Day 30: The Pop-Up Newsletter

How I added 1,749 subscribers in 30 days with a pop-up newsletter.

Welcome to Day 30 of the 30 Days of Growth. This is a pop-up newsletter put together by Chenell from Growth In Reverse. I've pulled 30 creators together to help give one short, actionable way you can either grow or improve your email list.

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Welcome to the final day of the 30 Days of Growth!

I wasn’t planning on sharing this one today (or a growth lever from me at all during the 30 days), but it kind of just worked out that way.

Today I’m going to share how I set up this pop-up newsletter, and some learnings you can take away. So, here goes!

🔍 How I Did It

When I launched the 30 Days of Growth, I initially started it as a way to collaborate with more creators in a short span of time.

But what I learned was that this is a highly effective (and fun!) way to do collaborations with other creators. Actually, it might be my new favorite way to build an email list through collaborations.

The format was simple: 30 days, 30 newsletter growth tactics, each one shared by a different creator.

Each person who contributed a tactic shared the landing page with their own audience through their newsletter and/or social media. These weren’t just contributors, they were distribution partners.

• I shared one tactical tip per day. The emails were short, actionable, and highly focused, so people stayed engaged and forwarded them to others.

• I added a referral giveaway. To encourage sharing, I offered bonuses like a private podcast and software tools to anyone who referred friends. It wasn’t flashy, but it worked.

• It was time-constrained. The series had a clear start and end date, which gave people a reason to sign up now instead of “later.”

This content series had daily distribution, built-in urgency, and shareable value from day one.

And while I was building it out, I combined a few key strategies (like referrals, a giveaway, etc.) that made the pop-up newsletter spread further and bring in the right people.

📊 Results

This is a longer-than-usual results section, but I had too much I wanted to share with you.

• 3,600+ people signed up for the pop-up newsletter.

• 1,749 of those were brand new subscribers to my email list (I promoted this to my main list too, so I tracked how many joined from there).

• The quality of people who signed up for 30 Days of Growth is really high. You all are brilliant. I had a number of “jaw-dropping” moments looking at the subscriber list.

• About 10% of total signups came from referrals driven by the giveaway.

• All of it was organic, I didn’t run any paid ads (side note: this wasn’t good or bad, just wanted to call it out)

• I now have a bada*s lead magnet I can share with people who join my email list.

🧠 Why It Works

• The creators I partnered with had aligned audiences and strong trust. When they shared it, it reached people who were already interested in this kind of content (i.e. my perfect subscribers)

• The structure made it easy to promote. Each creator only had to share one link, but the value behind it stacked daily.

• It gave readers something useful every single day. That kept engagement high and helped word of mouth spread.

• The limited-time nature gave it momentum. People didn’t want to miss it, so they signed up and shared right away.

💡How You Can Implement It

I want to be super clear here and say that I think this can work for any niche. Actually, I am convinced it can.

I’ve talked to no less than a dozen people over the past few weeks who are going to do this for their topic – and none of them are people talking about marketing or business.

They’re in industries like art, gardening, sports, automotive, sewing, etc. So, how can you replicate this?

1. Choose a topic you want to build the series around. Make it highly relevant to your regular newsletter (the growth levers I shared pair nicely with my other content about growing a newsletter).

2. Invite collaborators to share a tip, resource, or something else. 30 days (i.e. 30 collaborators) is a lot. You can make this smaller, 7 days or 14 days – or anything in between. Ask each contributor to share the series ahead of time. And this doesn’t have to be done via email – it can be a video series, private podcast, etc.

3. Stack the value inside the content. Each day should feel like a useful win – even though it’s a short piece of content. Even better if some of them build on one another.

4. Promote it like a product. Build anticipation, launch it publicly, and keep sharing progress as it runs. This is highly simplified, but the overall strategy is there.

5. BONUS: Add simple, high-value referral incentives. Give away bonuses that make sense for your audience and would make them want to share your content with others. These should be exclusive, not something people can get access to anywhere.

6. Have fun! This is an incredible way to build deeper bonds with other creators in your space.

💡 If you’re enjoying this series, would you mind taking a second to let me know? 🙂

🛠️ Tools

Some of these are affiliate links, so I do get a small commission if you sign up – thank you for supporting this small business.

• ​Kit​ or ​Beehiiv​ for delivery and automation

• Google Sheets or Notion to track collaborations and stay organized

• A landing page or way people can sign up

• Some patience and organization 🙂

I got asked quite a bit how I put this together, what tools I used, how I set them up, etc. – so I decided I’m going to share it all with you.

If you grab the 30 Days of Growth course, I’m going to include a bonus section sharing everything from the setup and system, to the referral engine, to how I organized the daily content and creator collabs. Even the email scripts I used.

If you want to put together a pop-up newsletter or content series, I’m recording videos on exactly how I built and launched it.

And it’s included with the course, which you can get for just $100 until Monday, May 26 2025.

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I hope you enjoyed this 30 Days of Growth – I can’t thank you enough for being here!

I’ll send you more fun content around building an audience and growing your email list every week, starting this Sunday. If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.

Chenell

P.S. Yes, I realize the course doesn’t have a proper landing page yet because I’m working on the content – I’ll get there eventually! 🙂

P.P.S. Thanks again for being such a supportive crew through this process. 🫶

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Want to Win Some Prizes?

In case you didn’t know, this is what’s up for grabs in the giveaway:

• 5 annual licenses to ​Senja​

• 5 annual licenses to ​RightMessage​

• 5 annual licenses to ​Tella​

• Justin Moore’s ​Brand Deal Wizard course​ has been added for 2 lucky winners

• Custom newsletter audits

• And more to be announced soon! 👀

Share your unique link with friends to get more entries!
(Sign up and get your link here)

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