Inbox Insider #29 - August 17, 2025

Welcome to Issue #29 of "Inbox Insiders": Your Email List-Building Backstage Pass

In this issue:

1. By the Numbers: What worked and what didn't
2. Deep Dive: It's working
3. Up Next: What I'm working on this week

Welcome to Issue #29

"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: 15,783 (last week: 15,657)
• Added last week (net): 160 (last week: 120)
• 5* Subscribers (engaged in the last 30 days): 9,583 (last week: 9,072)

My Ad Account - Lead Magnets:

• Ad Spend: $664 (last week: $623)
• Gross Leads from FB: 411 (last week: 356)
• Cost per lead: $1.62 (last week: $1.75)
• Assessment: I have five lead magnet campaigns going now, and they're all working well.

Instagram (@emailschool): Started Feb 1st

• Total Subscribers: 505 (+13 this week)
• Assessment: I only posted 3x this week. Clearly, I don't have a rhythm or strategy, but it's nice to be over 500 followers now.

​Email School (Email-Focused Membership):

1. Paying Members: 260 (+2 from last week)
2. Monthly Recurring Revenue: $5,481 (+$98/mo from last week)
3. Assessment: I got 2 new members last week through Skool discovery (meaning Skool sent me new members).

Other Audiences:

• ​LinkedIn Newsletter: (164 subscribers; +2 this week)
• ​YouTube: 693 (+25 this week)

Deep Dive: It's working.

A buddy of mine, Chris, had me speak to his coaching group on Friday.

I crushed it (naturally)...

But the most profound thing that happened was during the intro.

Chris was chatting with his members about this time of year.

That the summer is kinda like racing, where you slow down to make the turn...

But now, you accelerate out of the turn into the straightaway.

I know what he means.

In round 2 of entrepreneurship, September has been my most profitable month of the year.

I definitely slowed down this summer to reevaluate every part of my business.

And August is off to a great start.

Hopefully? September will be a record breaker.

WHAT CHANGED

There are 3 phases of growing a business:

• Attract (bring people to you)
• Convert (sell them stuff)
• Deliver (fulfill what you sell)

For years, my attraction consisted of ads -> email list.

No organic. No networking.

My conversion methods were workshops and bootcamps.

And delivery was via memberships, coaching, and cohorts

And it worked to an extent. I've built a $30-50K month 1-man business.

But, there's more:

1. Use YouTube to build a different audience
2. Use YouTube to warm people up faster

My mentor, Taki, (same dude who teaches the "attract, conver, deliver" model)...

Says that people don't become customers because of "time on list". Rather, it's "time on brand."

In other words, "how many minutes of you do people consume when they join your list?"

If I send a daily email, which takes 1 min to read, then it would take 30 days to get 30 minutes on brand.

Compared to bingeable long- or short-form content, where they might do that in an afternoon.

Make sense?

YouTube (so far)

I uploaded 2 videos:

1. This 52-minute full course on list building
2. This 6-minute video called "The Only Email Marketing Strategy You’ll Actually Stick With (Even on Vacation)"

I'm going to upload at least 1 long video per week.

So far, the videos have grown my channel by 25 people in 1 week (small numbers, but imagine that at scale?)

No, I haven't made a million dollars yet.

I don't think I've made any sales yet.

But, I've gotten a lot of people downloading my workbook, which I give away in Video #1:

And, I was doing some troubleshooting in a membership I'm in, and she sent me this message:

So...

It's working.

People are watching, downloading the lead magnet, and implementing.

The Plan

I'm uploading an 8-video series to "train" the algorithm on what my channel is about.

I'll upload 1-2 per week until those original eight are done.

Then, I'll update my email welcome series to weave in the content.

Then I'll be uploading 1-2 new videos a week for a year to build the YouTube brand.

My goal is also 1-3 Reels per week, highlighting the YouTube content.

I'm less clear on the IG part, but I will commit to YouTube.

No exceptions.

Can't wait to see how it filters down into my conversions.

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading.

~ Cody

What's Next:

1. There are 2 more spots in the September cohort of "The Growth Engine" where I build out your sales-making system for you. Reply "Growth" and I'll get you the details.
2. Here's my newest YouTube video on how my daily email machine works.

Thanks for reading this issue of "Inbox Insiders."

See you next week,

~ Cody

​

​

​

​

​

​