0 to 100 Email Subscribers: A 28-Day Case Study

A few months ago I did an Intro call with a successful freelancer. I’ll call him Steven.

Steven wanted to build out a new service offering for his business — coaching other freelancers to manage their businesses more effectively.

As we began chatting, Steven shared a hypothesis about growing his business, and a specific challenge he wanted my help solving. Here’s how he phrased it:

I don’t have an email list right now, and I think the easiest way to grow my new business will be by growing an email list of ideal customers. How do I start growing my email list from zero?

This is a question I get all of the time. And there’s a lot of different ways to grow your email list.

Problem is, most advice focuses on the quantity of subscribers instead of the quality. And I’ll tell you something — collecting thousands of emails doesn’t mean a damn thing if they aren’t ideal customers for your business.

So I wanted to focus on a strategy with Steven that would earn him email subscribers that have expressed a deep pain point that Steven knows how to solve. A plan he could use to showcase his expertise and turn email subscribers into paying customers.

Steven has a pretty small social footprint, so I outlined a tactical plan to grow his email list from zero to 100 subscribers in 28 days, while maintaining low unsubscribe rates (a signal of collecting ideal customer emails).

So today’s lesson is going to be short, sweet, and simple. I'm going to break down what we came up with, how it worked, and how you can do the same.

Let's dive in.

The Big Problem with Most Lead Magnets

When I look at most beginners trying to grow their email lists, I see them making the same mistake. They create broad, generic lead magnets, like 10 Tips For Success or The Ultimate Guide to [topic].

And there are two problems with this approach:

1. It attracts low-value subscribers looking for quick fixes
2. It doesn’t help high-value subscribers who need specific, actionable solutions

Those high-value subscribers want a specific solution to a specific, painful problem. They want something they can consume, put into action, and see positive results from, fast. And when they see positive results from a lead magnet, they naturally want more from the lead magnet creator.

The Simple Strategy That Worked

During conversations with ten freelancers, Steven discovered that 8 of them were struggling with something specific and painful: they had no idea how to manage a pipeline of potential customers to forecast their income.

They described this problem as “stressful” and “anxiety-inducing.”

So Steven and I created a simple Notion dashboard that helps freelancers track their pipelines and forecast their monthly income.

That's it. Super specific. Super focused. And designed for a clear problem Steven’s ideal customers told him they were struggling with.

But our plan wasn’t about the lead magnet itself. Our plan focused on how Steven would distribute his lead magnet.

Here's the plan we put together, and what Steven did:

1. Steven found ten popular Reddit threads about freelance income anxiety
2. He studied the comments to understand specific tracking problems people talked about
3. He responded to new posts about income tracking with valuable insights
4. He added "I built a free Notion template for this — DM me for the link" to each of his comments

The beauty of this simple plan? No hard selling. No fancy landing page. No complex funnel automations. Just valuable comments paired with a relevant, natural offer in the context of the conversations.

The Numbers Breakdown

Here's what happened over 30 days:

- Week 1: Steven added 16 subscribers to his email list (mostly from executing our plan)

- Week 2: 33 new subscribers (found the right subreddits)

- Week 3: 36 new subscribers (proof the system was working)

- Week 4: 31 new subscribers (showing consistent results)

116 new subscribers in the first month.

A more impressive metric? Eight people who wanted the lead magnet (and subscribed to the email list) booked discovery calls to learn more about Steven’s coaching business. And he closed two of those prospects as new customers.

Why? Because his offer matched the customer’s specific need at the right time, solved a painful problem, and established Steven as the expert who could help them. Because he already had with his helpful lead magnet.

Your Action Plan

Want to replicate this plan? Here's your step-by-step playbook:

1. Find a platform where your target audience discusses their challenges openly (Reddit is great for this because it’s mostly anonymous. Users are generally more open and honest than they are on other platforms.) But it could be anywhere — LinkedIn, X, Instagram, etc.
2. Look for patterns in their questions and struggles
3. Build a simple solution that actually solves a common or trending problem
4. Add value in conversations where your solution is relevant
5. Make it easy to get your lead magnet (no complicated landing page needed)

And remember: When it comes to collecting email addresses with a lead magnet, specificity beats comprehensiveness every time.

If you want to dive deeper into strategies like this and learn how to turn your email list into a revenue-generating machine, I'm hosting a free workshop with Kajabi called "Building Your Email List To Generate Revenue."

Sign up here to watch this workshop for free.

Now it’s time to identify a common problem among your target customers that you can solve with a lead magnet.

That’s all for today.

See you next Saturday.