Why Audience Growth Should Be Your #1 Business Priority Right Now

[00:00] I had a conversation recently that completely changed the way I've been looking at business growth, because I realised that almost every business problem eventually leads back to the same question: how many of the right people actually know you exist? Think about it. Can't fill your launch? Not enough people probably saw it. Podcast downloads flat? Not enough people knew about it. Community feels quiet? You probably need more people coming into your world. And honestly, I think I've become a little bit obsessed with solving this problem, because once you do, almost everything else in your business gets easier.

Today we are talking about why growing your audience should be your number one priority for the rest of the year. Let's dive on in.

Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don't involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to the Email Growth Show. I'm your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years, and the same is possible for you too.

Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let's head into today's episode.

[01:00] Hey, hey, my loves. Welcome back to the Email Growth Show, episode 259. Now, I don't know about you, but I feel like I've had a bit of a mindset shift over the last few months.

Not because I've stopped believing in email marketing, not by a long shot, quite the opposite. Because I've become increasingly convinced that email marketing isn't actually the starting point, audience growth is. And that's a slightly different conversation. As you know, over the last couple of months, I've been experimenting with a lot of different things: building interactive lead magnets, running Meta ads, speaking in summits, creating low-ticket offers, moving email marketing platforms, moving course platforms, growing my community.

[02:00] As I've zoomed out and looked at everything together, I have realised something. Almost every single problem that I have helped my clients solve over the years has had one thing in common: not enough of the right people knew they existed. One of the reasons I've been thinking so much about this lately is because I looked back over my own business.

Now, I've mentioned this before, but last year, my business generated 120K in revenue from my email list, and that's something that I am incredibly grateful for. But here is what really hit me. That didn't happen because I suddenly wrote one magical sales email. It didn't happen because I finally cracked some secret launch formula.

It happened because for years I've been quietly growing the number of people entering my world. Every summit, every bundle, every podcast interview, every guest training, every collaboration, every lead magnet, every one of those things was adding another person to my audience. Looking back now, I don't actually think the emails were the hero.

[03:00] The audience was. The emails simply allowed me to build a relationship with the audience that I'd spent years growing, and I think that's a really important distinction, because sometimes we can focus so much on conversion that we forget to ask where the people we're trying to convert are actually coming from.

We keep trying to fix the wrong thing. And I think this is really easy to do, because when something isn't working in our business, our instinct is usually to rebuild it, right? Like, launch didn't go well, maybe I need a new offer. People aren't buying, maybe my pricing is wrong. My freebie isn't converting, maybe I need a different one.

Nobody joined my workshop, maybe workshops don't work anymore. We've all had those thoughts. I know I certainly have. But these days, I find myself asking a different question. How many people saw it? Actually saw it? Because that is a very different conversation. Let's make this even clearer with an example. So let's imagine that you create the most incredible workshop. It's genuinely helpful. People who attend absolutely love it. You know it can change lives. But then only 20 people register, right?

[04:00] So the workshop didn't sell particularly well. It's so easy to walk away thinking, "Hmm, I need a better workshop." But what if the workshop was never the problem? What if only 20 people ever saw it, right? If 20 people saw it and 20 people registered, that's a 100% conversion rate, which is incredible. But of course, you're not going to hit your goals if you wanted 100 people there and only 20 people actually viewed it. They are completely different problems. One is an offer problem. Sure, if the workshop is sh*t, then that's an offer problem. But the other is a traffic problem, and this is what I see all of the time. I can't tell you how many conversations I have had with business owners over the years where they're ready to throw away an offer, or rewrite an entire launch, or start a completely different business.

And when we actually look at what's happened, they didn't have an offer problem, they had a traffic problem. Not enough people saw the damn thing. That is it. And honestly, I think that is really exciting news, because growing your audience and getting more eyeballs, more traffic, is something you can actually work on.

[05:00] And the beautiful thing about this is that every business problem then gets easier. If you can't fill your launch, you don't need a different launch. You just need more people entering your world every week. If nobody's buying, maybe your offer isn't the problem.

Maybe not enough people actually saw it. If you're trying to find affiliate partners and it feels hard, again, visibility problem. If your podcast downloads are a bit flat, not enough people listening. If your community feels quiet, audience problem. If your low-ticket offer isn't selling, maybe it's a traffic problem.

Now, I'm not saying that every business problem comes back to this, right? Sometimes your messaging needs work. Sometimes your offer genuinely isn't aligned or isn't good. Sometimes your pricing might need adjusting, of course. There's always nuance here. But I think we jump to those conclusions far too quickly, when often we just simply haven't put our work in front of enough people yet.

[06:00] Now let me talk about the maths for a second. I hate maths, so please, we're not going too deep here. But when I created 50 A Day, my new low-ticket product, I became fascinated with simple maths, right? 50 new subscribers every day. That might sound huge depending on how big your email list is right now. But when you think about the impact that could have on your email list over a year, that's more than 18,000 new people discovering your work in 12 months.

Not overnight, not through going viral, not through one lucky reel, but through a system of adding a consistent number to your email list every single day. And when I broke that maths down as I was teaching that mini course, it was like a massive light bulb moment for me, because I've been focusing on this myself, of course.

I have a system for this, which is what I teach in that mini course. However, I've never taught it this way before, and knowing that email list growth, audience growth, traffic doesn't have to feel random... it is a system. It's something that I've built. It's something that you could actually build and have more control over, which is really exciting.

[07:00] Now, if you've listened to the last few episodes, you know that I'm in a season of simplifying. I'm creating more low-ticket digital products. I've been running Meta ads. There's a whole update episode coming out about that, because my Meta ads account got disabled, but that's a story for another day. But I was testing running Meta ads.

I was building systems. Systems, funnily enough, is actually my word for 2026. It's July. I'm tapping into that now. Never too late. I'm building systems. I'm creating interactive tools. Of course, I'm growing my email list. And every single decision that I'm making lately is coming back to that same idea.

How do I help more of the right people discover my work? Because if I can solve that problem, everything else becomes easier. Launching becomes easier. Selling becomes easier. Collaborations become easier. Podcasting becomes easier. Even creating content becomes easier, because more people are actually going to see it.

[08:00] And I believe this is the number one problem that all of us should be focusing on: the problem of traffic, the problem of audience growth, because it's going to solve, as a byproduct, so many other things that are going on in our businesses at the moment.

Now, when I say traffic, I'm not just talking about Meta ads. Like I said, I have a whole update episode coming out soon. It has kind of reiterated how much I just hate Meta and I hate social. Funny that, but I'll be sharing that with you soon. So when I'm talking about traffic, I'm not just talking about Meta ads.

You don't just have to rely on paid ads, right? For me, traffic, audience growth, looks like speaking in summits, being a podcast guest, hosting bundles, doing freebie swaps, getting my SEO sorted, throwing some things on Pinterest, PR, podcasting, referral partnerships, Meta ads. They're all doing the same job, right?

They're all helping new people discover your business. But especially since my experience with my Meta ads account getting disabled, I believe this more deeply than ever before. I believe that the businesses that grow consistently don't rely on one source of traffic.

[09:00] That was a huge reminder for me when that account got disabled. We have to build multiple pathways back to the same place. We have to diversify where our traffic is coming from and point it back to the same place. Always your email list, because that is something that you own.

We don't control most of the platforms out there, right? We don't control Meta, we don't control Skool, we don't control Google. You name it, we don't control it. Our email list is something that we can control. It is an asset that we own. We always want to build on land that we own.

You've heard me talk about that a million times. But always be pointing any of your traffic efforts, diversify them, and always point them back to email. When I think about what I want from my people, I don't really want them to become Instagram followers, I don't want them to be podcast listeners, as much as I love you all, or even Skool members first, right?

[10:00] I want relationships, and email is where relationships grow. Hopefully, all of you listening are already on my email list, right? That is an asset that I own. Again, I host my podcast on Buzzsprout. There's no guarantee that tomorrow Buzzsprout doesn't go down, right? Yes, I could go and build it somewhere else, of course.

We pivot. We're business owners. We have learned to do that well. But again, our email is something that we own. It's also where someone who has just discovered you gradually becomes someone who buys from you, refers you, replies to your emails, joins your community, and sticks around for years. This is a long game, guys. We are in this for the long haul. Don't know if you realise that, but we are. Buckle up, strap in, we are here for the long game because we want to have an impact, right?

And the long game tells us that building your email list is never the wrong decision, because nobody can ever take it away. That is why I'm still so obsessed with my email list. Not because email is the only growth strategy, not because it's the only way, but because it has to be the place where all the traffic gets led to.

[11:00] Again, because no one can take it away. Now, what if this was your main focus for the next 90 days? So here's a question that I would love you to think about.

Instead of asking yourself, "What should I launch next? What should my next offer be? What should I post this week?" what if you asked yourself, "How can I help more of the right people find my business, discover my business this month?" Because I genuinely think that one question has the potential to change f*cking everything that you have going on right now.

Maybe the answer is collaboration. Maybe it's finally pitching yourself to a podcast. Maybe it's improving your lead magnet. Maybe it's jumping over and having a go on Pinterest. Maybe it's running your first ad. Maybe it's simply becoming more consistent. The strategy matters less than the habit. Let me say that again for those at the back.

The strategy matters less than the habit. We know all of those strategies work. It is about picking one and sticking to it for 30, 60, 90 days before you evaluate it and change your mind. Over the last four years that I've had this online business, I have seen so many women jump from strategy to strategy, from coach to coach, from idea and offer to a new idea and a new offer.

[12:00] And 99.9% of the time, it's because we haven't given it enough time to work. We haven't had enough traffic see it, not enough people know about it, we haven't actually marketed it properly, so we think it's not working. We think it's the offer's fault, we think it's the pricing, we think it's us, we think it's something else that we can go and try to change, when actually it is about focusing on that one thing: focusing on growing our audience, getting more traffic, and being consistent about it, building a habit or a system out of it.

I am becoming more and more convinced than ever before that business isn't just about creating better offers anymore, right? We can sit down with AI now and bang out a pretty f*cking epic offer, an amazing sales page. It looks incredible. We can get our messaging bang on. We can do all the right things.

[13:00] But I think the piece that is missing is that when we get so focused on that, on the fun stuff, on the shiny stuff, on the "let's create something and get some dopamine" stuff, right? I'm not the only one that does this, I know. When we are focused on that, we don't create a system for getting the offers that we already have in front of more of the right people, for getting more traffic, for building our audience.

Because you can have the most incredible offer in the world, the most transformational coaching, the most beautiful course, but if nobody knows you exist, if nobody sees it, none of it matters. If there is one thing I want you to take away from today's episode, it's simply this: do not underestimate the power of consistently growing your audience. Again, if this little chat with me has you thinking, "Okay, Kylie, I get it. I need more people discovering my business, but where do I actually start?" that is exactly why I created 50 A Day.

[14:00] It is the simplest system that you can use to consistently grow your email list through collaborations, evergreen visibility, and a lead magnet that actually converts. The link is in the show notes. It's just 27 bucks. If you'd like to come and build that system alongside me, go and grab it. If you want to do it for free, if you're like, "I can't swing $27 right now," there is no judgement here. Go back through this podcast. I talk about so many of the strategies, and I just want you to focus on building your audience.

I just want you to focus on traffic. Park everything else that is in your beautiful little mind right now and just focus on getting more eyes, because that is going to solve so many of the business problems that you are facing right now.

I absolutely know it in my bones. Okay, my loves, I hope that you have found that helpful. Thank you again for being here. Have a beautiful week. I'll see you next Friday. We have a wonderful guest coming to join us, the incredible Katherine Mackenzie-Smith, and she's going to be talking to us all about how we can build the business that fits us, not the one everyone else says we should have.

It is a doozy. I think you are going to really, really love it. All right. Have a beautiful week, and I will see you then. Bye for now.

[15:00] Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others.

Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their business and make a bigger impact. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.