Em in a light pink sweater sitting behind a laptop smiling with a podcast mic to the side

Oct 2

88: 5 Ways to Grow Your Email List Without Adding More Social Media

Em Connors
Build a Sustainable Content System, Email List Growth
0 comments

Your list doesn't need another platform. It needs the places you already show up to work harder. Start with these 5 moves.

🌟 Your List Doesn't Need Another Platform

You've been told to be everywhere. Start a Substack. Get on Threads. Post more on Facebook. Try the new app everyone's talking about this week.

So you sign up. You post for a few days. Then you forget the login exists, and it turns into one more thing to feel guilty about.

If your email list growth has slowed down, the answer usually isn't a new platform. It's making the places you already show up send more people to your list.

That's the shift I made this fall, and it's what this post is about. I'm walking you through the 5 things I'm changing right now to grow my email list using the content I already make. Some are working. One I haven't even started yet. I'm keeping it at the what level, so you can take whatever fits your business and leave the rest.

Before you keep reading, grab the free one-page takeaway that goes with this post. It's called Optimize Before You Add, and it walks you through the exact audit I share at the end. Grab it here.

And tell me: how many platforms are you on right now that you forgot to check this week?

😵‍💫 11 Post-it Notes and a List-Growth Cliff

Right now there are 11 Post-it notes on my desk. I counted. Some are business ideas, some are things I want to share with my community inside The Coven, and some are doctor's appointments I need to make before I forget. And I will forget. Two elementary-aged kiddos plus perimenopause brain is a real combination.

One of them says "The WHAT, not the how." I scribbled it while pausing someone else's podcast, and it's the reason this post stays big-picture.

When I told you I was going all in on email and newsletters, the question I got over and over was, "How are you going to grow your list if you're not on Instagram?" I never said I was leaving Instagram. I still post four to five times a week. I just refuse to rely on it anymore.

The numbers backed me up. I went into Flodesk and pulled my new subscribers month by month. In the summer of 2023, a completely normal month with no launch, I brought in somewhere between 600 and almost 800 new subscribers. This July, I got 99. In August, 97.

That number counts every place people join my list, not only Instagram. But Instagram has always been my biggest front door, and my reach there right now is trash.

So my brain did what every solopreneur brain does. It went looking for somewhere new to be. I asked in my stories who was using Substack alongside Flodesk. I eyed Threads again. I wondered if I should lean on Facebook more. By the end of that week, I was ready to sign up for pretty much anything with a login screen.

Then I stopped and looked at what I was already making every single week: a podcast, a blog post, my 3-2-1 Create newsletter, and four to five Instagram posts that auto-post to Facebook and Pinterest. That's a full content machine for one woman running a business.

I'd already tested Threads and Substack for two weeks, and I forgot to even go look at them. I'm a visual person. A text-heavy feed is not somewhere I'll show up consistently, and a platform you don't show up for consistently is not going to grow your list. It turns into one more Post-it.

So I changed the question. Instead of "Where else should I be?" I started asking, "How do I make what I already make work harder?"

🎯 The 5 Ways I'm Growing My List With What I Already Make

I already started this on the podcast. On recent episodes, I walked through optimizing your Instagram to grow your email list, plus one automation that connects Instagram to a Pinterest business account. This week I got an email saying one of my pins has 50,000 impressions. That's from content I was already making, and I never logged into Pinterest.

Those wins got me looking at what else I'm sitting on that isn't pulling its weight. These are the 5 on my list right now.

🎙️ 1. Put an Opt-In Where People Already Are

This one came straight from my DMs. A follower told me she's always busy when she listens to my podcast, and she'd love one page she could print with all the cliff notes.

Duh. That's about as easy as it gets. Every episode already had show notes, and they were just sitting there. So now every episode gets a free one-sheet that matches it, with an opt-in right in the show notes.

In eight days, that brought in 53 new subscribers. Put that next to my 97 for the entire month of August, and you can see why I'm excited.

Your turn: look at the content people already consume from you. A podcast, a blog post, a YouTube video, a workshop replay. Is there an easy, matching freebie sitting right next to it? If someone just spent time with you, give them a door to your list before they leave.

💡 2. Make Your Website Easy for AI Tools to Find

This is the big one. I'm moving my website off Podia, where it has lived for six years, and it comes down to something called GEO.

GEO is basically SEO for AI tools. It's whether ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity can find you and understand who you are based on your website. People are using these tools as search engines now. My kids used to say "search it up." Now they say "Ask ChatGPT."

What I learned: my Podia site isn't invisible to those tools, but it's a lot harder for them to read. My pages are built with code instead of plain text. Google runs that code, so it sees my site just fine. A lot of AI tools don't, so they can end up with a jumbled version of me.

The headline on my homepage, "Start the email list you keep meaning to start," wasn't even labeled as a headline. I can't add the hidden labels that tell AI tools I'm an email marketing and newsletter strategist. There's no site map, and there's no way to redirect old pages.

So I'm moving, likely to Showit or Squarespace. I'm still deciding and reading every opinion you've sent me. Same me, same content, most of the same copy. I'm not writing a whole new website. I'm making the one I have easier to find, especially all the SEO-rich blog posts already living on it, like this one.

You don't need to move your website today. But it's worth knowing whether the place your content lives is easy for the tools your people use to read it. If your best content is buried where nobody can find it, that's list growth you're leaving on the table.

🤝 3. Get Mentioned in More Places

This part of GEO surprised me. The website is only half of it. The other half is being mentioned in other places, like guest spots on podcasts and a consistent bio everywhere you show up.

Making sure my bio matches everywhere is one of my 11 Post-its. I still have to do it.

I have a warm audience plus a membership of over 100 smart, creative women building their own businesses. So inside The Coven, we're setting up a way for members to collab on podcasts, trainings, you name it. If you have a show, bring someone on or be a guest on theirs. If you don't have a show, you can still apply to be a guest. Everyone gets in front of a new audience, and everyone gets mentioned somewhere new.

I'm also open to podcast swaps outside The Coven: I'll be on yours, you be on mine. If you host a show for an audience like mine, tell me in the comments.

📧 4. Ask One Specific Question in Every Newsletter

I've sent my newsletter for over 300 weeks in a row now, and one thing I know for sure: the email gods love a reply. When people hit reply, it tells inbox providers your emails are wanted.

So I'm adding one pointed question to every newsletter. Not a generic "thoughts?" at the bottom. A specific question that's easy to answer in one line.

This week I wrote that I'm thinking about moving website platforms, and I asked where your website lives and why you love it. I've had around 25 replies so far.

That doesn't build my list directly. It helps the newsletter I'm already sending land in more inboxes and get opened. Optimizing, not adding.

Your turn: tuck one easy question into your next newsletter. Make it something your reader can answer without overthinking, then watch what lands in your inbox.

💫 5. Look at Who's Already in Your Corner

I'm telling you upfront: I haven't started this one yet.

I have the warmest email list and a membership full of women with their own offers and their own audiences. There's something there around affiliates and collabs, and I'm going to figure out what it is. And I'm never sitting here asking what everyone can do for me. I'm happy to return the favor.

Right now it's still a Post-it, and I'm okay with that. Not every experiment has to be figured out before you share it.

📥 Want the One-Page Version?

Everything in this post fits on a single sheet. The Optimize Before You Add takeaway lays out the audit below so you can print it, stick it next to your own Post-its, and find the list growth hiding in the content you already make. Download it free here.

✅ The Optimize Before You Add Audit

Before you open a Substack or download Threads for the third time, do this.

Grab a piece of paper or a Post-it. Write down every place you already show up: your Instagram, your website, your blog, your podcast, your newsletter, your Pinterest, your Facebook page, even if it's been collecting dust.

Next to each one, answer one question: Does it send people to my email list?

If the answer is yes, look at whether it's doing it well. Is the opt-in easy to find? Does the freebie match what they just read or listened to?

If the answer is no, circle it.

That circled spot is where you start. Not a new platform. That one spot.

And if you're thinking, "Em, I don't have a website or a podcast," that's okay. Start with what you do have, even if it's only Instagram.

🛠️ Resources From This Post

💪 Do Fewer Things, Better

Quick recap. Put an opt-in where people already are. Make your website easy for AI tools to read. Get mentioned in more places. Ask one specific question in every newsletter. Look at who's already in your corner.

None of those are new platforms.

I say this a lot: consistency is a systems problem, not a discipline problem. More platforms won't make you more consistent. They'll make you more scattered, and that's exactly how I felt two weeks into Threads and Substack. I didn't like having to remember to check. I'm not a consumer of those places, and I don't want to be there.

Doing fewer things well is what a busy solopreneur can keep up with. Especially one with 11 Post-its on her desk.

If you want help with the collab side, getting on podcasts and getting mentioned in more places, that's what we're building inside The Coven right now. I'm determined to make it a safe place for consistent collaboration, and the doors are always open.

Check out The Content Coven Membership

If this helped, send it to a friend who's about to sign up for her fifth platform.

Now tell me in the comments below: which spot did you circle?

Em xx

Connect with me:
📲 Follow me on Instagram: @its.em.connors
💌 Join my weekly newsletter: 321 Create
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership
💵 Snag 25% off Flodesk, or use the code: THECREATIVEBODEGA

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