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Building an Email List and Earning: My $150 Journey

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Chapter 1: The Comeback of Email Marketing

Email marketing has resurged as a powerful tool for businesses. As Dylan from growthcurrency.net noted, “Skip the blog; start a newsletter.” Platforms like Medium have integrated subscription options, and Twitter has incorporated newsletters through Revue. Even LinkedIn has added a newsletter feature, illustrating that email is not just relevant—it's thriving once again.

The reason behind this revival is straightforward: ownership of your audience. By cultivating a mailing list, you can transfer it across different platforms, ensuring you're not reliant on a single service that may become obsolete or less effective. This independence allows you to create and share content, promote digital products, or simply communicate with your audience without limitations.

Email marketing resurgence

Section 1.1: Monetizing Your Email List

You may wonder how to profit from your email list. Initially, these lists serve as free marketing tools. However, there are several monetization strategies, including:

  • Subscription services (like Substack or Revue)
  • A mix of free and premium content
  • Affiliate marketing and targeted advertising within your emails

These methods may not be practical for newcomers, as building trust takes time. Hence, your primary objective should be to expand your list by providing valuable content regularly, whether that's daily, bi-weekly, or weekly.

Subsection 1.1.1: The Challenge of Growth

The challenge lies in the fact that growing an email list demands significant time and effort before yielding any financial return.

Section 1.2: A New Approach to Email Growth

Instead of focusing solely on building your email list, consider setting a different goal that simultaneously enhances your list. For instance, I launched a newsletter on Substack, but soon realized it consumed my limited free time without much payoff. After a few subscribers and minimal engagement, I abandoned that route.

Chapter 2: My $150 Success Story

The first video showcases my experience with Topstep, where I passed the $150K mark and completed my first withdrawal.

In late 2020, I opened a shop on Gumroad, offering free products—specifically, iOS app icons designed for enhancing the iPhone home screen experience. Initially attempting to sell them proved futile due to market saturation, leading me to offer them for free instead. I assumed this would result in no revenue, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Free products driving engagement

The Impact of Free Offerings

Offering free products served two purposes: it established my brand and significantly increased visibility. Who can resist free offerings, especially when they would typically cost between $5 and $50 elsewhere?

The Unexpected Benefit

The most significant advantage of providing these free items was the rapid growth of my email list, which exploded to over 1800 subscribers within a year.

How Did I Earn $150?

I provided these products for free but included an option for users to tip me. Surprisingly, this approach yielded $150 while I expanded my email list—all from just one day of work creating the icon sets.

The Bottom Line

The key takeaway is: avoid starting an email list for its own sake. Instead, leverage the work you already do to naturally grow your list. Whether through Medium posts or by utilizing a skill to offer products or services, you can passively build your email audience without starting from scratch.

I’m not an expert; I learn through experience and share my insights, including my failures. This journey allowed me to grow an email list that is six times larger than my Medium followers, while also earning some income.

A special thanks to Mike Lewis for inspiring the title of this post based on a previous discussion.

P.S.: If you want to stay updated with my insights, subscribe here! Also, consider supporting writers on Medium by signing up for a membership for just $5 a month. It helps us immensely, and you might even earn from your writing. When I started, I made $3000 in six months. By using my link, you’ll support my work at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

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