Email list strategies for health founders

After helping 150+ founders and executives grow their personal brands, I realized getting attention is simply not enough. Hear me out: 99% of the people I reach with this post aren’t ready to buy. Some just aren’t my ICP, and that’s fine. Many could be great clients/partners - but not right now. Maybe they: • are still weighing their options • don’t trust me enough yet • aren’t even aware of their problem yet If they just keep scrolling, it’ll be up to the LinkedIn algorithm whether they ever see me again. That’s what the retention engine is for. It’s a direct distribution channel with no algorithm and no text limits. Once someone signs up, I can stay connected and continue providing value, regardless of any social media channel. It’s easy to ignore (I did for too long), but it’s essential to a content founder. And it’s not complicated to build. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 Moving your audience from a social platform like LinkedIn to your own email list is called going from a “rented” audience to an “owned” audience. It’s “owned” because I control distribution and I can engage on my terms. I’m not held hostage by someone else’s rules, algorithms, or admins. In the past, I’ve used lead magnets to grow my email list. Lead magnets are free resources that are valuable to my ICP. It should be a complete package - not an unsatisfying teaser for something bigger. Some examples: • In-depth breakdowns of successful content founder playbooks • Education email courses sharing the theory behind our service • Notion templates to solve smaller sub-problems The goal is never to promote a product. It’s to educate potential customers. Also, the lead magnet can’t suck. If it does, and my ICP feels like I’ve tricked them into giving over their email, I’ve lost them. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 From here on out, my goal is to send my audience great content that: • Interests them • Solves their problems • Entertains them • Educates them Don’t buy the hype from gurus who claim you need a complex retention engine with 1,000 moving parts. In my experience, the best way to do it is with a simple newsletter. Don’t overdo it. We started out with 1 issue/month. We now do 2. If it adds value, people won’t get annoyed no matter the frequency. This week’s topic is… Retention engines! I give an in-depth breakdown of how to set one up, take a look at the Buyer Readiness Breakdown, and even share my latest playlist for deep work on Spotify. Find it here: https://lnkd.in/e6W-Mm2K

I did a workshop with beehiiv on how companies are adding $1M in ARR using founder-led newsletters. Here's the tl;dr: But, first, why write a founder-led newsletter? • 90% of your ICP isn’t in the market to buy TODAY. But when they will be, you’ll be the first person they think of. • You can meet only once per quarter on a sales call with your prospects — miss it, and you wait for 3 months. But a newsletter lets you talk to your ideal customers 2-4X a month. • Newsletters help you go from "pushy salesperson" to "thought partner" if you focus on consistently providing value (more on that below) • <20% of your social followers are likely to see your content, but 40-60% of your subscribers will open/read your newsletter So, the question is not “if” you should write a newsletter, it’s “how.” Here are 4 principles you can use: 1) Focus on who reads, not how many I sent my first issue to 236 people I met at conferences / had already worked with. Today, the founders of beehiiv, 1440, The Rundown, and most of the largest newsletter brands read it. So don’t overthink. Just start. And obsess over attracting the right audience instead of chasing # of subscribers - that’s a vanity metric. 2) Give away the secrets, sell the execution My highest-performing content (60%+ open rates): • Tactical playbooks (we share our ads playbook for the largest newsletter brands) • Case studies (like how we drove $250K for a 15K-person newsletter) • Also great: interviews with experts, guest posts, industry hot takes/trends 3) Focus on the four highest-leverage growth levers • Lead magnets I recommend some kind of triple T lead magnet (tactics, templates, or tools) that’s gated by a simple landing page in Carrd. People sign up to your email list to receive what you put together for them. • The Dream 100 strategy Create a list of people you’d love to work with → Find them on LinkedIn → DM them: Share value (lead magnet, past newsletter issue) → Invite them to subscribe to your newsletter Example: (“Hey, I have a newsletter where I share growth/monetization tactics 2X a month. [people/brands they respect] are reading it. Mind if I add you?) • Post on socials and share the newsletter link at the end • Auto-DM new followers and send the newsletter link 4) Convert readers into clients Step 1: Do interesting things and talk about them Every Sunday, review your calendar from the past week: • What questions kept coming up in calls? • Which client problems did you solve? • What frameworks worked? That's your next month of newsletter content. Step 2: Introduce subtle CTAs • Show how you've helped similar clients and how you can help them. Example: I shared how we helped a founder generate $250K and naturally mentioned we scale newsletters. • I sign off with my LinkedIn and calendar link for anyone to book a call with me. • After delivering value, I reach out 1:1 to book meetings. Following this template, I grew my agency to $1M in ARR in 11 months.

We grew an email list from 0 to 500K subscribers in just 10 months. If I were starting from scratch today, here's exactly how I'd do it again: 1) Nail the Lead Magnet: The fastest way to grow your email list is by offering something valuable in exchange for an email. Think of it like this: people won't give up their email for nothing. Create something they can't ignore: a discount, exclusive content, or a tool they can’t find elsewhere. For us, offering free travel guides was a game-changer. 2) Optimize for Opt-Ins Everywhere: Your website, blog, and even social media accounts should work like opt-in machines. For example: - Add pop-ups and fly outs on key pages. - Place CTAs above the fold. - Use scroll-triggered modals when visitors are engaged. We tested endlessly, and this attention to detail paid off big. 3) Tap Into Paid Growth Early: Ads get a bad rep, but when done right, they’re a growth accelerant. We launched targeted ads promoting our lead magnet and built a funnel that turned traffic into email signups. Paid campaigns helped us scale fast while testing which offers resonated with our audience. 4) Partner with the Right People: Collaborations can grow your list faster than any single effort. Whether it’s co-branded giveaways, email swaps, or shoutouts, find brands or creators that share your target audience. A well-executed partnership will unlock exponential growth. One really unique thing we did: We bought a bunch of viral social accounts and rebranded them for our business. This was huge in kickstarting massive and sustainable growth. And we fast-tracked the social proof we needed to build trust and scale quickly. 5) Focus on Quality, Not Just Quantity: A big list is meaningless without engagement. From Day 1, we focused on high-value emails to ensure subscribers opened, clicked, and stayed. Here’s a pro tip: Consistency wins. Sending emails weekly or bi-weekly keeps your list warm and engaged. 6) Build a Content Machine: Pair email growth with an organic content strategy that feeds your funnel. Blog posts, social media, and SEO aren’t just good for traffic—they create trust. The more valuable content you share, the more people will want to hear from you. 7) Leverage Cheap Marketing Channels in Ways Others Haven’t: This is going to ruffle some feathers but we absolutely dominated cold email for user acquisition. To the tune of 6 figure subscriber acquisition. No one was doing cold email for B2C the way we did it. This proved to be the most scalable yet cheapest acquisition channel we had. — To recap: - Offer something valuable for free to grow your list. - Use every channel—paid and organic—to drive opt-ins. - Build relationships with partners who already have your audience. The result? A system that scales. Your list is the one asset you fully own—start building it ASAP!

Just chatted with a 6-figure health founder who's looking to grow his newsletter faster. These were my 3 biggest pieces of advice for him: But first, some context: This founder (we'll call him Tom) has a growing business in the health space & feels pretty good about his product... So he wants to double down on distribution. He’s been posting consistently on LinkedIn for the past few months and has gotten some traction (currently has ~10k followers). They’ve also been creating tons of great lead magnets. But their list isn’t growing as quickly as he’d like (currently sitting at 5k email subs). So with that in mind, this is what I told him: 1/ Double down on LinkedIn He’s already gotten traction on LinkedIn. Which means, the hardest part is over. He’s past the "cold start" phase and still has plenty of room to grow. So I shared some more advanced tactics he could try: • Start doing weekly viral giveaways (especially since he’s already creating lead magnets in his niche) • Hire an assistant to help with social selling - specifically welcome DMs (since that's the lowest hanging fruit). 2/ Start posting on Substack Substack has evolved from a newsletter platform into a social platform with a short-form content feed. What makes it so interesting: Every post has a subscribe button built in - making it extremely easy for people to join your newsletter. Plus, there are way fewer content creators on Substack than LinkedIn right now. So there’s an arbitrage. And since he’s already creating text-based content for LI, Tom can easily repurpose it on Substack. And no, you don’t need to migrate your email infrastructure to Substack to benefit from this. You can keep using your current ESP and just export new subscribers weekly. I actually wrote a more in-depth post breaking down why Substack is so promising right now - I’ll drop the link in the comments. 3/ If you want to try paid ads, use Facebook - but know your numbers first Lastly, Tom is keen on experimenting with paid traffic (so he can have more control over growth). But if you’re going to pay money to get subscribers, you need to know how much a subscriber is worth to you based on your business model. A lot of people jump into Facebook ads without this clarity and end up burning money. Then you can do the math and make smart decisions. Also - if you want to recoup your ad spend as quickly as possible, present a low-ticket offer immediately after someone joins your free newsletter. This liquidates some of the ad spend right away with immediate buyers. And that’s it! Hope this is helpful. But let me know if you have any questions around this.

When I worked at Attentive and then eventually Sendlane, I reviewed 100s of brands' email marketing campaigns every quarter. Here are 3 things they did that built high conversion email lists. So many marketers focus their energy on email flows and perfecting everything else, but if you’re sending them to a list that doesn’t care…wyd? And if you say you’re dropping a pixel and sending unsolicited emails to site visitors, unfollow me rn. Ok kidding, but it isn’t how to build a list that’ll convert and it will kill your deliverability. Do these 3 things instead: 1️⃣ Test different incentives. What incentivizes you to give your email? Think about it: If you’re asking people to provide their email, figure out what will convince them to do it. News and updates aren’t mission critical unless there’s some exclusive event or VIP offer. So test different offers like discount incentives, a free gift, giveaways etc., to see which collects the most. That’ll show you their buying behavior and what exactly they’re looking for from your brand. 2️⃣ Collect email & SMS on & off site. Whether you’re at an in person event or your products are in retail, throw a QR code on everything. 2 actionable tips on how to frame a QR code today: → For field events, attach a QR code to a “Spin To Win.” Easy way to get sign ups from people that are actually interested in your brand. → For your packaging, provide value to your audience and gate it behind an email wall. For example, supplement companies’ audiences are often health conscious individuals that are most likely looking for weight loss or healthier lifestyle solutions. So, advertise workout plans and recipes that only people on the email list can get access to. 3️⃣ Don’t forget about Instagram & TikTok. Remember, impulse buying is real. 73% of Americans’ purchases are unplanned and 89% of shoppers have a history of impulse buying. And social media is the breeding ground for exactly that. Make sure email signups are prevalent somewhere in that customer experience. Because creating content builds trust in your product → trust with a mix of impulse brings that buyer to checkout → and your tailored emails boost LTV. 💡 Fun fact, there are tools out there where if a customer comments a certain keyword, they’ll get an autoDM that lets them enter in their email. The email automatically gets pushed into your ESP. These are 3 easy tips every brand can start applying today to their marketing efforts. Email doesn’t have to be hard, but if you’re attracting the wrong people, then it’ll feel impossible.