How Aleyda generated over 1,500 quality subscribers in 7 weeks.
Welcome to Day 4 of the 30 Days of Growth.
This is a pop-up newsletter put together by the team at Growth In Reverse. We’ve pulled 30 creators together to help give one short, actionable way you can either grow or improve your email list.
You can view past issues here.
Giveaways have a reputation problem.
A lot of them bring in the wrong people. The immediate results look great with the rapid list growth.
But after sending a few emails, things change. Open rates drop, a bunch of people unsubscribe, and the math stops working.
The good news is it there is a better way.
Aleyda Solis runs SEOFOMO, a weekly newsletter about SEO with 40,000 subscribers. And she’s figured out how to run giveaways that attract the right subscribers.
When Aleyda’s email list was sitting at 28.5k, she wanted to push past 30k faster than normal growth would get her there.
So she ran a giveaway. Entry required you to be a SEOFOMO subscriber first, then referring other SEOs to the list to earn entries.
She announced it on October 1st. By November 19th, she’d crossed 30k and announced the winner.
How Aleyda Did It
1. She tied the giveaway to a specific subscriber milestone. The whole campaign was framed around getting SEOFOMO to 30k. That turned it into something her audience actually rooted for. Many of them had been reading for years and want to see the list hit the number.
2. She picked prizes her audience wants. She included SEO tools and resources, the exact things her readers are already paying for (and complaining about on Twitter). When SEOs are the audience, SEO software is the obvious prize to give away.
3. She required an action to enter. Subscribers had to opt in, then refer other folks to the list to earn more entries.
4. She used the newsletter itself as the distribution. The announcement went out in the October 1st edition, and she kept mentioning it for about 7 weeks until the goal was hit on November 19th.
Why It Works
Existing subscribers are a great way to bring in subscribers who look like your current ones. A person who got forwarded SEOFOMO by their manager or fellow SEO is already a match for the content.
The milestone framing turned the giveaway into a team goal. Aleyda framed as “help us get there,” and that kind of framing travels way better in DMs and Slack channels than “help me win a prize.”
The prize was a filter. An Amazon gift card or MacBook would have pulled in anyone. But you don’t want “anyone” to subscribe. Instead, a prize pool full of SEO tools pulled in the exact right audience.
Results
- The newsletter grew from 28.5k to 30k+ subscribers in ~7 weeks – which works out to 215 new subscribers per week from one giveaway
- New subscribers came mostly through referrals from existing readers making them more likely to be long-term subscribers.
- In 2020, Aleyda ran a similar SEOFOMO 5k Challenge and used much of the same playbook with to help her hit the 5k milestone
- Both giveaways turned the newsletter itself into a growth channel, which a lot of creators leave on the table
How You Can Implement It
Step 1: Pick a subscriber milestone just above where you are now (ex: 2,500 or 20,000 subscribers). Making it about 5-10% past your current number is a solid starting point. It should feel ambitious but reachable.
Step 2: Source and organize prizes your niche actually wants. Tools, courses, books, or credits from brands your readers already follow. If you have to explain why the prize is valuable, it’s probably the wrong prize.
Step 3: Build a simple opt-in page where existing subscribers can join the giveaway and get a referral link.
Step 4: Announce it in your newsletter and keep the update in every issue until the milestone hits or until the giveaway ends. A sidebar callout or P.S. line is enough.
Step 5: Reach out to the brands providing prizes and ask if they’ll share the giveaway to their audiences too. Many will, as it’s great free exposure for them since the audience is aligned.
Tools
- Your ESP for opting into the giveaway
- Beehiiv’s referral tool or SparkLoop to track who referred who
- Your email list and P.S. line (the biggest lever)
- A landing page for the giveaway announcement
Round-number milestones are an excuse to run a campaign your readers actually want to be part of. They turn an awkward “subscribe please” ask into a shared goal, which makes people way more willing to hit “Forward”.
See you tomorrow,
Chenell
P.S. You can follow Aleyda on LinkedIn, or subscribe to SEOFOMO at seofomo.co.
