Grow Your Email List with Profitable Collaborations
Oct 21, 2024
Email marketing is still one of the most powerful tools for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses, and email collaborations offer a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded business owners while expanding your audience. In this blog post, we're diving into how you can set up profitable email collaborations that benefit everyone involved.
When built into your overall business growth strategy framework, email marketing serves as a vital piece in your strategy and entrepreneurship puzzle.
Why Email Collaborations Work
As I share often, email marketing is experiencing a resurgence in popularity and effectiveness (insert that anti-social strategy at work!). Unlike ads, which can be unpredictable and costly (and have never worked for me personally), email collaborations are a cost-effective way to build relationships and grow your list. Instead of going at it alone, email collaborations allow you to partner with others in a complementary space, giving both parties access to new audiences.
Key Benefits:
- You can share resources and experiences organically.
- Email allows for personalized content that feels less salesy and more genuine.
- It’s an excellent platform to highlight partnerships, share stories, and showcase mutual support.
How to Choose the Right Email Collaboration Partner
The key to a successful collaboration is ensuring the audiences for both partners are complementary. My friend Alison emphasizes this point by saying that the partnership should make sense for both businesses involved. I completely agree and have my own recent success story that I share more on below.
How to Find the Right Partner:
- Look for businesses that provide products or services your audience would find valuable, but don't directly compete with your own.
- Ensure your partner shares similar values and understands the importance of nurturing relationships with their audience.
- Focus on the quality of the partnership rather than the quantity of collaborations.
Email Collaboration in Action: Launch Partnerships
A specific example of a successful collaboration is my recent email partnership with a friend and fellow business owner, April. Together, we promoted each other's launches through emails and live events, highlighting each other’s services and expertise. The results? I gained nearly 500 new email subscribers, while April gained 200.
Steps to Set Up a Launch Partnership:
- Find a partner with a product or service that complements your own.
- Promote each other's launches through emails, live events, or social media.
- Focus on organic storytelling that demonstrates how your collaboration benefits your audiences.
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Using Bundles for Email Collaboration
Alison’s go-to strategy for profitable email collaboration is organizing bundles. Bundles involve multiple business owners offering a paid product for free during a short promotional period. These bundles help generate high-quality leads quickly. For instance, a recent bundle she organized brought in 1,700 new leads.
How to Run a Bundle:
- Identify a group of collaborators whose paid products can be offered for free.
- Promote the bundle through emails and social media.
- During the limited promotional window, collect leads while offering valuable content to your audience.
Affiliate Programs as a Form of Email Collaboration
Alison also shares her experience setting up an affiliate program for her Funnel of the Month Club. Affiliates promote the product to their audiences in exchange for a commission. This expands your reach without having to promote the same offer repeatedly to your existing audience.
Setting Up an Affiliate Program:
- Identify partners who are invested in your success (e.g., clients, students, or collaborators).
- Offer a commission (Alison offers 50%).
- Use email to announce and promote your affiliate program to relevant audiences.
Real-Time Networking for Local Collaborations
Email collaborations don’t always have to be digital. One of my goals is to engage with local business owners through in-person networking events. We have so many amazing businesses and business owners here in Columbus! While these events may not seem as scalable, they can lead to deeper, more meaningful partnerships. For me, this strategy resulted in speaking engagements and valuable connections.
Incorporating In-Person Collaboration:
- Set a goal to meet with one local business owner per month.
- Focus on building relationships and offering support.
- You may find unexpected opportunities for future collaborations.
Taking Action: Your Collaboration Homework
Ready to start your own profitable email collaboration? Here’s your homework:
- Make a list of potential collaboration partners—people or businesses you admire who have a complementary audience.
- Reach out to two of them to propose a collaboration, whether it's a launch partnership, a bundle, or even a local networking opportunity.
- Get it on the calendar before the end of the year!
Email marketing is key to building a business without social media. By working together and building relationships through email collaborations, you can make significant strides toward scaling your business while offering value to both your audience and your partners.
Looking for more on email marketing? Here are some other resources:
Behind the Scenes of My Best Performing Funnel
Increase profits with this email strategy!
How we organically tripled our email list in one year
About the author
Holly Haynes is a business strategist who loves a good plan and flow chart. She is crazy passionate about teaching women like you how to build your dream job and scale to 6-figures without sacrificing your weekends or priorities.
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