Growing Your Audience Through Recommendations

Word-of-mouth has proven to be one of the most consistent business tactics of all time. If someone we admire and trust recommends something to us, we are much more likely to take their recommendation seriously and take action. The same holds true for creators. Successful creators who have already built their audiences know which newsletters are worth subscribing to and which creators are worth following, and they only recommend the content they believe in to maintain their audience’s trust.

ConvertKit’s Creator Network is a place where creators can work together to grow their audience with similar interests and similar niches. One of the biggest challenges for newsletter creators is growing an audience, because the ability to “go viral” doesn’t exist in the same way it does via social media. Reaching audiences organically and ensuring they will be a good fit is difficult, but not impossible. How can recommendations give you an advantage when trying to expand your email reach?

In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa discuss how to grow and get to know your audience

organically through ConvertKit’s Creator Network, how to recommend creators that will resonate with your subscribers, and how to maintain a highly-engaged email audience by cleaning your list and being consistent.

Key Takeaways

• [03:02] - What is the Creator Network?
• [06:20] - How creators can grow their newsletter lists and get to know their audience better.
• [08:42] - How to choose which creator will resonate the most with your audience.
• [10:30] - How automation helps deliverability.
• [13:26] - Why it’s crucial to clean up your lists.
• [16:27] - How to boost subscribers on your email lists.
• [21:05] - Why consistency is key for content creators.

Quotes

[07:59] - “If you're going to recommend someone to your audience, it's really important that you believe in their content. You don't want to recommend people sign up for a list that you actually don't enjoy, and then for your audience to lose that trust.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

[09:59] - “We know that a lot of creators on our platform are busy running their own businesses. They don't have a lot of time to do the research. So if we are recommending people to you that we know have a similar audience, that's less work that you have to do on your end.” ~ @mel_lambert_

[14:11] - “It's gonna be more important than ever to check engagement levels and make sure that people who may not be opening your emails are either excluded from receiving certain emails or eventually removed from your list.” ~ @mel_lambert_

[20:38] - A larger creator can recommend a smaller creator and have such a big impact. It's wild. I hope a lot of creators get to partner up with each other and connect and help each other grow.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

Links

• ConvertKit Creator Network
• Craft + Commerce Conference
• Subscribe to the weekly Deliverability Dispatch Newsletter
• Subscribe to the monthly Deliverability Defined Newsletter
• Ask Alyssa & Melissa questions or suggest content for our next monthly newsletter

Connect with our hosts

• Alyssa Dulin
• Melissa Lambert

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Deliverability Defined Website

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.