How I Grew My Email List by 400 Subscribers in One Week (Without Going Viral)
A few years ago, I was working really hard, posting to social media most days and growing my list by about five people a month. I was showing up consistently, doing all the things you are supposed to do but not really getting anywhere. Then in a single week, I grew my list by more than 400 people. No, I didn’t have a viral moment. I didn’t pay for ads. This post is about how I grew my email list by 400 + and why I wish someone had told me about this strategy much sooner.
But first. A bit more about what I was doing.
I had been on Instagram since the early days. I kept getting pulled back to it because that was where everyone else seemed to be, even though I never really got to grips with it. It felt like the algorithm was working against me at every turn.
Here is the thing about trying to grow your email list through Instagram. There are at least four or five drop-off points between someone scrolling past your post and someone actually joining your list. You have to get seen. You have to stop the scroll. You have to get them to your profile, then to your landing page, and then you have to get them to sign up. When you are not starting with a big following, you’re essentially getting into negative numbers. Certainly not growing your audience.
I am not a natural content creator. I make YouTube videos, but as I write this, my YouTube views have also gone down rather than up. But at least YouTube videos last longer than a few hours. I was never going to be the person whose posts stopped the scroll.
After years of showing up and getting almost nothing back, I stumbled upon a different way to grow your list.
That different way was collaboration marketing. Specifically, bundles.
How I Discovered Bundles
I cannot quite remember how I first came across Elizabeth Goddard, but that is when I learned about bundles properly. I had actually seen a bundle years before and not paid much attention to it. But when I saw what Lizzy was doing, and how it could work for everybody involved to grow their email lists without having to show up on social media, I was immediately interested.
So I went looking for bundles in Facebook groups that I could contribute to.
I found one, applied, got accepted, and then promptly forgot what I had said I was going to contribute. That, by the way, is how I ended up building systems to manage all of this, which is a big part of what I do inside my community now.
What a Bundle Actually Is (And Why It Works for Email List Growth)
A bundle is a collaboration where a group of business owners come together, each contributing a digital product they usually sell and giving it away for free for a limited period of time.
Here is how it works in practice. A host organises the bundle and sets up a sign-up page. People who want access give their name and email address and then get access to a redemption page showing all the products available. When they click through to claim a specific product, they go to that contributor's website and give their name and email address again in exchange for access to that product.
As a contributor, every time someone redeems your product, you gain a new email subscriber. Someone who already knows what your thing is and specifically chose to get it. As the host, you get the email address of every single person who signs up for the bundle. Not just those who redeem your product.
This is why bundles are such an effective way to grow your email list fast, without relying on content going viral and without running ads.
My First Bundle as a Contributor
I took part in that first bundle as a contributor. It took a couple of hours of work in total. Filling in the application, setting up the tech so my product was delivered for free during the bundle, and writing my promotional emails. You commit to sending an email or two and doing a couple of social media posts as part of the contributor terms.
For those couple of hours of work, I got around 100 subscribers to my list that week.
I was thrilled. That was the equivalent of the result I would get from posting on Instagram for more than a year (20 months, if every month was a good month). The difference in results blew my mind.
I took part in more bundles after that. Some delivered fewer subscribers than my first, which was a bit disappointing because that first one had gone so well. Some I got more. But, all of them were a better return on my time than anything I had managed through social media.
Hosting My Own Bundle: How I grew my email list by 400+ New Subscribers in a Week
After contributing to several bundles, I decided to host my own.
For my first hosted bundle, I got over 400 new people on my list in a single week. I would say it was around 20 hours of work to put it all together, and most of that time went into creating swipe copy and graphics for my contributors to use in their promotion.
After all those years of slogging away on social media, creating content every week, trying to figure out what would keep the algorithm happy and mostly failing, to have people on my list like that. It felt like such a weight had been lifted. Like I could just drop Instagram.
I still show up there when I am promoting a bundle, because I said I would as part of the bundle terms and I want to do my bit. But I honestly question whether anyone ever sees it. My email contributes so much more to people clicking through to bundles than my Instagram does.
Why This Felt Different to Everything Else I Had Tried
The thing I love most about bundles is that it is not based on luck.
Instagram always felt very hit or miss. You do the work, you have no control over what gets pushed, and you just keep going and hope something eventually sticks. I know it works for some people. It also does not work for a lot of people, and those people are wasting their time. I know I was.
Bundles take that lack of control away. You know you are going to get something out of it. The results vary, usually down to things like how well your product fits the bundle's theme. But the difference in what you get back for your effort is like night and day.
It is still, honestly, a bit of a secret in the online business space. That is why I wanted to share the story.
If you want to know more about how bundles work, how to find them, and whether contributing or hosting makes more sense for where you are right now, take the free quiz. It will point you in the right direction.
Please note, this blog post includes affiliate links, which means I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase.
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