30 Days. 30 Emails. Was it a Mistake?
Recapping the 30 Days of Growth (Behind The Scenes) - The Growth In Reverse Podcast with Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop
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[00:00:00] Chenell Basilio: The best idea I came up with was to run 30 cross promotions in 30 days with 30 different creators. They ended up with 1,400 subscribers in the first week, and I was like, "What?" I think the overwhelming majority of, like, the growth for that came from him changing the button text to just say Continue instead of something else.
[00:00:18] Dylan Redekop: He had a seven-email welcome sequence that helped basically get a 300,000 email list go from getting only into about 40% of inboxes to over 90% of inboxes. Overall, do [00:00:30] you think this year's 30 Days of Growth had a positive ROI for you?
[00:00:36] Chenell Basilio: Welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chenell.
[00:00:39] Dylan Redekop: And I'm Dylan.
[00:00:40] Chenell Basilio: And today we're gonna walk through the 30 Days of Growth round two that just wrapped up last week.
[00:00:47] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:47] Chenell Basilio: And talk through if it was worth it, what happened, how it went, and all that good stuff.
[00:00:52] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I think, I mean, first off we'll talk about what it is, 'cause there might be a few people like, "What are you talking about?"
[00:00:57] Dylan Redekop: So, um, why don't we start there? Like, let's give [00:01:00] context to what 30 Days of Growth is and where it all began.
[00:01:03] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So 30 Days of Growth- originated last year in 2025. I was kind of getting bored with my content, and it was like, "You know what? I wanna do a lot more cross-promotions with people." Uh, we were running a challenge in the Growth and Reverse Pro community, and people were saying that they weren't getting good results with their cross-promotions, and so I was like, "All right.
[00:01:25] Chenell Basilio: Let's get some more data around this. How do I do more cross-promos, get more data?" [00:01:30] And the best idea I came up with was to run 30 cross-promotions in 30 days with 30 different creators, and I felt like that was going to help me understand them better. So that's what I did. Uh, we had, like, two or three weeks to set this up last year, and essentially I just went out to 30 different creators, asked them for one tip on growing or optimizing their newsletter-
[00:01:53] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm
[00:01:53] Chenell Basilio: and then I sent out a daily newsletter for 30 days, and so that's where the name 30 Days of Growth came from.
[00:01:59] Dylan Redekop: Nice. Nice. [00:02:00] And so-
[00:02:00] Chenell Basilio: Yeah ...
[00:02:00] Dylan Redekop: that was a every day for 30 days, um, we'll, we'll get into this, but you did some things differently. Um, but the point of this was to twofold, to, um, better execute at collaborations to get some data behind it, and then also to, you know, inevitably grow your list, right?
[00:02:15] Dylan Redekop: Because part of the collaboration was the creators that you reach out to, y- your, your trade-off was, "I'm gonna feature your tip and your newsletter or whatever website profile they wanted you to feature," and then in exchange they were going to shout [00:02:30] you out or shout the, sorry, the 30 Days of Growth series out to their audience, correct?
[00:02:34] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so-
[00:02:34] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:02:35] Chenell Basilio: essentially cross-promotion is typically when I share your thing, you share my thing. That's how it all works. Uh, it's kind of- Yeah ... like a collaboration, and so this was just doing 30 of those in 30 days.
[00:02:45] Dylan Redekop: Right. And- Yeah ... it worked relatively well, correct, last year?
[00:02:48] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, it worked super well. I didn't actually pull up my numbers from last year, which I probably should've done before we started this.
[00:02:55] Chenell Basilio: Um, let me see if I could get that real quick.
[00:02:57] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, no worries. I think also while you're getting [00:03:00] that, um, a few things that were, that you did last year was you also incentivized people to share it. So a few ways you did that was, and you did some of these again this year, uh, you had a private podcast feed.
[00:03:11] Dylan Redekop: So, um, if people didn't have time to, you know, read all of these 30 days worth of email tips, newsletter tips, um, growth and optimization hacks, they would be able to listen to them if they shared basically just your 30 Days of Growth series with one other email address, and got one other email [00:03:30] address to sign up, they had access to that.
[00:03:31] Dylan Redekop: So that was one way. Yes. The other, the other thing you did too was you incentivized it with some referral prizes, so if you got, you know, five referrals, uh, you got-
[00:03:40] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, we can talk- ... you know, X prize ... through the referrals too. Yeah. I think the podcast was the most important thing, and I-
[00:03:46] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:03:46] Chenell Basilio: definitely did that again this year because it was so impactful.
[00:03:50] Chenell Basilio: Um, I think people- A daily newsletter's a lot of content Mm-hmm And so the daily podcast idea was just, like, a stroke of genius I had one morning. I was like, "We should do this." [00:04:00] And I remembered hearing about this tool called Hello Audio that lets you set up a private podcast really simply. Right. And it integrates with Zapier, so I was able to say, like, have it automatically, like, if someone refers someone, they automatically get access to this private podcast feed.
[00:04:15] Chenell Basilio: Uh, so it was, like, super beneficial. I think last year it added a 9% increase in the number of subscribers that we got- Nice ... from 30 Days of Growth. Um- Nice ... yeah, so it was a lot.
[00:04:28] Dylan Redekop: It was, and it's not, it's not a [00:04:30] ton more effort too. You've already written the content. You basically are rereading it for people who just wanna listen to it, and then essentially hitting pu- publish on Hello Audio.
[00:04:37] Dylan Redekop: So, um, for the little bit more of effort, I think you'd agree that it was probably worth it.
[00:04:41] Chenell Basilio: Yes.
[00:04:42] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:04:42] Chenell Basilio: I would definitely agree- Yeah ... it was worth it.
[00:04:44] Dylan Redekop: Okay, so let's go to this year. So why did you... I know at the end of last year, you were kinda like, "Oh my God, this was so much work." Like, uh-
[00:04:52] Chenell Basilio: Yeah ...
[00:04:53] Dylan Redekop: it, and it, for, it all worked out in the end because you, you grew the newsletter, um, you turned a lot of the stuff into the Growth [00:05:00] Vault as well, which we should shout out the Growth Vault.
[00:05:01] Dylan Redekop: If you have not checked out Chenell's Growth Vault, she's taken all of, like, 30 Days of Growth last year, plus more content that she's found for growth and optimization tips, and she's added that to the Growth Vault. So you can go to growthinvers- uh, .com/vault to check that out. Um, but so the- Mm-hmm
[00:05:18] Dylan Redekop: there's a lot of bonuses from doing this really hard 30-day sprint. So, um, that being said, it was tough, so why did you decide to do it again this year?
[00:05:26] Chenell Basilio: Because enough time had passed, and I forgot how much work it was. It's like childbirth. Is [00:05:30] the, is the short answer.
[00:05:30] Dylan Redekop: It's like childbirth. Like, that's what I've, I've...
[00:05:33] Dylan Redekop: Women tend to say, like, yeah, it was, it was h- brutal in the moment, but then, you know, you forget, and then you do it again, and you're like, "Oh yeah, this, this hurts."
[00:05:42] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I'm not doing this again.
[00:05:43] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I need to send myself a note for, like, Chenell in March of 2027 to say like, "Don't do it."
[00:05:51] Dylan Redekop: Okay, well, that's a lot of foreshadowing-
[00:05:52] Dylan Redekop: that we're about to get into. So, so why, what made this year different than last year?
[00:05:57] Chenell Basilio: Um, well,
[00:05:59] Dylan Redekop: I think- Or let's say, what, what did [00:06:00] you do differently?
[00:06:01] Chenell Basilio: A lot of the stuff was the same. All of the content was new, and I think I did a bad job explaining that before I started because-
[00:06:07] Dylan Redekop: Oh, okay
[00:06:09] Chenell Basilio: I, like, I asked Jay Clouse to share it.
[00:06:11] Chenell Basilio: I was like, "Hey, you were in this last year. I'm gonna do it again." And then he shared it in his newsletter, and then I was talking to him otherwise, and he was like, "Wait, it's 30 new people?" And I was like, "Yeah, this is a whole new setup." Oh. And he was like, "I had no idea about that before I shared it." So I'm sure he would've, like, been more excited to share it if he- Right
[00:06:27] Chenell Basilio: didn't think it was, like, a repurposed sequence. [00:06:30] Right. Um, so I'm sure he's not alone in that, and so I think I did a really bad job of explaining that before we launched, which is fun and a good- Mm-hmm ... learning experience-
[00:06:38] Dylan Redekop: Right ...
[00:06:39] Chenell Basilio: for someone else who wants to do this in the future. But, um, yeah. So I think that was the big thing I would've done differently, but- Okay
[00:06:47] Chenell Basilio: yeah.
[00:06:48] Dylan Redekop: Okay, cool. Um, so what kind of results did we get here with this year? I know, maybe talk... Actually, you did a few other things differently. Last year, people had- Mm ... to opt in to get this, right? People on your current email [00:07:00] list, um-
[00:07:01] Chenell Basilio: Yes ...
[00:07:01] Dylan Redekop: needed to, like, opt in, so you gave them... You kinda, like, used this as a bit of a product launch or a sales promo and said, "Hey, I'm doing this thing.
[00:07:08] Dylan Redekop: Click here to opt in," and-
[00:07:10] Chenell Basilio: Yes. Yeah, so last year, I pulled up the numbers. We had 3,714 people total got those emails- Okay ... for the 30 days. Uh, 1,757 of them were new subscribers to me, so that was the- Nice ... total list growth.
[00:07:25] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Chenell Basilio: Um, and then this year, [00:07:30] what we did instead was subscribed everybody to this thing, and you had to specifically say that you didn't wanna get it.
[00:07:37] Dylan Redekop: Right.
[00:07:37] Chenell Basilio: Which I wouldn't do that again.
[00:07:41] Dylan Redekop: Go on. Say more.
[00:07:42] Chenell Basilio: Well, I, I mean, uh, enough people said they didn't want to get them, but it wasn't, like, a ton, and I lost a lot of subscribers along the way.
[00:07:52] Dylan Redekop: Hmm.
[00:07:52] Chenell Basilio: So sending a daily email, you're always gonna have unsubscribes, even... I had a link at the bottom. I had a link at the top, like, "If you wanna switch to weekly and [00:08:00] only get my Sunday emails, click here."
[00:08:02] Chenell Basilio: Um, but you're... I just, yeah. Sending a daily newsletter is hard, and I did not think this through all the way before- Hmm ... sending it to everybody. But- Yeah. It was, it was still good. And I just, like, over time I started sending it to less people because my open rates were dropping, and I didn't- Right ... like that.
[00:08:21] Chenell Basilio: So, um, I wanted- How- ... to make sure that didn't last very long.
[00:08:25] Dylan Redekop: How did you determine who to send it to versus who not to send it to?
[00:08:29] Chenell Basilio: I set [00:08:30] up a segment of people who had opened an email in the la- Like, this was kind of manual because the Kit MCP didn't exist yet.
[00:08:38] Dylan Redekop: Ah.
[00:08:39] Chenell Basilio: But I set up a segment of people who hadn't opened an email in the last 30 days, I think it was.
[00:08:48] Chenell Basilio: Um, or no, actually, so I decided on, like, day seven I was gonna change this. So if anybody hadn't opened the first seven, I stopped sending it to them, 'cause I'm like- Okay ... "Well, if you didn't open that many..." I just, I stopped sending those [00:09:00] people the daily emails and just started sending weekly.
[00:09:02] Dylan Redekop: That makes sense.
[00:09:03] Chenell Basilio: So yeah. It's not, like, super scientific, but I wanted to do something.
[00:09:08] Dylan Redekop: Right. Yeah. So that whittled down the list. That got your deliverability up a little bit. Open rates improved from just sending it to everyone. Um- Yes ... and so let's say we fast-forward a year from now, and you, you didn't email yourself, or you ignored your past advice.
[00:09:26] Dylan Redekop: It's childbirth all over again. You're like, "I wanna have another baby in the form of 30 Days of [00:09:30] Growth." Yeah. Round three. Um, what would you do next year if you were to do this again, in terms of that, that sending strategy? Would you get people to opt in, or what would you do?
[00:09:38] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, get people to opt in, for sure.
[00:09:40] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Chenell Basilio: And promote the heck out of it more to the whole list beforehand.
[00:09:45] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. How about in terms of leading up to this? 'Cause some people might be thinking... I know somebody, uh, from our community, from Growth Reverse Pro, decided to do this themselves last year after seeing yours. Um, so I'm sure that's one case that we heard of, of people d- of somebody kind of replicating this [00:10:00] strategy, 30-day sort of pop-up newsletter.
[00:10:03] Dylan Redekop: What would you advise them? Like, what would be, like, your number one tip of advice before somebody goes into something like this?
[00:10:09] Chenell Basilio: So I, I think it's based on your goal. Like, if the goal is to collaborate with people, great, do it that way, but if the goal is just to put out, uh, or to create a launch-style event where it's a content series where you're getting people to sign up and that kind of thing, I would just do the content yourself, or most of it.
[00:10:28] Chenell Basilio: Um- Right ... I think wrangling [00:10:30] 30 people is just craziness. Mm-hmm. And maybe like seven or 10 would be fine, but 30 just, it got to be a lot. So I think I would just create the content myself. Like, um, Jess, who's in our Growth Drivers Pro community, I think is the one you're referring to. Yeah. She actually did this for her, um, her audience, and she created all the content herself.
[00:10:54] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And I was like, "Well, you're super smart for this-" "... because it removes so much pressure." Yeah. And [00:11:00] like having to find people to actually say that they're gonna do it, then follow up, get the content, then follow up, have them share on their end, like it was a lot. So I think if you can contain it to just be like focus on your stuff, that would be great.
[00:11:14] Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. However, I do think this is a great mechanism, like a growth mechanism for someone starting a newsletter or like revamping their newsletter.
[00:11:21] Dylan Redekop: Yep.
[00:11:21] Chenell Basilio: S- but maybe just don't do 30 days. Maybe do like- 10 or- Yeah ... 14 or something.
[00:11:26] Dylan Redekop: So- something more digestible, um, and [00:11:30] approachable, I think. O- one thing I just wanna be clear on, too, is when you said doing the content yourself, you did write the content for the 30 Days of- Yeah
[00:11:37] Dylan Redekop: pieces, but you had to rely on other people to give you the tips. So just a clarification there- Correct ... if anybody's like- Thank you. Yeah ... "What? You didn't write this content?" So it wasn't- Yeah ... like Chenell didn't write it. It was more that we needed the actual tips and the details 'cause we wanted to have results.
[00:11:50] Dylan Redekop: We wanted to show these tips that had, like... I keep saying we, but, you know, you wanted to share these results that had tips, um, and, like, proof that they worked, right? So you [00:12:00] had to get all of that, all of those details from these creators. So it, it's, yeah, it's ki- it can be kinda like pulling teeth, so...
[00:12:06] Chenell Basilio: It is, and some of them are like, "Well, I have these three ideas.
[00:12:09] Chenell Basilio: Which one do you like?" And I'm like- Yeah ... "Okay." Or they're like, "I don't think I have anything." And I'm like, "Well, I've seen you do this thing. How about we do that?" So it's just like, yeah. Yeah. Um, I think the first year, what I forgot to realize for this year is that I also had seen some of these things from doing deep dives.
[00:12:25] Chenell Basilio: Um, so I was able to, like, just rattle off and, like, almost create them [00:12:30] before even reaching out to the creator- Mm ... and say, like, "Hey, I wrote this thing 'cause I saw you do this, um, tactic. I wanna share it." And so I was able to, like, speed m- go through it faster, I guess you should say. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so this year it was, like, kind of starting fresh all over again, and, like, I didn't have a lot of those lined up.
[00:12:48] Chenell Basilio: Right. So that's another thing I would, I would change, too.
[00:12:51] Dylan Redekop: Okay. Um, what do you think the biggest benefit of doing this kind of, like, collab pop-up newsletter is?
[00:12:58] Chenell Basilio: I think it's just, like, the relationship building, [00:13:00] like, being able to, you know, collaborate- More than the growth? ... with the creator. Like, yeah. The growth is, is good.
[00:13:05] Chenell Basilio: Um, I think this year... Well, we'll save the numbers for a minute. But yeah, I think the collaborations is, is most beneficial because, you know, I can go up to someone at a conference that I go to. I'm like, "Hey, I have this thing going on soon. Like, do you wanna, like, contribute something?" Or afterwards I can...
[00:13:21] Chenell Basilio: You know, it's just, like, a talking point with these people at live events or- Yeah ... even just a future call or something like that. So I think just building those [00:13:30] relationships is the biggest piece, which goes against everything I just said about, like, creating it yourself, but yeah.
[00:13:36] Dylan Redekop: Well, with collaborations, that's- Again- That's-
[00:13:38] Chenell Basilio: it's like, what's your goal?
[00:13:39] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Dylan Redekop: Exactly. Okay. So, um, do you have the numbers handy in terms of, like, how this worked out? I know y- like you said, there's a lot of attrition because of, you know, unsubscribes from the mass list, but do you have any, like, how many new subscribers people got on your list from it?
[00:13:54] Chenell Basilio: 2,086-
[00:13:56] Dylan Redekop: Okay ...
[00:13:57] Chenell Basilio: subscriber, like, new subscribers from this. [00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Dylan Redekop: Nice. Okay.
[00:14:00] Chenell Basilio: Um, which is great, so that means we beat last year.
[00:14:04] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Chenell Basilio: Uh-
[00:14:05] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, by, like, 300 ...
[00:14:06] Chenell Basilio: which is awesome. Yeah. Uh, last year we had 388 people got referred by someone else, and this year there were 571. And- So it was a big percentage of that, too.
[00:14:19] Dylan Redekop: Now, just be clear on what you mean by referred, because some people might be like, "Oh, well, that could just be like-"
[00:14:22] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:14:23] Chenell Basilio: You know? So we were just talking about the podcast situation. So if you... Everybody that signs up or that I signed up got a custom [00:14:30] referral link, and if you shared it with one or more people, um, you got bonuses or whatnot. So 571 was the number of people that got referred by another person who had already signed up.
[00:14:40] Dylan Redekop: Nice. So 25% of the growth came from referral?
[00:14:44] Chenell Basilio: Well, yeah, kind of. So I would say, I was like, "Yeah, that's huge," but then I was thinking about it because last year we had 388 out of, what did I say it was? 3,700. And that was about 9% growth. But if you really take into account the total number of people [00:15:00] that I had signed up for this, I think it's like, comes out to like 2, maybe a little less than 2%.
[00:15:07] Chenell Basilio: So-
[00:15:08] Dylan Redekop: Mm. Okay ...
[00:15:08] Chenell Basilio: which is another reason I think having people explicitly opt in is helpful because they're more excited about it. Yeah. They're more likely to share. Attitude's
[00:15:17] Dylan Redekop: totally
[00:15:18] Chenell Basilio: different. But I don't know.
[00:15:19] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:15:19] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So- Who knows?
[00:15:22] Dylan Redekop: Okay. Um, what do you think, what do you think was the hardest part about this?
[00:15:28] Chenell Basilio: Um, creating the content for [00:15:30] sure, like getting the content ready to go. Of course, every, every time I'm like... I've done this twice. Every time I'm like, "I'm gonna get so far ahead that th- this doesn't matter," and like, you know, I won't be publishing them day of, and I was publishing them all day of, except for like the first four maybe.
[00:15:47] Chenell Basilio: So- I feel like there
[00:15:47] Dylan Redekop: was like 10 or so that were sort of-
[00:15:50] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, they were like kind of finished-
[00:15:52] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:15:53] Chenell Basilio: but they still, you know, we still had to create images and- Yeah ... put them up on the site. Yes. So it was never like fully done. But it was funny [00:16:00] because, well, we had a, a community call the one day, and everybody's like...
[00:16:03] Chenell Basilio: I was like, "Guys, I have to go. I have to send out my 30 Days of Growth for today." And they're like, "You don't have those all ready to go and scheduled?" I was like, "No."
[00:16:11] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Chenell Basilio: So I, I think that's just my personality. Like, I'm not very good at being that scheduled, and I work really well off of a deadline. So-
[00:16:21] Dylan Redekop: Yeah
[00:16:21] Chenell Basilio: yeah, I think that's, that's what happened there.
[00:16:25] Dylan Redekop: That makes sense. I am very similar in that regard. In terms of context for how much work this is, people might [00:16:30] just think, oh, well, you just... You have a piece of content in an article, and you're sending it out to your newsletter. But I think people should know that, like, there's the audio aspect of it, like you have to record these.
[00:16:39] Dylan Redekop: Um, there is, they're getting published on your WordPress site, correct?
[00:16:44] Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:44] Dylan Redekop: They're getting published- Yeah ... in Kit, which is kind of a copy-paste, but it's not necessarily... You know, there's a little bit of formatting that has to be, you know, rejigged. Then we are also copy and pasting these into Substack for the Growth Reverse- Mm-hmm
[00:16:56] Dylan Redekop: Substack newsletter. Um, we started [00:17:00] by, I think you were doing, for the first half of them or so, you were publishing them as articles on LinkedIn as well. Yeah. And with every single article, we're creating custom images too. So, um, there's templates of course, and s- you know, information gets swapped in and out.
[00:17:14] Dylan Redekop: But it's still... It's not just, you know, writing a piece of content and publishing it. So there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes to get this sort of thing ready, and trying to maximize, you know, different platforms so that people can see it. So I just wanted to add that context so people think, "Oh, Chenell's complaining about this [00:17:30] being so much work.
[00:17:30] Dylan Redekop: It doesn't look that hard." There is, there's a lot behind it.
[00:17:32] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It's, it's a lot. Um, but it's good. It was good. Yeah. I think now I can, you know, still repurpose these into something in the future. I plan to put some of them into the Growth Vault as videos, and like do full walkthroughs, and give away automations that we can set up, and that kind of thing.
[00:17:47] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:17:48] Chenell Basilio: So there is definitely some good stuff to come of it, but- Yeah. Um, and it, it was a good, it was a good reminder that the Growth Vault is, like, super valuable [00:18:00] because I actually, couple days I didn't have anything, and I pulled some stuff from the Growth Vault and put it in as an email. Um, obviously there was no video aspect of it, but people...
[00:18:10] Chenell Basilio: Those were the ones that got the most en- engagement, and people were replying and being like, "This is so cool." Mm. So it's just, like, a good reminder that the Growth Vault is valuable. I just need to get it in more people's hands.
[00:18:20] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the, the Growth Vault, um, is a nice lead-in to, you know, Growth Reverse PRO too because if you buy the Growth Vault, you get a discount on [00:18:30] coming into the Growth Reverse PRO community too, so.
[00:18:32] Dylan Redekop: Or- Yeah ... if you join the Growth Reverse PRO community, you get the Growth Vault included in your membership. So, um-
[00:18:37] Chenell Basilio: Yeah ...
[00:18:38] Dylan Redekop: just wanted to give that a shout-out too. Okay, so when we get to the content, I think, you know, people might be curious about how this, how this went this year, and so we've kind of talked about that a decent amount now for the last 20 minutes or so, but what, what were either your favorite growth or optimization tips from this year's 30 Days of Growth, or what do you think were, like, you know, the, the [00:19:00] audience's favorites, or the ones that you thought you heard the most comments from or got the most opens or engagement?
[00:19:06] Chenell Basilio: I think some of the ones that got the most comments are the, the ones of how people are using AI in their content, which... Not in their content, but in their workflows. Okay. Which is funny because everything with AI right now is just, like, gets, it gets so much engagement. Yeah. Which is fine. It's just, like, it's a sign of the times, I guess.
[00:19:25] Chenell Basilio: Um, so yeah. So Dan Cumberland had given, um, like, a full [00:19:30] breakdown of how he used, like, his broadcast, like, his email data, his broadcast emails, and pulled out subject line patterns that he wasn't even thinking about by using the Kit MCP. So if you're not familiar with an MCP, it's, like, a really cool way to, like, link an AI tool like Claude with your Kit account or whatever software the MCP is for, and it just, like, lets you natively pull in content and, like- Mm-hmm
[00:19:56] Chenell Basilio: data that you can kinda use in conjunction with the other things [00:20:00] you have going on in Claude. So-
[00:20:01] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:20:01] Chenell Basilio: super cool. Um, and yeah, that, that was a good one, and I really enjoyed that one. I actually used it For a couple of the emails that I sent afterwards, so-
[00:20:11] Dylan Redekop: There you go ... it
[00:20:11] Chenell Basilio: was good. Yeah.
[00:20:12] Dylan Redekop: And I think Brandon Smithrick also had a-
[00:20:16] Chenell Basilio: Yes
[00:20:16] Dylan Redekop: Claude sort of optimized the way he built a dashboard as well, I think.
[00:20:20] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I don't think we... Or I don't think the article I put together on that one explained it super well. Mm. So I think people were almost, like, too confused [00:20:30] by that, 'cause there was so much going on, 'cause it's so good. Yeah. But it's like, I don't know what to do with this, 'cause there's like seven things in there that you could do.
[00:20:37] Chenell Basilio: But that's a really good one if you're looking to go down the rabbit hole there a bit.
[00:20:40] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Nice.
[00:20:42] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:20:42] Dylan Redekop: Um, any others that maybe you thought were, like, really cool? You're like, "I've gotta try this."
[00:20:48] Chenell Basilio: Um, oh, a bunch of them. I think, well, uh, Max Bidna with the-
[00:20:54] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm ...
[00:20:55] Chenell Basilio: Marketing Max is his moniker, I guess you'd call it.
[00:20:59] Chenell Basilio: Um, he [00:21:00] shared a bunch of how he, like, 5X'd his landing page conversions just by making a bunch of small tweaks. Yeah. Um, so that one was cool because I think the overwhelming majority of, like, the growth for that came from him changing the button text to just say Continue instead of something else.
[00:21:17] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:21:17] Chenell Basilio: Um, and so I actually im- implemented that this morning.
[00:21:22] Dylan Redekop: Nice
[00:21:23] Chenell Basilio: So we'll see. But yeah
[00:21:25] Dylan Redekop: That's cool
[00:21:26] Chenell Basilio: So that was a cool one. Um, obviously the AI stuff is fun. [00:21:30] Justin Jackson from, uh, transistor.fm, he actually did something super cool. This w- this came from the Growth Vault. This is one of the ones.
[00:21:37] Dylan Redekop: There you go
[00:21:38] Chenell Basilio: Uh, he sent out an email with a Google Doc of an article that he was actively working on, and he said, "Hey, I'm not done with this, but I want your feedback on it."
[00:21:48] Chenell Basilio: And so I show in the, in the article I wrote was, like, screenshots of this thing, and you can see his readers, like, writing comments and saying, like, "Hey, there's this other source you might not have seen before. You should go check this [00:22:00] out too." Um, and so I just call that, like, turning readers into collaborators.
[00:22:04] Chenell Basilio: Yeah People loved that one.
[00:22:06] Dylan Redekop: Wow. That's really cool
[00:22:08] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:22:08] Dylan Redekop: Yeah It, it, it's surprising too 'cause there's, there's... You never know what's really gonna resonate with folks. Um, like, I wouldn't have honestly suspected that that was gonna be, like, you know, a hit. Um, but it is a cool strategy, and I can see why people really gravitated towards that.
[00:22:22] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It just reminded me that, like, the things I find interesting, people often do as well, so I need to lean into that more.
[00:22:28] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah, because you seem to have a lot- '
[00:22:29] Chenell Basilio: Cause when I, when I [00:22:30] initially saw this, I was like, "This is so cool." Yeah And so, like, being able to surface that kind of thing in the Growth Vault is fun, and now doing it publicly is as well, so.
[00:22:39] Dylan Redekop: I love it. Um- Yeah ... some common themes that I really enjoyed that I thought were interesting was, uh, that kinda showed up a lot were quizzes, like quizzes as lead magnets. Um- So many
[00:22:49] Chenell Basilio: quizzes ...
[00:22:50] Dylan Redekop: right? And so people might be a little bit burned out by this, this topic, but, I mean, it, it really is working, and it's a really great way to, um, both [00:23:00] get people onto your email list but also, like, get some data, some first-party data about them too, um, which is super useful.
[00:23:06] Dylan Redekop: So there were a few people like Ellen Yin who's done this. Um, we've obviously talked ad nauseam about Millie Tamati, who has used quizzes to really grow her Generalist World newsletter in the past. She wasn't included in here, but I think we included her last year in 30 Days of Growth. Um, the ADHD Weasel guys used a quiz after seeing your talk at New Media Summit this past February, so that was another strategy, [00:23:30] a quiz strategy.
[00:23:30] Dylan Redekop: And then the other thing I would call, I would call out is... Unless you have s- if you wanna comment on the quiz.
[00:23:34] Chenell Basilio: No, I just... Uh, the ADHD Weasel thing, like, for context, that one, they sent me just a random email, and they were like, "We followed..." The, I think the subject line was like, "We followed your advice and it worked," or something.
[00:23:48] Chenell Basilio: And I was like, "What?" Yeah. And then I opened it, and they had this full long article of how, like, they heard me talk about Millie and Charlie using a quiz, and they implemented it, and they ended up with 1,400 subscribers in the first week, and I [00:24:00] was like, "What?" And so this was, like, a couple days before 30 Days of Growth launched, and I was like, "Can I use this?"
[00:24:06] Chenell Basilio: And they were like, "Absolutely." Yeah. And so that's how that one came to be. So-
[00:24:09] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:24:10] Chenell Basilio: please, if anything we have said on this podcast or in the newsletter has helped you, please send an email and let us know. I love hearing these stories. Yeah It's just so fun, like- Closing the loop and making sure that, like, we know these things are working for you.
[00:24:23] Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. And I think it's just fun to surface that stuff.
[00:24:25] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I mean, the whole point of everything we're doing here is to help [00:24:30] other creators grow their newsletters, right? And- Yeah ... like, genuinely, we want, we want that success for you. So yeah, we'd love to hear success stories from, you know, things you've tried and done, or if there's advice that, you know, you've heard on the podcast or seen us talk about on social media or in the newsletter, like, send it our way.
[00:24:46] Dylan Redekop: We'd love to hear about it. Um-
[00:24:48] Chenell Basilio: Yes ...
[00:24:48] Dylan Redekop: please. So the other theme that popped up a decent amount was welcome sequences and various types of welcome sequences. Um, not as necessarily... These are more retention plays or [00:25:00] engagement plays. Um, but Matt Ragland talked about how he, um, basically introduced some low-ticket offers that gradually leveled up as the welcome sequence went for his clients, and he found that those ended up tripling sales for his clients.
[00:25:16] Dylan Redekop: So that's a really interesting one. That was day six. Um, there was also a welcome sequence from... I'm gonna pull it up here. Uh, Tyler Cook. He had a seven-email welcome sequence that helped basically get a [00:25:30] 300,000 email list go from getting only into about 40% of inboxes, not even open rate, just like getting into 40% of inboxes to over 90% of inboxes.
[00:25:41] Dylan Redekop: So, um, that's really huge. And so he's got, uh, a pretty, a decent, uh... You included a decent template for that or a layout of what you can do, and I think this would be a good one to add to The Growth Vault in terms of like, here's the actual, you know, structured template of these emails that you could, that you could copy.
[00:25:58] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And he came [00:26:00] into our community and shared- He did ... this, and that's where we first heard about it. And so-
[00:26:03] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...
[00:26:04] Chenell Basilio: um, we could even, I could even include part of that video into The Growth Vault. It's a good idea.
[00:26:10] Dylan Redekop: And then, uh, one other that wasn't, um, I would say that wasn't necessarily a welcome sequence related or, or quiz related, but that I thought was really interesting was, um, I really liked Michelle's, Michelle Rueda, who also came to the Growth and Verse Pro community talk about how she's basically used Reddit to grow her newsletter, and she's growing a local newsletter.
[00:26:28] Dylan Redekop: So the Reddit [00:26:30] strategy could probably work for just about any type of niche, but for hers it worked really well because she was able to target people who are in Austin or who are asking about Austin, Texas, and what's going on there, um, where to eat, what kind of things to do on the weekends, and that sort of thing, and her- that's what her newsletter covers.
[00:26:44] Dylan Redekop: So she was basically going to Reddit forums and, um, making suggestions, and then kind of casually dropping a very, um, a very subtle nudge to be like, "Oh, I write about this actually in my newsletter." And so she's alr- she's built a [00:27:00] tool as well to help people grow, uh, via Reddit. Yeah. So you don't have to spend time, you know, yourself manually scouring these forums.
[00:27:06] Dylan Redekop: So I thought that was a more unique and kinda cool strategy too.
[00:27:10] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think they're all most... Like, I would, um, I wanna implement a lot of these .
[00:27:14] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I know, right?
[00:27:16] Chenell Basilio: Uh, going back to them, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I said I was gonna do that. I didn't do it yet." Yeah. So.
[00:27:20] Dylan Redekop: Yep. Yeah. I think there's like- I mean, with all of this content, you could
[00:27:25] Dylan Redekop: Most people could execute a lot of them, and there's a bit of an overwhelm. I think [00:27:30] something that would be fun to do, whether it's in the community or even just publicly, is like, "Hey, for the next two weeks we're gonna, we're gonna all focus on doing this one strategy," or, "We're gonna, we're gonna actually implement this, you know, seven- this Tyler seven email welcome sequence strategy," or, um, you know, do-
[00:27:48] Chenell Basilio: You know what I actually heard from people was saying like, "Can you do it for me?"
[00:27:52] Chenell Basilio: Uh. And I was like, "Well, probably."
[00:27:55] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:55] Chenell Basilio: So if that's interesting, let me know.
[00:27:57] Dylan Redekop: For free though. But yes, I can.
[00:27:58] Chenell Basilio: No, no, no, not free.
[00:27:59] Dylan Redekop: Yeah,
[00:27:59] Chenell Basilio: no. Uh, [00:28:00] yeah. But if that's interesting, let me know. chenelle@growthinreverse.com. There you go. And we'll see. Maybe, maybe there's a little cohort we could set up or something.
[00:28:08] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. No, that would be really cool. I think, I think there's an opportunity to really ... A lot of people see this stuff and they think, "This is great and I wanna do this, but I either don't have the time or I don't have the know-how to do it." And so that's definitely something we could help solve.
[00:28:21] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:28:22] Dylan Redekop: Love it.
[00:28:23] Dylan Redekop: Um, anything else to add on the 30 Days of Growth? Like, do you think ... I have a question here. Um, I queued up a few questions before [00:28:30] we obviously hopped on this call or this podcast episode. And overall, do you think this year's 30 Days of Growth had a positive ROI for you?
[00:28:39] Chenell Basilio: I don't know. TBD.
[00:28:41] Dylan Redekop: Okay.
[00:28:41] Chenell Basilio: Um, it was helpful.
[00:28:44] Chenell Basilio: Lots of good stuff happened. I think people really enjoyed it, so in that respect, yes. Um, part of me wishes I, I would do sprints like this and just, like, release them one, one a week. Mm. And then I have, like, almost half a year's content, like, fold fully, [00:29:00] fully-
[00:29:01] Dylan Redekop: Fully ...
[00:29:01] Chenell Basilio: created. Yeah. Wow, I can't talk. Yeah. So I think that would be a good, um, test to do, like, 30 Days of Growth.
[00:29:08] Chenell Basilio: By the way, you only get it for the next six months, not in 30 days.
[00:29:11] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:11] Chenell Basilio: Um, obviously wouldn't publish it as, like, a promotion type thing, but yeah, I think just creating all this content was eye-opening into how quickly it can be done, but also, um, I don't know. How- I just feel like sometimes you overwhelm people with daily emails or, like, how many things go out.
[00:29:29] Chenell Basilio: So I think- Yeah ... it could [00:29:30] be interesting to just, like, drip these out over time too.
[00:29:32] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Okay, well that leads me into maybe the final question. People might be wondering, "Well, I missed out on this," or, "I only caught the last week of it." Um- What can they... Can they still get access to 30 Days of Growth? And do you plan on putting this behind any kind of gate or paywall?
[00:29:51] Dylan Redekop: I mean, it's obviously behind an email gate. You have to sign up to get it. But, um, what does this content look like? How's it gonna live, and where can people access it if they want to?
[00:29:59] Chenell Basilio: At- Last year I had [00:30:00] it as a full sequence that you could go through again, but I think, I honestly think 30 days is a lot of daily emails, so I don't know.
[00:30:07] Chenell Basilio: I think maybe instead I'll just do, like, send one email a week for four weeks and say, "Here's this week's seven," or something. I don't know.
[00:30:16] Dylan Redekop: Right.
[00:30:17] Chenell Basilio: TBD.
[00:30:18] Dylan Redekop: I like that. Sign up, 30daysofgrowth.co, and you will get the full list for now- Yes ... until Chenell comes to her senses and puts this behind a paywall in the Growth Vault.
[00:30:27] Dylan Redekop: So we'll see, we'll see if that happens. [00:30:30]
[00:30:32] Chenell Basilio: Ah,
[00:30:32] Dylan Redekop: okay. I like it. Nope, I do think the, the... I do like the idea of, like, getting maybe, like, five a week for, like, six weeks. You would get, you know, 30 Days of Growth, five- here's five tips. Um, it's just thinking through, like, how you could send this out as opposed to, like, a, you know, 30 days straight of content or that sort of thing.
[00:30:51] Dylan Redekop: So I think that there could be something there. Um, but yeah, I also think there's a lot of these things that should, should go, that should go into the Growth [00:31:00] Vault that definitely would benefit from, you know, a little bit more detail and templatizing and that sort of thing. Like, you know, Brandon's... We just talked about, about his Claude system that he's got set up.
[00:31:11] Dylan Redekop: Like, that would be almost worth s- worth the price of admission if, if he was willing to give us kind of the sort of the back-end details for how he built that.
[00:31:18] Chenell Basilio: I'll put in there what I can and what I know. Um, he did give a lot- Yeah ... that I didn't include in that article. Right. So I don't even think we need to reach out to him again, honestly.
[00:31:26] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:31:26] Chenell Basilio: Um
[00:31:28] Dylan Redekop: Fair enough. So yeah. Cool. Well, [00:31:30] thanks for being, uh, willing to do this postmortem of 30 Days of Growth. I think the time had passed enough that you were like, "Okay, I can talk about this now without feeling exhausted."
[00:31:41] Chenell Basilio: And I still haven't finished the private podcast.
[00:31:43] Dylan Redekop: That's right. That's right. I think we...
[00:31:45] Dylan Redekop: Last year, I remember you kinda like, you kinda started like getting a little bit burnt out by day 19, I think it was, last year. And just sure enough, just like, uh, you know, it was almost like science. You... Day 19 this year was the, uh, was kind of the falling off point.
[00:31:59] Chenell Basilio: [00:32:00] Was it the same?
[00:32:00] Dylan Redekop: It was the exact same...
[00:32:02] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, day 19. Oh,
[00:32:03] Chenell Basilio: that's fun.
[00:32:04] Dylan Redekop: Yep.
[00:32:04] Chenell Basilio: That's super fun.
[00:32:05] Dylan Redekop: Good times. Well,
[00:32:06] Chenell Basilio: at least- Maybe I'll do 19 Days of Growth next year- Yeah ... and then I don't have to worry about
[00:32:10] Dylan Redekop: it. You, you know what you can sustain. You know what you can sustain.
[00:32:14] Chenell Basilio: Oh. Oh, that's great.
[00:32:15] Dylan Redekop: Sweet.
[00:32:16] Chenell Basilio: Awesome.
[00:32:16] Dylan Redekop: All right. All right. Well, go to 30daysofgrowth.co.
[00:32:18] Dylan Redekop: Check it out. If you also wanna check out the Growth Vault, we mentioned it earlier, growthreverse.com/vault. And we also have a newsletter community that we would love to have you join. [00:32:30] That is, um, growthreverse.com/pro to check that out. And if you have any questions about any of that stuff, send Chenell or myself an email, chenell@growthreverse.com, um, and dylan@growthreverse.com, and we'd love to answer any questions you have.
[00:32:45] Dylan Redekop: So until next time
