How This College Professor Writes One Email Per Day, And Makes Over $1 Million Per Month With Her Email Side Hustle... 🤯

Yesterday I read an article that blew my mind about a woman named Heather who has ZERO internet marketing experience…

In fact, she’s a history professor at Boston College.

And yet, she’s making over $1MM per month online just writing one email per day…

Here’s her story, and what you can learn from it…

In 2019, she decided to start an email newsletter sharing her opinions how historical events of the past are repeating here today…

Unfortunately she’s a socialist liberal who literally thinks Trump is Hitler. I disagree with everything she says or stands for, but that’s beside the point…

Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about turning all of my focus towards building an email newsletter-based business where I can talk about all of the things I’m passionate about.

I love writing emails. I love the simplicity this model offers, and what Heather’s done is incredibly valuable to me as a case-study to learn from, so let’s dive in…

Through word-of-mouth, Facebook, and Twitter posts, here newsletter has grown to more than 1.7 million subscribers in 60 months… 

She writes an email every day, 5 days per week.

This is her entire website and capture page:

There’s nothing else on the page.

As I’ve always taught my marketing students, the purpose of a capture page is to force people to choose from two options: Opt-in, or leave. And that’s exactly what this page does.

Once you opt-in, you’re offered an “upsell” option to become a paid subscriber for $5/Mo, or $50/yr, or you can keep your free access.

Paid subscribers get access to additional subscriber-only posts, the archive, and the ability to make comments on her posts which is the primary attraction for her passionate audience.

As you can see below, she currently has at least 200,000 paid subscribers, which means she’s making at least $1,000,000 per month…

And all without sponsors or running ads which is pretty incredible…

So Here Are My Take-Aways From This Case-Study…

1: Keep things simple. When it comes to marketing, saying less is often more effective because it allows people to make a decision quickly, instead of getting lost in research or decision making…

It comes down to a single decision point… “You in or out?”

2: Find a passionate audience that already agrees with you and sees the world the same way you do. Then simply talk about the things you have in common.

Heather is a progressive liberal professor who thinks Trump is Hitler and that conservatives are destroying America.

Fine… It is what it is.

But there are powerful marketing lessons here, and the primary one is that it pays (literally), to plant your flag and choose your audience when they are incredibly passionate about a topic that’s a part of their very identity.

The two most passion-based topics in the world? Politics and religion.

When I looked at the comments left by her community on her previous posts, they’re all from other equally brain-washed people...

They/them/zir/zer/cat/burrito, are all passionate about their views, and that passion is what inspires people to share her emails or posts with their friends and family members…

As you can see here, a post she made a few days ago has been shared 868 times.

People who share her views forward her emails to their friends and say, “look! Orange Man bad just like we thought, because the smart lady says so too!”

So what are people actually “buying” here when they join her newsletter?

They are buying validation, camaraderie, and the ability to have a voice in a tribe.  

Being willing to stand up for what you believe in and share it fearlessly with the world attracts your tribe, just like Trump has attracted his.

3: You don’t need to build a complicated online business if you’re willing to grow organically.

Heather’s traffic is free. She’s not using paid ads so she doesn’t need complicated funnels, or to even understand “internet marketing”.

And she’s been able to grow organically because she’s been employed and continues to be.

This was a side-hustle for her which means she didn’t need grow fast to pay her bills.

She didn’t even set out to make money or build a business.

She set out to share her passion. As a result of this, she can spend 100% of her time delivering her product, and 0% of her time on marketing.

Because that financial pressure wasn’t there, the business could grow naturally and organically which is always the best option because it allows you to take a product-first approach.

With that being said, I think you could replicate this entire funnel/strategy, and use some of the online marketing strategies our industry has mastered to replicate her level of growth, in a fraction of the time.

For example… Offering one or two high-value, low cost upsells like an E-book, or would allow you to instantly start to use paid ads, which would dramatically increase the speed of growth.

Offering an incentive such as a free coffee mug when you join at a premium level would also increase conversion rates…

So there’s a lot of valuable take-aways here that I’ve added to my personal notes.

With that being said, if you go to her page to study the funnel, please don’t get sucked into her world.

It’s all about division, hate, finger pointing, and a complete disconnection from reality. Unsubscribe, or you’ll catch the liberal mind-virus and end up with 6 boosters, and driving your wife’s boyfriend to his Spartan race in your new Toyota Prius. 😬

Sincerely,

Mike Dillard ✞
Follow me on Instagram