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Growing My 3k-person email List by 10% in 5 Hours

TL;DR — I wrote a guest article for an affiliate with a large audience. It resulted in 300 new signups to my email list in 5 hours.

My email list has been growing steadily since October 2018 when I launched the first version of Logo Package Express. Until now, my only strategy for growing the list has been to offer freebies as lead gens. I decided to try writing a guest post for one of my most prolific affiliates who has a very large mailing list and huge blog following.

I offered my affiliate to write a guest post for him about logo file formats. This is a heavy traffic topic for my blog, so I thought it would be a perfect article for my affiliate to have.

The article discusses what types of file formats designers need to provide to clients for finalized logos. In it, I link to a free download of my logo file format cheat sheet, which is a lead magnet for my list.

I set up an additional link for my affiliate that redirected to my cheat sheet lead gen landing page. If anyone explores my site further and makes a purchase of Logo Package Express within 30 days, my affiliate will get the commission.

The affiliate gets a highly relevant article without doing any work, a value providing cheat sheet for his audience and an additional path to a commission. I get access to a huge audience to join my mailing list.

My affiliate sent out the blog post at 3:30 AM Central time, and by 8:30 AM I had received over 300 new signups to my mailing list — that's a 10% increase in just 5 hours!

I highly recommend this strategy if you have access to quality content and a network of affiliates.

  1. 2

    Wow. That is a very interesting strategy. Way to go :) Any suggestions on how I could connect with affiliates? Ours is a new product, under development.

    1. 1

      Thank you! I was fortunate enough to be connected to my first affiliate through a mutual contact. My first affiliate had a huge network and was more than willing to connect me with other potential affiliates.

      If you are starting out with no affiliates, my first suggestion would be to find some mutual connections between you and an influencer in your space — people with big blogs, newsletters, or social followings.

      Ask for an introduction to get the conversation started.

      I offer no less than 20% commission for affiliates and no more than 50% depending on the size of their audience. My average commission offer is 40%.

      If you don't have any mutual contacts with influencers, then I recommend doing cold outreach via email. Make a list of the people you want to contact and then get to work.

      I find that leading with a shared mission is a great way to capture attention.

      Here is an example of my outreach email:

      ===============

      Hey there (NAME)!

      Our mutual friend (NAME) said I should get in touch with you about the extension I created for Adobe Illustrator.

      I think we both believe logo designers shouldn’t have to waste a single ounce of their creative energy on mindless pixel-pushing production tasks. That’s why I made a tool that automates the most monotonous and mind-numbing part of every logo project — exporting a logo package for clients after final approval. Logo Package Express exports robust, error-proof logo packages in under 3 minutes. You can learn all about it here: link

      Nearly xxxx designers have downloaded Logo Package Express in the last xxxx and several influential design bloggers like (NAME), (Name), and (Name) are currently helping me promote it.

      I know you create a lot of content for logo designers and I’d love to work with you. I think (NAME) audience would be really excited to learn about this extension. Would you be interested in an affiliate link or working together in some way?

      Thanks in advance, and I hope we can connect.

      Best,
      Michael

      1. 1

        This is really helpful Michael.

        Thanks for taking the time out for sharing this.

  2. 1

    Thanks much. Will definitely put this to use :)

  3. 1

    This is great man! How did you get in touch with affiliates?

    1. 1

      Thanks! Check my answer on Interr's comment.

  4. 1

    This is pretty nice. Thanks for sharing.

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