Hiyaaaaaa Reader,
Ready for a lil' BTS tea?
I wanna walk you through my most recent launch for Search Club (my SEO membership), because the more I look at the numbers, the more Iβm like, yep. This is why I love SEO lololol
And this is also why I donβt really stress about email list growth the way a LOT of people in the online business space do.
Let's look at the launch numbers:
π 15 new members joined Search Club during this March 2026 launch
π 23 members joined Search Club during my FIRST founding members launch in October 2025
Which brings us *currently* to 38 members total.
And so you might look at the first launch & compare it to the latest launch and be like "Wow, so your latest launch DIDN'T do better then the first one. Aren't people supposed to want to KEEP GROWING?!?!"
I mean sure, that's how some people would see it.
Not me tho LOL
This 2nd launch was a VERY intentional experiment, and I'm TOTALLY EXCITED with the results for a few reasons:
π A). 38 people IS NO SMALL AMOUNT OF PEOPLE. That's 38 whole ass humans. If I had 38 people, in front of me, right now, I would feel like the room was PACKED.
π B). Search Club is NOT at a point where I can hold many more people right now, and still give an incredible experience. Yes, I'll want to scale this more in the future, but I love having an intimate group of humans, and I'm learning from them, just as much as they learn from me.
Tweaking things as I go, and allowing myself to iterate is going to make the membership SO much more valuable because I'm allowing it to growth with me, at my own pace vs. only focused on scaling.
π C). I have a ~3,000 person email list, with a 47% open rate. And the typical conversion rate for selling via email is 1-5%. My numbers are pretty on par with that.
But here's what makes this launch EVEN more interesting....
I didn't do some big pre-launch event.
I didn't do a big visibility push to grow my email list in between launches.
I didn't even host a live workshop or anything in the 5 months between opening doors.
Which is kinda TOTALLLLLLLLY not what most "launching experts" would tell you to do in between launches.
They'd tell you to HYPER focus on list growth.
Which TBH makes sense, but I didn't.
Not really because I didn't *want* to, but because I literally couldn't lolol
In between this first launch, and this latest launch, I was healing from a near death health emergency, the holiday season happened, AND I got a new puppy, all while still serving clients, supporting the founding members in my membership, marketing my business, hugging my husband, having a life ANNNNNND working with the Semrush Academy team on developing new courses.β
I didn't have time, or space or bandwidth to do some big, long, drawn out pre-launch event.
I literally didn't even have time to CONSIDER it lmao
So, I decided that it was gonna be what it was gonna be & I turned it into an experiment.
How many new members could I get into Search Club, while allowing it to be the easiest launch ever?????
The answer = 15.
15 whole ass humans.
From an email list that ONLY gained 750+ email subscribers between launches.
According to statistics, I should have *only* really gained like 5 new members.
Now you see why 15 feels SO FUCKING COOL?
Okay, but let's go a little deeper, shall we?
If I didn't FOCUS on gaining email subscribers in-between launches, WHERE THE HELL DID THOSE 750+ PEOPLE COME FROM??!?
Some of them came from collaborations.
- In November, I was a contributor in a virtual event & gained around 66 subscribers.
- I did a newsletter sponsor swap in December & gained 11 subscribers.
- And then in January, I contributed to another virtual event & gained 36 subscribers.
Which totals to 113 subscribers.
Not bad, right?
113 subscribers = 113 humans (I ALWAYS try to humanize the numbers bc it's not *just* data).
But the thing is, the collaborations were all one-time things.
They happened, they gave me a lil' bump, and then they were done.
I'd say a couple email subscribers def came from social media or random places around the web too (referrals, Threads, Instagram, etc), but nothing too wild for me to break down into it's own category.
Wanna know where the MAJORITY of the rest of the subscribers came from?
SEO π₯³
From YouTube SEO.
From my content being searchable around the web in different places (Google, Bing, AI, etc).β
From one of my freebies ranking on page #1 of Google.
600+ email subscribers, coming from long-form content that's just sitting there.
Doing its job. Every single day.
Without me needing to think about it.
Soooooo, collabs def gave me a lil' bump in subscribers, but SEO was my strong foundational baseline.
Collabs = spikes
SEO = baseline growth
Collabs give you:
- Short-term visibility
- A quick bump in subscribers
- Something that works while youβre actively engaging in them
Collabs are great for QUICK trust-building, especially if you don't have a lot of long-form content right now.
SEO gives you:
- Consistent traffic
- Consistent subscribers
- People finding you every single day
SEO is your long-term partner, but it DOES require more up-front work. Ya need content for people to find, and you have to be able to build trust within that content to drive ACTION.
So to me, collabs + SEO work together, in different ways.
But the numbers tell me that SEO is where the JUICE is.
What about my NEXT launch?
I DO plan on opening up doors to Search Club later this year (jump on the waitlist if you wanna get first dibs on spots when doors re-open)
And I'm gonna keep prioritizing SEO, while sprinkling in Collaborations here & there, when they feel aligned & fun...
But now I kiiiiiinda wanna experiment the other way around.
What could happen if I DO have some kind of pre-launch event?
Will the results be different?
Would the energy I put into it be worth it?
I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
But the fun part is, I GET TO CHOOSE.
I don't have to RELY on a pre-launch event if I don't want to. Because my foundational marketing is building my email list in the background, 24/7.
What this means for you?!
I'm sharing this because I KNOW a lot of people stress out about email list growth. For good reason too. It's the #1 way driver of sales in my own business.
BUT IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ALL OR NOTHING.
You don't need some crazy ass launch to get good results.
You don't need a 5 person team with a 3-6 month pre-launch strategy.
You need your long-form content GETTING FOUND by the people ALREADY searching the internet for it.
Let SEO do the heavy-lifting in the background for you.
And then if some kind of intentional list-building event or pre-launch strategy seems to fit the season you're in, you can ALWAYS layer that on top, IF IT FEELS FUN.
Having SEO be there for you, on a foundational level, gives you the option to CHOOSE.
And that, is what I love about it.
NEWSLETTER SPONSOR -- This newsletter is sponsored by Erin Kelly of MemberVault
Wanna know what's working NOW to grow an email list?
16 creators (including me!) pulled back the curtain the tactics & strategies that added AT LEAST 50+ subscribers to our email list, in just 30 days.
Annnnnnnd the best part? It's all written content.
Making it SUPER easy to browse the strategies. No live sessions. No long recordings.
Each of us whipped up a quick but helpful write-up about what worked for us, AND who we think the strategy would be good for, so YOU walk away knowing exactly what you want to try next.
Which, if you've ever stared at a wall of strategies and quietly closed the tab, you know how rare that is. There's even an AI advisor built in that brainstorms with you based on where you are, so you're not just picking blindly.
And if you want to take it a step further, Erin's also extended a special invite for a 30-day free trial of MemberVault β so you have somewhere to actually build what you choose.
|
β
Action step(s) for this week:
Take 10 minutes this week and ask yourself: "What's currently bringing people into my world when Iβm NOT actively launching?"
If your answer is βuhhh, I don't have a clueβ -- we got some work to do, fam π€ͺ
Pick ONE of these 3 options:
- Create ONE blog post, YouTube video, or free resource based on something your audience is ALREADY searching for, right before theyβre ready to buy from you.
- If you already have some content getting found via Google + AI, take a look at it. Does it make sense for people that don't know you yet? Is the action step to get them from that piece of content to your email list clear? Tweak that so it makes sense + builds trust.
- Make sure your freebie has it's OWN landing page & URL + a target keyword so Google can rank it alllll on it's own
Start building something that works without you, over & over & over again.
β