Stop everything. Because what you’re about to read might just be the fastest, most practical guide to growing your email list that you’ve ever seen.

This isn’t another fluffy theory piece or recycled advice with zero real-world grit. This is a rapid-fire, high-impact list of 23 real, tested ways to get new people onto your email list. And here’s the wild part: all of it fits into under 12 minutes of content.

Yes. You read that right. Twenty-three high-leverage strategies. Twelve minutes of fire. Each idea is something you can take action on immediately, even if you’re just getting started. Whether you’ve got a tiny list, a monster one, or no list at all, these tactics can explode your reach.

And it’s not hypothetical. These are tried-and-true methods that actually work. Some are free. Some cost a little. But every single one has the power to bring in subscribers who are excited to hear from you.

Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Let’s dive into the good stuff.

Useful Episode Resources

FREE list of the top 10 books to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. We put together this list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here. 

Join our FREE Facebook group

If you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber, we can help! We know your business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. We share a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

Try ResponseSuite for $1

This week's episode is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint

Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your newsletter subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then The Email Hero Blueprint is for you.

This is hands down the most predictable, plug-and-play way to double your earnings per email subscriber. It allows you to generate a consistent sales flow without launching another product, service, or offer. Best news yet? You won't have to rely on copywriting, slimy persuasion, NLP, or ‘better' subject lines.

Subscribe and review The Email Marketing Show podcast

Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode (all about the psychology of marketing and the 9 things we use in all our email campaigns) and love the show, we'd really appreciate you subscribing and leaving us a review of the show on your favourite podcast player.

Not only does it let us know you're out there listening, but your feedback helps us to keep creating the most useful episodes so more awesome people like you can discover the podcast. 

And please do tell us! If you don't spend time on email marketing, what do you really fill your working days with? We'd love to know! 

00:00.97

Kennedy Kennedy

Where do you find new people to join your email list? Today, I'm challenging myself to share with you 23 different places that you can get subscribers in just 12 minutes.

00:13.77

Kennedy Kennedy

Deep breath. Let's go.

00:42.16

Kennedy Kennedy

Welcome to this week's show. Really excited to be here with you. Hello, it's Kennedy. And yes, I am going to share with you these 23 different ways of getting brand new people into your email list. Because without that, it doesn't matter how good your email marketing is, then there's nobody to see it. Of course, if you want to improve your email marketing, I'm going to give you my free framework. It's not normally free, but it is free for you. I call it the Fast and Forever Framework.

01:08.06

Kennedy Kennedy

It's the exact method that I've used to bring in more than 8,000 paying clients. And you can download it. It even comes with a complete masterclass where I show you how to implement this whole framework for yourself. Just go to emailmarketingheroes.com slash fast. That's emailmarketingheroes.com slash fast.

01:29.00

Kennedy Kennedy

Okay, so today is a challenge to myself. I thought, how can I squeeze in loads stuff? I know you're dead busy. i want to give you loads of stuff. 23 different ways, different places you can find brand new people to bring into your email list.

01:43.69

Kennedy Kennedy

And can I give you them in under 12 minutes? So there is 12 minutes on the clock. I'm going to hit go.

01:53.09

Kennedy Kennedy

Now, okay, so the very first one is to go and guest speak on other people's podcast. Literally, get booked on other podcasts. They don't have to be big podcasts. They can be small podcasts to begin with. i did a lot of this. I still do a lot of this.

02:07.72

Kennedy Kennedy

Go share your expertise. People will love you. They get learn from you. They get to hear what's unique about what you do. And then make sure, here's the big one, make sure you mention...

02:18.62

Kennedy Kennedy

A really good and easy place so for them to go and join your email list and make it easy to spell when do you say it out loud. Okay, number two, guest training in other people's paid programs. Look, there are people around the world who have got your audience and they've got them into some kind of membership program or some kind of coaching program, which means those people are so interested in that topic, they're willing and able to invest and to pay.

02:48.36

Kennedy Kennedy

And that is really, really valuable. Okay. So go approach people who've got paid programs, which serve the same audience as you, But it's not the same topic as you. like an adjacent topic.

03:00.05

Kennedy Kennedy

Go give a desk a guest training. I've done hundreds of these over the years in this business and give a really good talk. Give some value and get some people to come and join your email list through your lead magnet.

03:11.01

Kennedy Kennedy

Number three is cold outreach. Literally dropping some messages to some people. But instead of like trying to sell them something, tell them about a free resource that you've got and basically get them to opt in for that lead magnet.

03:24.71

Kennedy Kennedy

Number four, participate in a summit. What I mean by a summit is someone's organizing usually an online event. Sometimes they do happen offline as well in real life where you can actually sniff the person.

03:37.86

Kennedy Kennedy

um But you will basically be one of a lineup of different speakers. All of the speakers promote that event to their lists and you end up being seen by everybody else's audience.

03:49.59

Kennedy Kennedy

So you're one speaker in a lineup. You email your list. They all email their lists. And when you do your presentation at the summit, it's like an online event. You give a call to action, which will be your lead magnet.

04:02.06

Kennedy Kennedy

Number five is to run paid advertising on Google search. The great thing about Google search is people are using it still to find solutions to their problems.

04:13.62

Kennedy Kennedy

So they are very problem aware. They are very close to wanting to buy. There's a lot of buyer intent when someone's on the Google search. So if you spend a small amount of budget being where you get to show up whenever someone's searching for the problem that you solve, great way of doing that.

04:30.07

Kennedy Kennedy

Next, another paid strategy is to sponsor a Facebook group. I did this years ago when I was launching a book in a particular market when I was actually helping magicians. I launched this book.

04:40.95

Kennedy Kennedy

And what I did is I went around and I found all of the Facebook groups, but it also could be a school community, any community. I went around and said, hey, how much would it be to sponsor either a pinned post at the top of the group or the banner image at the the very top of the group, something like that.

04:55.98

Kennedy Kennedy

And it wasn't very much at all. Most of them have never thought about doing it. You suggest a price. And again, in that and in the description, you tell them what your lead magnet is and where they can go and get it. Very effective, very inexpensive.

05:08.21

Kennedy Kennedy

Number seven. is give value in other people's groups. So go to their school community, go to their Facebook group and just give value. Don't pitch.

05:18.59

Kennedy Kennedy

But of course, because you're giving value, people will be like, wonder who this person is who's being so helpful. They check out your profile on that platform. And hey, presto, your your profile is actually optimized to show them, hey, if you want to learn more about me, this is what I do. Here's a link to my lead magnet.

05:35.09

Kennedy Kennedy

And that works a treat. Again, did that extensively. Next, number eight, lead a lead magnet swap. I got a word confused there. Lead magnet swap.

05:47.18

Kennedy Kennedy

That's where you go to somebody else in your same industry who's serving the same audience but does a slightly different thing to you. And you say, hey, how about I tell my audience about your lead magnet and you tell your audience about my lead magnet?

05:59.88

Kennedy Kennedy

There's no money exchange. You're just doing a swap. And also you're introducing your audience to some really cool extra free stuff, which means it doesn't damage your reputation either. So a lead magnet swap.

06:11.32

Kennedy Kennedy

oh Number nine, getting out of breath and definitely hurting my voice now. This was a terrible idea. ah I'm going to need a light for this. Anyway, wasting time. Number nine, guest on YouTube channels. If you find someone in your market who serves your audience and they've got a YouTube channel where they have guests,

06:28.53

Kennedy Kennedy

Reach out and say, hey, would you like a really good guest to come and talk about? And then tell them a specific thing you want to talk about. Don't say, in my case, I want to talk about email marketing. They might well, I've talked about email marketing. but You want to be talking about something specific. Hey, i want to show you, your audience, how they can email every single day without running out of ideas. Like, that's a specific thing that they probably haven't talked about.

06:48.57

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 10, speak at in-person events. I'm doing this a lot. There's a great thing about being in real life in a room with people and actually they get to see you. They get to meet you before they have dinner with you afterwards.

07:02.30

Kennedy Kennedy

They get to share lunch and breakfast with you. Speak at in-person events on live stages and again, give your lead magnet. Number 11, pay to sponsor an email newsletter.

07:14.00

Kennedy Kennedy

You've got people in your market who are sending emails out. Ask them, hey, how could I pay you to include a link to my lead magnet in your next email newsletter? And again, most people will be like, I've never done that before, name your price.

07:27.21

Kennedy Kennedy

And you get to do it very, very cost effectively. Number 12 is viral contest. these This is what I did to blow up my first ever list that I properly had. I ended up with the biggest list in the niche was 8,000 people, which was by far the biggest league ah list in the niche.

07:43.14

Kennedy Kennedy

And the way I did it was when somebody opted in for my lead magnet, on the next page, I said, hey, if you tell three people about this cool free thing you just downloaded, I'll give you this extra special amazing thing.

07:56.82

Kennedy Kennedy

The extra amazing thing has to be amazing. And of course, they're going to go now and share it with their friends. And there's a lots of platforms allow you to do that in a way that makes sure that's not just the same person opting in over and over again to get the free thing.

08:08.34

Kennedy Kennedy

But you will grow your list hugely by doing that with a great free lead magnet that person's sharing with their friends because it's free and it's valuable. They look cool to their friends and they get this extra free thing.

08:20.15

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 13, take part in a giveaway bundle. People, I've actually never done this, but I've got lots of clients who have done this with great success. So good for them. And I just think it's absolutely amazing. I hear great success stories on this.

08:33.27

Kennedy Kennedy

This is where someone's doing a giveaway, but lots of different experts in related topics are put there um Put a little product of theirs together, which creates this huge bundle. Everyone promotes the bundle.

08:45.61

Kennedy Kennedy

And of course, within that, within your product that you give away, you you tell people about your lead magnet. And in some cases, you actually just get the identities of the list. Of course, be careful about compliance and making sure people opted in. They're not going to report you a spam, all that sort of good stuff.

08:59.84

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 14 is using Instagram organically. Reels are absolutely still popping off at the moment for growth. um You can do things like trial reels, which they're still playing around with, um and getting your your reels and getting your Instagram content to build your audience on there.

09:17.11

Kennedy Kennedy

Get them into the DMs, getting them opting in, saying, you know, with ah with a comment thread. Hey, you've probably seen before. Comment below if you want to get my free thing with the word cool. When they say the word cool, you have an app like ManyChat, which is an automation app, which sends them a DM with the link to that um to that opt-in, to that free lead magnet.

09:36.97

Kennedy Kennedy

And also you usually capture their email address at the same time. Very, very powerful. Whew. Number 15, sponsor a pinned Instagram post. So sticking with Instagram here, what you can do is go to somebody who has a bigger follower than you following than you, which if you're like me, it's probably a lot, ah most people, and you say to them, hey, that very first post that's at the very top of your grid,

09:58.16

Kennedy Kennedy

Can I pay you some money to put an ad for my lead magnet right there? Again, for a couple of hundred dollars for a week, you can get a lot of leads from people who are checking out this influencers high traffic ah newsfeed.

10:11.77

Kennedy Kennedy

Absolutely massive. And number 16, sponsor events. People are hosting events. You can have your name all over that event and have some kind of c call to action on it. Number 17 is to create your own free community.

10:23.80

Kennedy Kennedy

I built a lot of our business from from guesting in other people's communities, having our own podcast podcast, guesting on people's podcasts, and leading them to a free community. You can have it on school. You can have it on Facebook. Ours happens to be on Facebook. Many of you already members. It's called the Email Marketing Show Community. And because the viral nature of these communities, people get recommended in their newsfeed, hey, you should come and join this community. When they do that, one of the questions you ask them on the way in is, what's your email address? I'm going to send you this cool free lead magnet. And hey, presto, they are on your email list.

10:55.92

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 18. is exactly what we're doing right here right now which is using youtube's organic nature and the the fact that it shares content with lots of people especially if it's good especially you put some effort into it especially if you're working hard and of course you've got to commit to it i've made a two-year commitment to doing this and creating content for you here so you creating really good youtube organic content could serve you could really really reap rewards rewards for you we're running out of time Number 19, you can pay to join memberships where your ideal customer already hangs out.

11:26.77

Kennedy Kennedy

Again, because once somebody has paid for something, they are a much more committed potential buyer. You know they've got a credit card and they know how to use it and they're interested in a related topic.

11:37.38

Kennedy Kennedy

So if you go and hang out in that same place, I've paid to join paid Facebook groups, ah memberships, coaching programs, just because I knew the people in that group would be great prospects for me. So I go in, add value, people like me and they go, what do you do? i say, hey, i teach email marketing and they want to learn it from me. It's awesome.

11:55.83

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 20, paid ads on Instagram and and Facebook using the Meta platform. You can go and you can run ads straight to your lead magnet or paid products and bring in brand new subscribers all day long.

12:07.57

Kennedy Kennedy

Number 21, create an attractive affiliate program. Take some of your products, not all of them necessarily, and allow other people to promote them to their audiences through their newsletters, through their email list, through their Instagram, through their YouTube.

12:22.87

Kennedy Kennedy

And when people buy through their special tracking link, you pay them a commission. We do this all day, every day. It's a huge part of our business. We're bringing in leads at a profit.

12:34.36

Kennedy Kennedy

We're already getting paid on the way in because we're giving away between 20% and 50% for every person who comes in. And that person coming in is a buyer. That's a person who likes to buy stuff related to the topic.

12:46.04

Kennedy Kennedy

Two to go. Number 22, paid ads on YouTube. I know a lot of coaches having a wild success. with paying to show ads throughout a YouTube video.

12:57.32

Kennedy Kennedy

So people, you see you know about this already by watching this YouTube video, right? You click play and before you can watch the thing you want, you get played in ads. Those things work, they work really well. That's why people are still doing it.

13:09.40

Kennedy Kennedy

And finally, and this is a big one, you could host your own summit. If I was to ever go into a brand new niche, this is exactly how I would launch myself and create a huge list of engaged people who already trust me, already like me by borrowing the credibility of lots of other people.

13:26.80

Kennedy Kennedy

What you do is you go into that niche, whatever your niche is, and you contact lots of people, 10 to 20 people who are already experts, who have already got a following in your world.

13:37.41

Kennedy Kennedy

And you say to them, I'm hosting this event. You all tell your audience about it. Everybody registers onto your email list. So you get every lead from all of this audience. You collate that together and they get to do a presentation where they can also drop a lead magnet and give a load of value.

13:53.87

Kennedy Kennedy

And because you are the host of that whole thing, you get the borrowed credibility and you get to have the whole list. 23 ideas in 12 minutes.

14:05.30

Kennedy Kennedy

I'm exhausted. But before you go, there's one thing you need to know. And that is for every single one of these things. I can't believe I did that. I'm really curious, by the way, like before I get into this last thing, which I think is really cool, by the way, um I'm really curious. Let me know in the comments, which of those 23 things are you thinking, I'm going to go do that?

14:23.67

Kennedy Kennedy

Is there one that stands out to you? Are there a few that stand out to you? I'd absolutely love to know of those 23 things, which ones are most interesting to you. And maybe in the future, if you let me know, I will actually make a video going deep onto that methodology.

14:37.76

Kennedy Kennedy

I'd love to do that here on the channel. Now, of course, all of these things only work if you've got a really, really good lead magnet. So ah there's a link right here, just there, to a video I made all about 12 different lead magnet ideas that don't just attract people who are seeking free stuff, they actually bring in people who are poised and ready to buy. So I definitely recommend you go check out that video as well.

15:01.69

Kennedy Kennedy

If you haven't already, make sure you hit like and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.