Inbox Insider #15 - Sun May 11, 2025

Welcome to Issue #15 of "Inbox Insiders": Your Email List-Building Backstage Pass

In this issue:

By The Numbers: What worked and what didn't
Deep Dive: Splashes and Ripples
Up Next: What I'm working on this week

Welcome to Issue #15

"Inbox Insider" is my Sunday newsletter sharing the behind-the-scenes of what I'm doing to grow my email list to 100,000.

I share what works, what doesn't, and how I'm growing.

Thanks for reading.

Let's dive in:

By The Numbers:

My Email List

Total Subscribers: 16,157 (last week 16,012)
Added last week (net): 190 (last week: 290)
5* Subscribers (engaged in the last 30 days): 8,462 (last week: 9,259)
Assessment: I'm curious if my 5 star subs really dropped by 700? I mean, I just wrapped up a promo, so I'd assume it turned a few folks off. Let's see if I can win them back.

My Ad Account - Lead Magnets:

Ad Spend: $753 (last week: $792)
Gross Leads from FB: 382 (last week: 329)
Cost per lead: $1.97 (last week $2.41)
Assessment: Nice to see the CPL come down with my new lead magnet (started 2 weeks ago).

Instagram (@emailschool): Started Feb 1st

Total Subscribers: 426 (+8 this week)
Assessment: I'm running ads from this profile now; so the growth has been mainly from ads.

Email School (Email-Focused Membership):

Paying Members: 232 (-5 from last week)
Monthly Recurring Revenue: $4,236 (down $107/mo from last week)
Assessment: I'm gearing up for a big promo in July. Might do a small one in June.

Other Audiences:

LinkedIn Newsletter: (121 subscribers; +1 this week)
Threads: 21 followers (+0 this week)
YouTube: 639 (+6 this week)

Deep Dive: Step Away From The Buffet

When I first started my business in 2017, I tried everything.

It was like I had never had food before...

And I pulled up to a Golden Corral.

Shrimp scampi? Sure.

Chicken fried steak? OK.

Fried rice? I'll try it.

I tried it all.

In business:

I build membership sites
I made lead magnets
I setup CRMs
I handled launches
I hosted events
I started a membership
VIP Days
High ticket coaching
Low ticket coaching
Books
Podcast

And so on...

Every marketing method.

Every traffic source.

Every fulfillment method.

I did it all.

BUFFET QUALITY MARKETING

Unless you're 5 years old, buffet food is kinda gross.

You get a sense of what steak should taste like, but it's no Mastro's.

You get a vibe for sushi, but it's no Nobu.

You're more likely to get a tummy ache than get great cuisine.

But...

When you find food you like, step away from the buffet.

"THE USUAL, MR. BURCH? RIGHT THIS WAY..."

If you're still going to the buffet after finding something you like, you're doing it wrong.

If you have your own parking spot, your own table, and everyone knows your name...

Time to move away.

Like steak?

Time to go to the steakhouse.

HOW TO SORT YOUR OFFERS

There are 3 things to look for when you're making offers:

Easy to sell: low friction, easy to sell without a lot of convincing
Easy to buy: solves a clear, known problem in the marketplace
Easy to fulfill: scalable delivery

Honestly? I never really got it dialed in during my first stint as an entrepreneur.

I sold high-ticket coaching (easy to deliver) but via live events (hard to sell).

DFY Ads were easy to sell (people wanted them) but super hard to fulfill.

2ND CHANCE

When I came back online in Jan '23, I created my rules of engagement:

No retainers
No standing meetings
Optimize for freedom

OFFER ONE: GADGET WORKSHOP

While I was plotting my reemergence into the online world, I hosted some mini workshops.

1 a month for 3 months.

I taught Email Marketing, List Building, and then Storytelling.

Every time I got 20-40 tickets sold, and I made a few thousand bucks.

From there, people bought other stuff.

Easy to sell, easy to deliver, easy to buy.

OFFER TWO: VIP DAYS

I don't do these much anymore, but I'm thinking of bringing them back...

I made myself available for the day.

I was like the rentable pickup truck from the hardware store: you have me for the day. Do as you will.

My sweet spot price point was $2,500 which isn't terrible for ~6 hours of work.

Easy to sell (people got a huge project checked off their to-do list), and simple to deliver (a pre-day intake call, deliver value on the day of, wrap up by 3pm or so).

OFFER THREE: LEVERAGED DELIVERY

When my parents and I went to Italy last year, we did a few guided tours.

The biggest one was a Colosseum tour in Rome.

We met up at the waypoint, with a group, paid a few hundred bucks per person, and spent a few hours getting shown around.

There were probably 20 people in our group, so our little group was worth 20x$200 = $4,000 to the tour company.

For me, this takes a few forms.

Memberships: I have ~250 people in Email School. It's super leveraged. I have another membership with 96 people in it.
Coaching Group: I have ~23 people in a higher-ticket coaching group. There's a little 1:1, but the main value is in the group and how it's structured.
Cohort: 3-4x a year, I open up a small group cohort for 8 weeks.

Each of these types of offers has leverage.

The "actual revenue per hour" is high... meaning if it takes me 5 hours to deliver value in Email School for a month, that's about $1000 per hour.

Compare that to VIP Days, which were more like $300-400 per hour.

And each of those three types of offers disproportionately scales.

If I 5x'ed any of those types of offers, it wouldn't be 5x the workload.

The workload would only incrementally increase, but the revenue would skyrocket.

ACTION STEP

Once you find something you like at the buffet, step away.

Then, go all in.

Get the best cut of meat.

Order the good wine.

Splurge for the butter cake.

Leave the Jell-o Pudding behind.

Thanks for reading.

~ Cody

What's Next:

Here's what's on my radar this week:

I'm gearing up for another "Super Flash Sale" kicking off in a week. More details next Sunday.
Want one of the coaching spots when it reopens in June? Reply with "COACHING" in the subject line, and I'll get you the details.

Thanks for reading this issue of "Inbox Insiders."

See you next week,