Love Your List Review: Ready to Master Email At Last?

If you know me at all, you know one thing: I’m possibly the most cynical person when it comes to the online “knowledge economy.” There’s nothing that makes my blood boil more than course creators selling courses about how to become a course creator selling your own courses about creating courses. I mean, that sentence is just stupid to write – and yet people are profiting off of the hard work of thousands of people, selling these course multi-level marketing schemes every. single. day.

Okay, deep breaths.

You might wonder then, if I ever invest in online courses. I’ve been taken in by those snake oil course salespeople over the years, but my radar is so aggressive now that I just block people outright if they start trending that direction. (I would say no judgment, but absolutely I judge people who become part of the course creator circle jerk.)

Actually, I have invested in courses over the years – usually, I make one big investment per year. And what I’ve discovered is that when a course creator is A) teaching an actual skill and B) qualified to teach that skill based on their experience and performance, I am totally on board.

One of the best courses I’ve ever invested in was Love Your List (LYL) by Kate Doster. I bought this course in November 2021, and was really happy with my investment. Since I purchased it a few years ago, the course has changed – and I wanted to update my original review to reflect my thoughts on these changes and the value of Love Your List now.

UPDATE: This post was originally published in November 2022, and was updated most recently in October 2024.

Note: Links in this post are likely affiliate posts, which means I may receive a commission for any sales that happen through my links. Learn more about affiliate marketing, and thanks for supporting Site School!

How I Discovered Kate Doster

Before jumping into my Love Your List review, I thought it might be helpful to share how I discovered Kate Doster, and how I ended up trusting her enough to invest in LYL.

Many years ago – probably 2018 or early 2019 – I saw Kate’s name mentioned in a Facebook comment answering someone’s question about how to get better at email marketing. I’ve long thought bloggers – especially travel bloggers, which is my primary niche – suck at email marketing and should get better at it; while I had a pretty sophisticated system at the time, I knew it could be better.

I started listening to Kate’s Podcast (Do The Brave Thing, formerly called Inbox Besties) and joined a few of her free events. Over the years, she has participated in some free summits and freebie bundles and such, and I began slowly accumulating various educational resources/mini-courses/trainings from her.

Eventually, I took the leap and bought lifetime access to one of those summits (the Big 3 Summit Vault Product Launch Edition ’20, according to my course access).

Over the next year, I continued to consume her free content, and was intrigued enough to again invest (in the Audience Booster Action Pack Big 3 Summit July ’21). By late autumn, I was definitely on the Kate Doster fan-wagon (like a bandwagon, get it?) and decided to buy her Black Friday SOS Kit. This was the game-changer: I realized Kate really does know her sh*t and was ready a few weeks later when Love Your List 2.0 went on sale.

But at the time, it wasn’t a small investment: I made myself a deal that I needed to earn back my entire investment over Black Friday or I had to request a refund (Kate doesn’t know that was my personal deal!). While I didn’t like, hugely exceed that amount, I did make about 35% more over the 2021 BF/CM weekend than I invested in Kate’s courses in the month leading up to it. I was hooked – and had only gotten part of the way through the course at that point.

What is Love Your List 2.0?

If you’re reading this review of the Love Your List course, my guess is that you already know something about it. Maybe you’ve attended one of Kate’s free/live trainings, follow her on Instagram, or listen regularly to her podcast.

Kate doesn’t promote LYL as much as she used to; it was her signature course through 2023, but she’s now shifted to focus on some other products and services not exclusively related to email marketing (even though I’d say that’s still her best skillset). While the main LYL website says otherwise, you can still buy Love Your List through bloggers/past customers like me!

Below, you’ll find a breakdown of LYL 2.0 (the second version of the course) that will help you understand the investment you’re making – as told by a fellow blogger who chose to make that investment myself.

Course Modules

As you can’t see the course modules before buying, I thought it would be helpful to do a quick overview of them so you’d understand the ‘meat and potatoes’ of Love Your List:

0. Welcome
1. Mindset (“How to Never Annoy Your Subscribers Again…”)
2. Copywriting (👈 worthy of being a whole course in itself!)
3. Freebies That Serve & Sell
4. Welcome Series
5. Thank You Pages
6. Landing Pages & Opt-In Forms
7. Ongoing Nurturing & Automations

In total, there are 55 lessons across these modules.

If you know anything about email marketing, these topics probably look familiar – and I’ll admit I think they’re a little bit out of order (Landing Pages & Opt-In Forms should be after Freebies and before Welcome Series).

Now before you come and say: but Valerie, I can learn all that stuff online for free! Yes, you can learn about these topics online, but you won’t find them all in one place as part of a holistic strategy – and you won’t get that special Kate Doster sauce that I think makes this course shine.

My best evidence of this? Kate uses the exact strategy she teaches to sell LYL, and I bought it – and you’re considering it – as a result. That’s pretty darn effective since I’m the most anti-course person I know!

In-Course Bonus Modules

In addition to the modules above, there are some other modules aside from the main course. Without going into too much detail here (so as to not give away the value within these bonus modules), these are basically extra courses within LYL.

There’s one bonus section of 8 lessons focused on List Building and another with 9 lessons about Easy Yes Offers, which I think might have been the most valuable addition to my email strategy. There are also bonuses titled “What To Send Your List If Haven’t Emailed Them In FOREVER” and “How to clean your list + skyrocket your open rates” – which, let’s be honest, is too many people despite my monthly email newsletter ideas series.

Bonus Courses

If you haven’t gathered, Kate has lots of bonuses. I have so many bonuses from various courses I’ve bought that it’s hard to keep track of them all!

No matter when you buy Love Your List, it will probably include a bonus or two (Kate wisely uses these to encourage people to buy as part of her launches!). Here are some of the common ones she’s offered at various points:

• 5 Figure Funnels & Launches
• Convertkit (now Kit) Launch Pad
• Easy Yes Offers & Sales Pages
• Mega List Builders Master Class

The only one of these I have access to is the 5-Figure Funnels & Launches one; I haven’t gone through that one since I don’t do big launches/use long sales pages for my blogs, but it could be great if you’re considering selling a course (😅) or service.

While I wouldn’t make the decision to buy based on these bonuses, there are always hidden gems of knowledge in each one.

What about the Facebook Group? Coaching Calls?

Historically, Kate offered a bit more support for this course than she does now – as I said, it’s no longer something she’s promoting and it’s definitely not her ‘signature course’ anymore.

Unfortunately, that means there is no Facebook group anymore (it was one of the best! 😢) and no more group coaching calls. I think these were insanely valuable for customers, but I know they took a lot of Kate’s time and energy too. She has correspondingly dropped the price a lot to reflect that these aren’t offered. (The course cost is about 40% less now than what I paid!)

Love Your List Overall Thoughts

I’ll be honest: I am a huge fan of Love Your List, and believe it was a great investment for me and my blogs. It taught me a better mindset about email marketing and sales, and I’ve seen that benefit on several of my sites.

Speaking of investments, you’ll notice I haven’t said that LYL is a specific price yet. Historically, like most course creators, Kate has increased the price over time. As of today, the full price of the course is $777, and she offers a six-month payment plan of $146 per payment ($876 total)

But back to the question of “is Love Your List worth it?” Like all online courses and communities, Love Your List is worth it if you put in the work. You need to go through the course materials and implement the suggestions.

To be totally honest, it took me a year to get through the entire course, and Kate admits in the final lesson that the vast majority of students never make it that far.

If you decide to invest, don’t be one of those students.

Treat LYL like a college course: dedicate time to it weekly, take notes, do the homework, and quiz yourself.

This requires discipline, but if you are able to commit and stick to it, you’ll absolutely see your audience grow, watch your opens/clicks improve, and hopefully even see sales. My list for V&V is hands down my most powerful sales channel for my blog.

How to Buy Love Your List

Okay, you’ve made it to the end of my Love Your List review – but you might be wondering: how can I make this investment? How can I buy Love Your List?!

As of updating this post (October 2024), here’s a link to purchase the course:

Have any other questions about Love Your List and whether it’s a worthwhile investment for your business? Let me know in the comments below!