What if you could add over 300 people to your email list in a single month without running a single ad, creating anything from scratch, or spending more than a week on execution?

In this solo episode, Dr. Sapphire breaks down the exact collaboration strategy she used in March 2026 to grow her list by 307 people, using the International Women's Day as the hook, eight community partners as the distribution channel, and a free bundle she already had sitting in her email marketing school.

This is the full behind-the-scenes breakdown, numbers, data, what worked, what she would do differently, and exactly how you can replicate it for your own brand.

INSIDE THIS EPISODE

Why list growth has to be intentional and what it looks like when you actually plan it

The collaboration outreach strategy that turned 11 messages into eight successful partnerships

How she productized existing content into a high-value free bundle without creating anything new

What the landing pages looked like and the conversion rates that surprised even her

The audience data she collected from 307 cold leads and what it revealed about who is looking for

email marketing help

The friction mistake that cost her signups and how she would fix it next time

What she tracked, what she missed, and the metrics she wishes she had from the start

Why leveraging a season, a day, or a moment is one of the most underused list growth strategies

How to turn a one-off collaboration into a long-term brand partnership that keeps growing your list

NEW: The Email Clinic is open!

If this episode got you thinking about your email marketing, imagine having a community where you can get help 24/7. The Email Clinic is where freelancers and service providers come to start, grow, and sharpen their email marketing skills together. Live copy reviews, live training, community chats and more.

👉 Join us here: https://sapphirelearninghub.nestuge.com/

EPISODE TIMELINE ⏱️

[00:51] – Introduction: how Dr. Sapphire grew her list by 307 people without ad spend

[01:07] – Why list growth must be intentional and the question she gets asked most

[01:41] – The International Women's Day idea and how it started

[03:03] – How she productized existing content into the Email Marketing Career Bundle

[03:56] – The outreach process: 11 messages, 9 yeses, 8 collaborations

[04:37] What the cold outreach email actually looked like and the reply that came back

[08:31] – The infrastructure: landing page, Google Drive assets, captions, and graphics

[11:46] – The numbers: 307 signups, two landing pages, and conversion rates of 40% and 48%

[13:57] – Audience insights: who signed up, where they came from, and what they struggled with

[16:05] – Geography: Nigeria, US, Ghana, UK, Kenya, Finland, Brazil and more

[18:29] – What she would do differently: deeper alignment, less friction, more tracking

[20:15] – The email metrics for this new cold audience: 32.76% open rate, 4.79% click rate

[21:09] – The 12% drop-off rate and what it means for list quality

[24:45] – Why leveraging a season or international day is one of the smartest list growth moves

[25:47] – The importance of vision and message alignment to get partnership

CONNECT WITH US

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.sapphire_/

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

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@dr.sapphire_

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/sapphirelearninghub/

Website: https://sapphirelearninghub.com/

**Dr. Sapphire:** Welcome back to *Email Marketing Experiments*, where we take you behind the scenes of failed and successful email marketing campaigns. Simply put, we share what we've tried in the past that worked or didn't work, taking you from idea to strategy and results with real-life lessons in between. We keep it practical, and we even ask our guests to spill their worst email marketing mistakes!

I’m Dr. Sapphire, host of *Email Marketing Experiments* and founder of Sapphire Learning Hub, an online email marketing school that helps you start, grow, and transition into email marketing so you can get paid to offer it as a service.

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**Dr. Sapphire:** Back in February, I decided I wanted to do something unique for International Women's Day (IWD). I reviewed the official theme, criteria, and my existing assets to see how I could align them.

To distribute the bundle, I targeted freelancers, service providers, and digital professionals looking to develop their skills. I compiled a list of **11 potential collaborators**—a mix of past partners, personal contacts, and cold brand outreach.

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**Dr. Sapphire:** The entire outreach and setup took roughly 7 to 10 days, starting around late February, with the campaign going live around March 6th.

Here is what the cold outreach email pitch looked like:

> **Subject:** International Women's Day Collaboration

> *Hi [Name],*

> I’m Dr. Sapphire, an email marketing strategist and educator. For International Women's Day this year, I thought hard about what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't want to give away something that cost me nothing.

>

>

>

>

>

>

> I’d be honored if you could share this opportunity with your community via email or social media. Please let me know if this aligns with your vision and what would be required on your end to make this collaboration happen.

>

>

> I look forward to hearing from you!

>

>

One partner responded the very next day, expressing how strongly the offer aligned with her brand's values. For other brands where I was a customer or past contributor, I established rapport right away by mentioning my past involvement or complimenting specific products (like their spicy mocha and chicken sandwich!). Out of 11 outreach messages, **9 gave us an initial 'yes'**, leading to **8 active collaborations**.

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**Dr. Sapphire:** We kept the operational infrastructure lean:

1. **Landing Pages:** I created a clean landing page using our Email Service Provider (ESP) template and redirected a custom domain (`[sapphirelearninghub.com/](https://sapphirelearninghub.com/)...`) to it.

2. **Universal Partner Media Kit:** We compiled a single Google Drive folder containing promotional graphics (rebranded in IWD colors), email banners, direct registration links, speaker highlights, and pre-written social media copy options (short and long form).

The campaign ran for the entire month of March after one partner suggested expanding it beyond a single week to celebrate International Women's Day all month long.

---

**Dr. Sapphire:** Here is a breakdown of our campaign numbers and insights:

* **Total New Subscribers:** 307 leads.

* **Landing Page Conversion Rates:**

* Main Landing Page: **40.12% conversion rate**

* Personalized Partner Landing Page: **48.31% conversion rate**

* **Subscriber Demographics:**

* **Age Distribution:** 55% were between 25–34 years old (Median age: 27; Mean age: 29), followed by 18–24 and 35–40.

* **Top Professions:** Content marketers, copywriters, social media managers, VA/executive assistants, brand strategists, and freelancers.

* **Geographic Reach:** Primary audience in Nigeria, followed by the United States, United Kingdom, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, Finland, Romania, Spain, Zambia, and Brazil.

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**Dr. Sapphire:** Reflecting on the results, here are six optimizations we plan to implement for future list-building campaigns:

1. **Reduce Technical Friction:** Due to a lack of direct integration between our product portal and ESP at the time, subscribers experienced a double sign-up process. Eliminating this step will improve offer delivery rates.

2. **Deeper Referral Tracking:** Implement custom UTM parameters per partner to identify which collaborator communities drive the highest customer lifetime value (LTV) and sales conversions.

3. **Multi-Touch Partner Requests:** Request at least two promotional pushes per partner (e.g., an initial announcement and a reminder post) to capture audience members who missed the first message.

4. **Structured 60–90 Day Nurture Paths:** Build an extended post-campaign onboarding sequence tailored specifically to cold leads coming from third-party audiences.

5. **Turn One-Off Collabs into Long-Term Partnerships:** Transition successful one-time campaign partners into recurring brand allies through co-hosted workshops or scholarships.

6. **Earlier Outreach Window:** Allow 3 to 4 weeks of outreach lead time to secure even more brand partners.

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**Dr. Sapphire:** This campaign yielded high conversions for three reasons:

* **Leveraging a Relevant Season:** Capitalizing on a widely recognized event (International Women's Day) created natural urgency and relevance. (You can adapt this to your birthday, industry national days, or seasonal moments!)

* **Vision & Message Alignment:** Partners willingly collaborated because the high-value offer aligned seamlessly with their own community mission.

* **Time-Bound Urgency:** Defining a clear campaign window encouraged immediate audience action.