In Episode 101 of the Email Soundbooth Podcast, Liz Wilcox shares a game-changing strategy to grow your email list without the need for a freebie. Liz dives into her personal experience and success with hosting events, like challenges, summits, and giveaways as powerful tools to attract new subscribers. She emphasizes that while this strategy may require more effort, the payoff can be substantial, helping you emerge as a leader in your industry. Tune in to learn how you can implement these tactics, and don’t forget to check out Liz’s upcoming List Building Live event from March 11th-13th. The link is in the show notes!
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Transcript
What’s up? Liz Wilcox here. You’re listening to the Email Soundbooth Podcast. Lucky, lucky me. This is episode 101. Or is it 101? I think 101 is grammatically incorrect. So yeah, episode 101, 101. One huge way to grow your list without a freebie. Alright, folks, this is one of the most, um, asked questions, like, I hate freebies.
How can I grow my list? And I started to make a list of different ways, but really the best, I want to just give you the best way I know how. Oh, and by the way, I’m doing this In the next few weeks, because I also, I don’t want to say I have a list building problem, but my list, uh, growth has slowed down. If you’re new to me, I was on this crazy show called Survivor in 2024, and that was pretty much.
It was all consuming. And so my list didn’t, uh, my list maintained itself in 2024. But in 2025, I am coming back with a vengeance. I have so much energy, so much excitement, uh, for. email marketing for you, for you growing your list. And so I am doing this strategy. And I think maybe you should try it too. Now this strategy isn’t, uh, what, what’s the word I’m trying to say?
I’m not going to say that it’s hard, but it’s not easy. It is something you’re going to have to put a lot of work in. And it is like, creating and hosting your own event. This is the absolute best way to grow your list without a freebie. Host your own thing, whether it’s a challenge, a summit, uh, an in person event, um, a bundle, a giveaway.
This is the absolute, you know, hands down number one way to grow your list without a freebie, right? Because you are the one hosting, you get all the emails. So I’m doing this March 11th through 13th with List Building Live. I’m going to put the link to the landing page in the show notes if you’re interested in checking out how I’m doing it.
And also if you want to learn how to grow your email list. List building live March 11th through 13th, but this episode is about you, not about me. And I want you to hear me out on this because a lot of people are not ready for that. Whatever, whatever. Look, if you want to grow your email list fast, this is a great way to do it, but you have to network or you have to, uh, you know, put yourself out there and say, Hey, will you join this challenge?
Will you join this bundle? Will you do this or that? Right? It’s a great way. And hosting is a faster way to grow than participating. Right? Because you’re the host, you get all the emails. If I’m participating in your summit, maybe you get a thousand signups, maybe I get ten to a hundred, you know, depending on the success of my one part in it.
But if I host the event, I get the thousand. And you get the hundred, 10 to a hundred, whatever, right? So consider hosting your own event. Now, I kind of fell into this when I was an RV travel blogger. It was, I don’t know, about 10, 11 months into my business. I was taking email list building. Very, very seriously and Facebook live was this brand new thing, right?
And I wanted to, you know, get engagement on Facebook and with Facebook events were brand new Facebook events and Facebook live was pretty pretty new like so new they were running ads on cable for Facebook live Remember cable. I’m not a dinosaur. I swear. I haven’t been doing it long. Just technology is moving so quick.
Right. And I was like, okay, well, how can I build my email list and get Facebook engagement at the same time? And I was like, oh, I could, oh, and Facebook groups were also, I wouldn’t say they were new, but they were like. The new focus for Facebook. So I was like, what if I created this Facebook group and inside, I just went live every day on a certain topic.
It was RV renovations. And then while I was live, I tried to get people to join my email list. I tried to tell people about the virtual campground, which was my business back in the day and. It worked, it worked so well that I ended up recruiting three of my friends to host an event, I don’t know, five weeks later, uh, called full time freedom week, and that spawned off into its own business that I later got bought out of that company.
Now with full time freedom week, I was able to grow my list. Like crazy, right? We start, let’s say we started just that business alone. We started at zero, right? We created a Facebook event. We got people to say they were attending the event and throughout the event, it was like, Hey, sign up here, sign up here, sign up here.
Right. And we were able to get people looking at us because we had asked, you know, person A, B, C, and D, Hey, will you come on and talk during this event? This was before like digital summits were a thing, right? And then during the event, I went live with almost every single person. I was live at least twice a day, sometimes up to seven times a day.
And every time I was promoting our email list, right? I was saying, you know, join the list and get ABC. Join the list and get ABC. I can’t even remember what we were offering. You know, it turns out we were doing it backwards, right? So nowadays with list building live i’m saying hey Sign up for list building live and you’re going to get the content, right?
It’s not going to be in a facebook group or a facebook events page It’s going to be via email, right? It’s going to be a private podcast But you have to give me your email To get the private podcast, right? And I’m hoping for at least a thousand new subscribers, uh, in the next few weeks, as I promote it, as the people I asked to promote it, my affiliates promote it, the speakers promote it, et cetera.
So honestly, hosting your own event, especially something like a summit is a great way to grow. I know a lady named Cherie also from the travel industry. That came into, hang on, can I just be slightly ghetto here? My, uh, timer is going off. I’m sorry. Y’all, side note, I am on a lot of supplements right now for my allergies, so I have to set a lot of timers.
But I’m not gonna edit this, okay? I’m gonna keep going. I know a lady, another lady, Cherie Collier, she’s actually speaking at my list building live, and she was able to grow her list from 0 to over 3, 000. With just one event. Okay. So that is a great, great way to grow your email list quickly. You can also do a challenge.
Um, you could do, Hmm, excuse me. Uh, you know, again, host a bundle, stuff like that. Let me take a sip of water.
Now this, I said at the beginning five minutes ago, I know that this is more work than anything else, but it is also going to pay off in a big way. Even if you only got 200 people, even if you only got a hundred, would it be worth a few weeks of work if you’re just starting out? Yeah, probably. And the side effect to hosting your own event is that you become a sort of leader or emerging leader in your industry, right?
When I hosted my first event, RV Renovations Week, I was a nobody. And then suddenly everyone saw me going live and this Facebook group growing and my email list growing and everyone wanted to work with me. That’s why it was so easy to get those three other people. to try out full time freedom week, my second event that ended up being its own business.
Right. And that email list grew to, you know, 10, 000 in just a few years by just hosting events. That was our only thing we did was once a year and it just grew and grew and grew. All right, so it is worth your while all right This is a really long episode for a really short simple Sort of piece of advice so i’m going to end it again.
I would love for you to see The progress i’m making see what it’s like to host your own event what Emails you need to send out, et cetera, et cetera. So join me for list building live. It’s going to be March 11th through 13th. The link is in the show notes. I would love to help you grow your list anyway, on top of you just seeing this, um, tactic in action.
So list building live link is in the show notes. I’m Liz Wilcox as always. You’re awesome. And you’re so capable of growing your list. I can’t wait to see you do it. See you soon.
