May 2024 Progress Report: Make Money from Email Marketing

Last Updated on June 17, 2024

It’s one thing to grow your email list, and quite another to actually make money from email marketing. In today’s case study, we’re exploring how to convert subscribers into sales when it comes to email marketing for small business.

Welcome back to the 3rd installment in the Progress Report series! Last month, Rachel shared some exciting developments in her herbal venture, Seeds and Stalks, as we continue to push the boundaries of traditional business methods.

If you’ve been following along, you know we’re venturing through this business creation without leaning on the crutch of social media, which in itself is a rebel move!

May was a whirlwind of highs and challenges. It’s taught us the importance of adaptability and innovation, especially as Rachel balances the demands of family care with the dynamics of business growth in a way that feels genuine and sustainable.

In May, Rachel knocked it out of the park by massively growing her email list—adding an impressive 116 new subscribers!

This surge came through innovative visibility strategies and engaging collaborations that not only expanded her reach but also reinforced her commitment to community-building without relying on social media. With these strategies bearing fruit, Rachel’s now shifting her focus towards converting these new subscribers into loyal clients aka making money from email marketing!

This month’s update from Rachel is packed with insights and the results of the new strategies we’re implementing. So, buckle up as we dive deeper into the entrepreneurial journey that’s as organic as the products we stand for. Get ready for another dose of real talk, fresh stats, and hands-on tactics from the front lines of a social media-free business growth. Let’s see what Rachel has in store for us this time!

May 2024 Income: $17

• Gross Income: $17
  • Course Sales: $17 tripwire sale of my course Build Your Home Apothecary 
• Expenses: $1454.12
  • ConvertKit: $53.41 (this is my email service provider but I’m contemplating switching to Kartra because I love Kartra 1000% more!)
  • Loom: $15 (so I can record my Family Health Checkup custom videos) 
  • Zapier: $6.64
  • Continuing Education: $1220.53
  • Professional membership fees: $158.54 (for my Registered Herbal Therapist  certification) 
• Net profit: —1437.12

Despite a loss this past month, I wasn’t discouraged or derailed this month. There’s a cost to doing business and I’m OK with investing in my business and trusting that the profits will follow!

The majority of my loss was from paying off a coaching program that I did in 2023 and some professional membership yearly expenses that happened to be due this month. In future months, I’m expecting my expenses to steeply decline as I am being more judicious about what I am signing up for and how much continuing education I am investing in. 

This month I did spend some money on learning a couple new strategies that I am employing in my business. One strategy is a mini-offer audit that would allow clients to try out working with me for $37. Then, when I record the audit, I will pitch them an offer to work with me and include a discount coupon. This month, I launched my Family Health Check-up offer in this style. 

On a positive note, I did make another tripwire sale so that was great to see. 

Before we get into the details, I also wanted to share my traffic totals for May 2024.

Traffic Totals

Overall, I saw a slight increase from last month in terms of traffic and users to my site.

This month I saw a flip where I got more traffic from referrals (last month it was more direct traffic) I’m guessing this was due to my participation in a bundle this past month.

Email List

Note: This screenshot comes from my dashboard in Convertkit.

• Email List Growth: 116 new active email subscribers in May 2024, bringing my list to 1050 subscribers at the end of May 2024. 

This month one of my goals was to increase my subscriber count by 50 people. I am proud to say that I blew that goal out of the water and grew my email list by 116 people!

Most of the new subscribers came from a bundle that I participated in. I am finding the bundle strategy to be working for my business in terms of gaining new subscribers. However, now I want to turn my attention to converting those subscribers into paying clients. 

My other main strategy for growing my list was collaborating with other business owners in aligned ways to get in front of more eyeballs. I have set up several coffee chats with other business owners who operate in adjacent niches (like parenting), rather than direct competitors where what we offer is too similar. And I have organized several lead magnet/newsletter swaps.

I am also going to be offering guest expert sessions inside other business owner’s coaching programs in hopes to get new people into my ecosystem. 

My biggest takeaway from all of this is that email list growth can be like a snowball, slow to get started then quickly pick up momentum, but it’s an active process.

What I mean by that is that I am actively searching out visibility opportunities. If you want to learn more about how I set up visibility opportunities and find aligned partnerships, checkout our brand new course: Painless Publicity: Sustainable Visibility for Low-Maintenance Entrepreneurs.

At this stage in my business, I am not posting content regularly and am not seeing much organic traffic. So, I’d like to start writing content consistently and see my organic search numbers increase as well. And my main strategy next month will also be to set up collaborations.

My current list building Freebies are: 

• Build Your Herbal First Aid Kit
• 5 Day Energy Kickstart mini-course

Domain Authority

Note: DA is a ranking metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a site will rank on Google, and is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. The closer you are to 100, the more traffic and better ranking you’ll have.

Clearly I have some work to do in this area! One way that I’ll be working to improve my domain authority is by following the advice and teachings found in the SEO Course (also in MBA) about publishing high quality consistent content so that I can show Google that I’m a reputable website and increase my E-A-T!

Hours Worked: 30 for the month

I’ve been working between 5-10 hours per week on my business. Most of my time this month was spent on networking and collaborations which, and I’ve definitely spent more time in meetings this month talking about my business.

I’ve noticed that the more I talk about and tell people about my business, the more connected I feel towards my business. I’d like to continue that connection and momentum into next month!

Rachel’s Takeaways

What I focused on this month: email marketing

This past month I organized 6 collaborations with other entrepreneurs, including 1 podcast episode that will hopefully come out soon.

As a result of these collaborations, I will be participating in a couple newsletter swaps, guest coaching in 2 different parenting membership programs, set up a new affiliate partner, and recorded a podcast episode. I’m excited to see where this momentum goes. 

I was able to grow my list by 116 people last month (which I’m really proud of). However, I was unable to convert any of those leads into paid clients. Growing my list for the sake of growth is pointless and I need to start shifting my focus to conversion. 

One big area that I’m still working on is publishing content. I did not blog at all this past month. I need to get into a better rhythm and embrace a “done is better than perfect” mentality with blogging.

My blog posts don’t have to be perfect and I don’t have to spend hours optimizing for SEO. What I need to do is focus on publishing high quality content and starting to let SEO work for me. 

One thing that came up for me last month was that I’m having difficulty with consistency. I’m trying to figure out if it’s more my natural rhythm to work hard one week, then slack the next week.

For example, I started using ClickUp for my project management system, which was working really well the first few weeks of the month. I was following a daily focus board and doing a great job completing my daily tasks (including personal outreach). 

But, towards the end of the month, I fell off the proverbial wagon and I haven’t been as productive since.

May 2024 Goals

• Create a sales process with multiple connections/touchpoints
  • Personal outreach to 5 potential clients per week 🟧 (I started out the month strong with personal outreach but didn’t do much the last two weeks of the month)
    • Anyone who joins my email list after my welcome series gets a personal email  🛑
    • Anyone who gets my Build Your Home Apothecary Course as a freebie gets a personal email from me. 🛑
    • Anyone who has clicked a link in my email gets a personal email from me. ✅
    • Consider a live connection point (voxer, survey, etc) ✅ (Launched my Family Health Checkup offer!)
• Set up 2 visibility opportunities/collaborations ✅ (I set up 6 opportunities!)
• Grow my email list by 50 people ✅ (I grew my list by 116 people!)
• Create a timeblocking/time management system (phase one) 1-2 hours 🟧
  • Power planning hour weekly 🟧 (kind of. Some weeks I am doing this and it feels really good. Other weeks, I am not)
• Create a project management system (phase one) 1-2 hours
  • Set up Clickup ✅(Got Clickup templates into my ClickUp account and set up a daily focus board)

Goals for June 2024

• Plan a live event (webinar) where I can get in front of my audience 
• Personally connect and make offers to at least 10 potential clients 
• Set up 2 visibility collaborations
• Update my home and about pages with our Get it Done Week

• My guiding wisdom for next month:
  • I have something to offer to my audience that can help them.  
• My guiding feeling for next month:
  • Helpful
• My mantra for next month: 
  • Action stops fear.

Thoughts + Self-Coaching

In looking at my goals for last month, I am proud of how much I achieved. I continued to embrace my CEO energy and realize that action stops fear. When I take action in my business, I feel more connected to my business and I am able to work through feelings of imposter syndrome (rather than get stuck). 

This month, I did some foundational work to set up the systems in my business. I was able to set up a time management and project management systems, just like we teach in the  Mindful Business Academy. My challenge for next month is to follow the systems that I put into place. 

Another takeaway that I’m still working through is that I want to take a more active approach to sales in my business. I want to set up a sales process/system to connect and engage with my audience and new leads.

I’m doing a great job emailing my list weekly but I’d like to build in some more connection points and start real conversations with my audience. As I’m not using social media, I want to find another way outside of email to engage and connect with my audience. 

 PS  If you’re interested in growing your business without social media, check out our 4-Day Beyond the Scroll Challenge!

On a personal note, my husband had ACL repair surgery this month and overall my capacity was reduced greatly because of added responsibilities at home.

The recovery is still ongoing and I suspect that part of the reason why I’m having difficulty with consistency is because of how much I have on my plate.

I’m planning a vacation next month and hope that taking some time off and having more white space will help increase my overall capacity and help me get back to a place of consistency in my business.

Kate’s Takeaways

May showed us that while attracting a crowd is great, engaging them on a deeper level is where the real magic happens. Here’s what I really noticed about her approach that I think would be helpful for y’all too:

• Adjacent Alliances: Rachel’s strategy of finding collaboration partners in adjacent, not directly overlapping, niches is brilliant. They have the same clients (a parenting coach also works with moms, but in a different capacity than a family herbalist), but they don’t help them with the same things, so it’s a win win. And it means we’re not just talking to more people; we’re talking to the right people. I also found that some of my best affiliate partners at Success with Soul came from adjacent industries, like beauty bloggers who had an audience of women wanting to start their own blogs too.
• Mini Offers, Major Impact: The coaching world’s getting a much-needed reality check, and Rachel’s mini-offer audits are right on the money. Gone are the days when hefty price tags were the entry fee to finding out if someone could really help you. Now, with something like a $37 mini-audit, potential clients can dip their toes without fear of the deep end—testing the waters of valuable guidance at low risk. This shift is refreshing and it’s exactly the kind of innovation that cuts through the noise of an overinflated market.
• Make Money from Email Marketing: With a beefed-up email list, now’s the time to shift gears from gathering to engaging. Attraction? Nailed it. Now, let’s get those conversions cooking and really start making offers. Often I hear clients complain that their offers aren’t selling, and when I ask them what they are doing to sell, I often get blank stares back. Have you hosted a live event to tell people about your offer? Have you sent them an email (or better yet, a series of emails) telling them exactly how you can help them? Do you have tripwires set up on all your lead magnets (if not, you’ll definitely want to join us for the July Get it Done Week!)? Do you have evergreen sales funnels set up? No? Well it’s time. I’m excited to see Rachel implement these strategies and truly maximize the potential of every new connection!

Reader Questions

Each month, I feature one question about online business from a reader. Submit your question in the comments and I’ll answer one next month!