Collaborations are one of the fastest ways to grow your email list — but only if you set them up strategically. In this actionable and energetic episode, Liz Wilcox — the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing — shares the three simple things you need to do before, during, and after every collaboration to make sure you’re collecting the maximum number of subscribers.
Episode Highlights
- Why collabs don’t automatically grow your list — and what to do instead.
- Step 1: Set up your ecosystem for success.
- Step 2: Join their community — before and after.
- Step 3: Make sure your topic directly relates to your freebie.
- Liz’s real-world results: 70 new subscribers from a single podcast episode because the topic and freebie were perfectly aligned.
- The closing reminder: “Don’t pitch dog treats at a potty-training webinar.” Your topic and offer must make sense together.
- A quick promo for the upcoming Networking for Collabs List Building Challenge (June 2–4, 2025), co-hosted with a networking expert.
Key Takeaways
- All roads lead to your list: Optimize your website and socials before you collaborate.
- Engage early and often: Show up in your partner’s community before and after your collab.
- Alignment equals conversion: Your collab topic should flow directly into your freebie.
- Relationships build reach: Community engagement creates trust and better visibility.
- Consistency wins: Every collab is a chance to grow your list — if you set it up intentionally.
Links and Resources
Check out Liz’s Email Marketing Membership here
Join the Email Sound Booth Facebook group here
Check out Liz’s free welcome sequence here
Liz’s Kit [Convertkit] affiliate link
Rather watch the Podcast? Check out WATCHLIZ.COM
Transcript
Oh, my gosh. Episode 139 of the Email Sound Booth Podcast starts right now. Lucky, lucky me that you are listening. Thank you so, so much. This is how to get the most email subscribers from your collab. Okay? Doing these three things.
Number one, make sure. When you’re doing a collab, make sure you have your website and your social media pointing to your email list. So if you’re doing a podcast, if you’re doing an Instagram Live, a freebie, swap, whatever. A lot of this, you know, you’re not going to pick up every subscriber, right? But they are going to remember your name or likely remember your name, right? Somebody might share my freebie and, you know, the reader. I don’t really feel like signing up for Liz’s thing right now. I’m in the carpool lane. I can’t do it. But then a couple weeks later. Oh, yeah, what was that lady’s name? Liz Wilcox. Let me look her up. I need some email help. Bada bing, bada boom. They Google me. They’re going to go to my website, they’re going to go to my Instagram. What are they going to find? Links to sign up for my freebies. So make sure I call it like your online ecosystem. Make sure that’s set up to collect leads before you do the collab. Right? Make sure your Instagram bio has your freebie on there. Make sure your website points people to your freebie. Your about page points people to your freebie. All roads should lead to the email list. I don’t know why I’m singing it, but it’s true. Pay attention. Have your website, have your social media, have your ecosystem set up to point to your email list. This is the best way when you’re doing a collab to maximize your subscribers, because some people are going to come right now, some people are going to come later, some people are going to forget the link, go to your website. They want to make sure they can get to it quickly. Okay?
The number two way to get the maximum subscribers by your collab is actually, I’m not really going in numerical order. I’ve saved the best for last. So number two is join their community for a few days before and after. Let’s say I’m doing a collab with Will Smith. What am I going to do for a few days before I’m going to go onto Will Smith’s social media? He’s most popular on Instagram. I’m going to be commenting, I’m going to be commenting on comments. I’m going to be liking comments. So. So that when Will says, hey, me and Liz are going to do my email audit live on Instagram today. They’re going to recognize my name, they’re going to want to show up, they’re going to wonder who I am.
So if you’re doing a collab with someone, they’ve got a Facebook group or they’re really big over on TikTok, you need to go in that group, you need to go over to their TikTok page, comment on comments, like posts, become someone in the community, okay? That’s going to help you maximize people attending your event. Okay? So you want to do that for a few days before and you want to do that for a few days after. Let’s say you do a Facebook Live in somebody’s group a few days after, go in there, you know, post things, ask people if they have any questions, go down to the Facebook Live. Are there any comments that weren’t replied to? Make sure you reply to them. This is really, really, really going to maximize your email subscribers by maximizing that brand awareness, getting people excited about who you are.
And then number three, the third way, which really is the number one way to make sure you get the maximum email subscribers when you’re doing a collab is to make sure whatever the heck you’re talking about in the collab is directly related to your freebie, to your opt in, to your lead magnet. Let me say it again. Whatever you’re talking about in the collab, whether you’re in a summit and you have a presentation, you’re doing a podcast interview, you’re answering questions, you’re doing an email takeover, whatever, whatever you’re talking about has got to be directly related to. Directly related. Do you hear me? Directly related to your freebie, to your lead magnet.
For example, when I do a podcast interview, I really love talking about welcome sequences. I talk about, you know, the mistakes people make in welcome sequences. The four emails you can write in a welcome sequence. You know, personality, vision, values. Put that in your welcome sequence. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. That’s my main podcast interview topic. Then when I go throughout, well, actually throughout the interview, I’m like, if you’re having a hard time conceptualizing it, don’t worry, it’s my freebie. I’ve already written it for you. And then at the end when Will Smith says, hey, Liz, where can people find out more about you? I say, oh my gosh, Will, I’m so glad you asked. You can go directly to lizwilcox.com. hit the hot pink button. Remember how we’ve been talking about welcome sequences for 30, 30 minutes now? If you’re really struggling to write that welcome sequence, if you want help when you hit that hot, hot Pink button@lizwilcox.com I’m going to give you a welcome sequence already written for you. Plug and play. Mad Lib style. Copy and paste already written for you. Liz Wilcox.com Hot pink button, right? Because it’s just a natural extension of what we’ve been talking about. A natural next step, I’m going to get the maxim amount of email subscribers. Okay? And I looked in the other day, I had a podcast interview go out. We were talking about welcome sequences, we were talking about newsletters. And I got something like 70 subscribers from that podcast because it was directly related to my freebie. The topic we were talking about. When I do a summit, right, I only want to do summits about welcome sequences, about how to welcome people. Because that’s what my freebie is right now. I can create different talks, create different freebies. You can do that too. Just make sure whatever the collab is about, you know, you pitch the same thing at the end. It would be like doing a webinar on, you know, how to train potty train your dog and then you sell them dog treats at the end. It doesn’t really make sense, right? You would sell like a course on dog training, right? You would sell your one on ones for dog training, right? Something like that. Your obedience lessons, right? It’s got to go together well.
So again, how do we get the most email subscribers from our collabs? Join the community for a few days before, a few days after become, you know, people want, people need to be aware of you before you do the, the collab. That’s how you’re going to maximize your subscribers then. And I’m looking down at my notes because I’m a little brain dead today. Have your website, have your ecosystem set up to collect leads for those late scragglers and then of course, make sure whatever you pitch at the end of your collab is what the heck you were talking about the whole time in the first place.
All right, remember, June 2nd, 3rd, 4th, we are doing networking for collabs. We’re going to find a network so that we can collab together. It’s going to be a list building challenge. So excited. June 2nd, 3rd, 4th, I’m actually bringing a networking expert in to help me with this content. It’s going to be $33. It’s going for sale on May 26th. Save your pennies. 33 bucks. I can’t wait. As always, I’m Liz Wilcox. You are awesome. And you’re going to have so many collabs in the future. Oh, I feel it. I’ll see you on the next episode.