hopped on here, we were talking about our aging parents and how we're both taking care of our aging parents. And so I now that I know that about you. And so if you let if you replied to something wrong, I'd be like, How's your mom? How's that going? Da-da-da-da. And it just it brings the the it it develops a deeper relationship, allows you to have a conversation, and it doesn't replace being in front of them personally, but it's darn close. Right. And then it allows you to take an extra step and go, hey, last time we talked, you mentioned you were gonna do XYZ. How's that going? You know, do you need help with that? I might have a free resource that might get you over the over the goal line on that. Do you want it? Yeah, okay, cool. Well, I'll check back. Here it is, I'll check back with you in another week, and then you're checking back in with them. So if we can start to um analyze those lead magnets that you have, um, like we talked about at the top of the hour or top of the call, and then open up those conversations in the inbox and then open up conversations in the DMs. I think you're gonna see um some really good results from that. Like when you're when you are, I just had an idea. When you are networking, are you DMing the people that you met that day or maybe that you saw in the room that day?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah, if if I if it's a solid connect, if it's somebody I want to connect with, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Okay. Um, because the call to action in the DMs then could be did you know I have this newsletter and I share, you know, this tip on this and this and this. Um, happy to send you the link if this is something you would benefit from. And that could drive some traffic to your list as well. I have a friend of mine who's doing that on Instagram, and she's anybody that likes hearts, uh, follows, comments, gets a DM from her and she's saying, Hey, thanks so much for loving my content. Um, you know, happy to I'm happy to follow you back. Did you know that I have this valuable newsletter that I send out once a month? Um, if if that's something you benefit from from, I'd be happy to send you the link. And we end that in that question to get their brain to say, Oh, I need to reply back to her, yes or no. And then they may go ahead and take that extra step and land on your list.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

That's a good idea. Yeah, I can easily do that. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Do you have any other questions for me?

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Um no, but this one's extremely helpful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

You're so welcome. Well, I love that you're here. I know this conversation is gonna help everybody. Um it always never fails. Every robot where I'm listening to somebody get coaching, or it's like a feedback thing, or you know, whatever it is, I always come away with an idea. So I really appreciate you being here. Tell everybody where they can connect with you to find you.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

So welcome check out my website, phoenixcollaborations.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all and the block and Phoenix Collaborations. Um, and that's where you'll find all my fun content, my fun videos. I'm known for having a sloth in the background, a stuff sloth, not a real one. I'm like clarifying people get real excited, and they'll be like, um, sunglasses, so you want to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

I love that so much. And I know you gave us the link to a free resource. Is that your newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Um, I don't remember which one I'm like, but probably look real quick.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Um I think oh it's a free guide. Uh from seen to sold, your strategic stick of invisibility match guide. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yep, that's uh yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Perfect. We've got all that stuff in the show notes for everybody. I'm so excited for them to grab it. And my friends, what I want you to do now is I want you to grab my free guide to creating 90 days of social media content tips in only 30 minutes so that you can be consistent with your weekly content, just like I was talking to Heather about. You're week in, week out, you're creating content, you're putting your lead magnets out on social media and making them visible so that people can sign up for them. The link is in the show notes, but you can also go to tracybeavers. And remember, don't go it alone because you hear me say this every single week. Being an entrepreneur is freaking hard. Some days everybody wants to buy what you're selling, and other days nobody can remember your name. And if you think you're alone, you're absolutely not alone. I want you to join my free Facebook group to get more support than you could ever imagine. It's called Be a Confident Entrepreneur. Get visible, grow your email list and your income, and podcast listeners, it's also in the show notes. Remember, when one of us rises, we all rise, so that is why we've got to keep cheering each other on. And I want you to have a great balance of the week and weekend. Thank you, Heather.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Thank you, Freddy's video.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Hey, thanks for kicking to create your online business. I hope you found today's episode back of the clip and inspiration. And listen, if you like, and we'll be able to like find your understanding. If it's easier, just click the link in the show notes. We cannot wait to welcome you in. Let's stay connected so we can create your online business success together.