Your Email List Isn’t Making Money? Check These 4 Things First

Okay, so I wanna tell you something that might shock you, but I think is a little bit ridiculous. As online business owners, we spend so much time trying to get people onto our email lists. We're creating freebies, we're pitching podcasts, contributing to bundles, running ads, hosting events.

We are doing all the things. And then when somebody finally subscribes, we're like, "Yay, another subscriber." And then what? We send them their freebie, maybe a welcome email, and then they just sort of join the crowd, and we cross our fingers that eventually they're gonna buy something. Which, when you say it out loud, sounds like a pretty terrible business strategy, right? I'm not wrong, am I?

But here's what I've been thinking about lately. What if the problem isn't that you need more subscribers? What if the problem is that you haven't actually built a system for turning those subscribers into customers?

So what I thought I'd do today is speak to the listener that might have an email list, even if it's a small one, and it's not making any money. There are four things that I would investigate before I spent another dollar or more time trying to grow the list, if that is you. That is what we're talking about today. Let's jump into it.

Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don't involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to The Email Growth Show. I'm your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years, and the same is possible for you too. Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let's head into today's episode.

Hey, hey, welcome back to The Email Growth Show. I am so excited that you're joining me. Now, full disclosure, I am recording this a little bit ahead of time. I know, it's so unlike me, but I have a good reason, because when you're listening to this, I'm actually away at a business conference.

And I have to say, there is something really satisfying about knowing that your podcast is scheduled, your emails are ready, and your business can keep doing its thing while you're off doing something else, right? Which actually is quite relevant to what I wanna talk about today because, you might not know this, but my word for 2026 was systems.

Let's be real. It's November, and I actually have put a lot of systems into play this year thanks to my AI head office, which I can do another episode on if you guys are interested. Just let me know. So I have actually put a lot of systems into place, and because of that word of the year, I've spent a lot of time thinking about systems.

And again, it doesn't need to be a complicated 47-automation, colour-coded flow chart kinda thing. Although I do love anything colour-coded. Today I wanted to talk about having the right things in place so that your business isn't relying on you remembering to do absolutely everything. And specifically, email marketing.

With everyone that's in my orbit, in my Skool community, on my list, listening to the podcast, anyone that I chat to, I see something that happens over and over and over again. And this might be you.

You work really hard to grow your email list. You've got a lead magnet, you've got a newsletter, you might have really good open rates, and yet when I ask how much money their email list is making, they don't really know, or they tell me that they're not making any sales. And their instinct is usually, "Oh, I need to grow my email list."

Now look, sometimes that is absolutely true. If you've got 30 people on your list and you want to make 10K every month from email marketing, we probably need to have a conversation about audience growth, right? But what if you've got 500 subscribers, or 1,000, or 2,000, or 5,000, or 10,000? What if you've spent years building an audience, but you haven't really thought about what happens between somebody subscribing and somebody buying?

Because I think we've made email list growth the goal, and shockingly, I don't think it's that simple. The goal isn't to collect email addresses. The goal is to build relationships with the right people and create a f*cking business that makes money. Your email list is one of the tools that helps you do that.

And I think it's really important that we remember this, especially because there is so much advice out there telling us to grow, grow, grow. More subscribers, more followers, more traffic, more leads. And let's be real, I love audience growth, obviously. It's literally what I teach. But I don't want you to get so caught up in growing your audience, growing your email list, that you forget to build the part of your business that actually serves and sells to that audience.

So today I want to walk you through the four things that I would look at if I wanted my email list to make more money, and I want you to think about each of these for your own business as we go. Because my guess is that you don't need to fix all four. You probably just need to fix one or two, and identifying those could make a much bigger difference than creating another free resource.

Number one:what happens the moment someone joins your list?

So let's start at the very beginning. Someone discovers you. Maybe they've heard you on a podcast, maybe they found you through a bundle, they've clicked an ad, someone's recommended you, whatever it is. They like what they see, they sign up and download your free resource, and they join your email list. Goal. That's what we want, right?

But then what happens? Because I think we spend so much time thinking about the opt-in that we sometimes forget about the experience that comes directly afterwards.

Here's an example. Imagine that you have met somebody at a networking event. You've had a lovely conversation, you've exchanged details, and then they send you a link to something that they promised, and then that's it. You never really hear anything about what they do. You don't know how they help people. You don't know what they sell. You probably forgot about the conversation, right? Let's be real. You go home, start tending to the kids, and what they said in the conversation probably gets a little fuzzy.

You don't know where to go next. You just get occasional emails from them now talking about random things. Now, would you automatically know when or why you should hire them? Probably not. And yet, I think that's essentially what we're doing a lot with our email marketing.

We spend all this time getting people onto our email lists, but we don't really introduce them to our business. We assume that because they've downloaded the free resource, they understand what we do, but they might not. And this is especially true if you're growing your list through collaborations, because think about someone who's just signed up for a bundle.

They probably downloaded 15 f*cking resources, right? They've got emails coming out of the wazoo from all sorts of people. They might not even remember which freebie or resource was yours by the time your next newsletter arrives. That's not because they're a freebie seeker. I think you guys all know how I feel about the term freebie seeker. Not a fan. It's just because they're a human being with a life, right? So you need to help them understand who you are and why they should keep paying attention.

And this is why I am such a fan of having a really good start here email. Now, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I don't teach those enormous welcome sequences anymore. You know the ones. Email one is like, "Welcome to my world," and then email two is, "Here's my life story," and then email three, "Here's my favourite coffee order," and then email four, "Here's my childhood trauma," and then email five is, "Would you like to buy something?"

I'm exaggerating a little bit there, but they are so drawn out, and they are so not needed anymore, especially when we're thinking about our subscriber that has a life, that probably has a short attention span, right? Like you and I.

So again, I don't think every new subscriber needs to go through five or seven or 10 emails before they can just join your regular newsletter. I use one start here email. It gives people a proper introduction to me and my business, it helps them understand what I do, it points them towards the resources that are most relevant to them, and it gives them a way to explore the next step if they're interested.

Then I send a little follow-up a few hours later to check whether they got what they signed up for. That is it. And I think the beauty of this approach is that it respects people's time. They can choose what they want to explore. They don't have to wait three weeks for me to finish telling them my story before they can find out how I can help them.

Now, I'm not saying that you can never use a longer welcome sequence. There are situations where that might make sense. But I want you to be super intentional about it. Don't spend your time creating seven emails just because somebody on the internet told you that seven is a magic number. Think about what your subscribers actually need and actually have time for.

So again, if I wanted my email list to make more money, this would be the first place I would look. I would actually subscribe to my own email list. If you haven't done this already, you're missing a trick. Actually go and subscribe to your own email list. Go through the experience and ask yourself, "Does this make sense? Do I know what this business does? Do I know what I can buy? Is there a clear next step?" Because if the answer is no, that is a really obvious place to start improving things.

Now, if you want a template for my start here email, you can go and grab that. Simply type into your browser kyliekelly.com/start, and that will take you straight to an opt-in so you can grab the template of what I use.

Number two:are you building a relationship or are you just sending emails?

The second thing that I would look at is what happens after that initial introduction, right? Because this is where your regular emails come in. And I think this is the part of email marketing that people either massively overcomplicate or completely underestimate. They think every email needs to be this perfectly crafted piece of content. Something educational, maybe an inspirational story, something with a clever hook and a big takeaway.

And look, I love a good story, you know that, but sometimes the best emails are actually really f*cking simple. A question. Maybe a little behind-the-scenes observation, maybe something you've noticed working with a client. Maybe it's like three sentences. Maybe it's a mistake you've made recently, or a lesson you've learned, or an opinion you have that might be a little bit different from what everybody else is saying.

And here's what I want you to think about. Are your emails helping people understand how you think? Because that's one of the most valuable things an email can do. When somebody reads my emails over time, I want them to understand that I believe in building an audience you own, that I love collaborations, that I think relationships matter more than vanity metrics, that I don't believe you need to create a new offer every five f*cking minutes, that I want a business to feel sustainable.

Those beliefs come through in my emails, not because I'm sitting here thinking, "Oh, today I need to communicate brand value number three." Do you remember those pillars? They might still be a thing, but I remember when I was getting started back in 2020, when I pivoted from wedding photography into an online business, brand pillars were the thing. You had to have your brand pillars that you cycled through. F*cking hell. I could never stick to that.

For anyone that doesn't like rigid things like that, you don't need to have this brand pillar step by step, right? You just need to be thinking, "Is this email helping people understand how I think?" That is it.

And the beauty with this is that over time, people start to understand your approach, your thinking. They know the things that you genuinely care about. So when you eventually make an offer, it's not coming out of nowhere. It's not coming out of the blue. They already have some context. They understand what I believe. They know how I think. They can decide whether that approach is right for them or not.

That's what good email nurturing does. It literally just makes them more familiar with you. It builds trust. It helps people make informed decisions.

But I actually want you to look at your actual engagement, not just your open rates. Open rates are useful, but we know they're not the whole story. Instead, I want you to think about: what are people replying to? What links are they clicking? What questions are they asking? Which emails are starting conversations?

Now, we talked a lot about this in last week's guest episode with Tracy Beavers. If you haven't listened to it, go back and listen. It's a really refreshing chat about 2026, I think. But one of the things that she always talks about is that as somebody moves through your customer journey, you should be starting conversations. It's as simple as that. You start a conversation, you then get to learn what they need, you then get to offer a solution. Bada bing, bada boom. That is making a sale, right? That's as easy as it gets.

When you start to pay attention to engagement, those things can tell you a lot about what your audience actually cares about. And sometimes the email that you spend 20 minutes writing is gonna create more connection than the one that you spent three hours making perfect.

Ask me how I know. You guys all know I'm a perfectionist, right? I used to say recovering perfectionist, but let's be real, I'm still a perfectionist down to the wire. I used to spend so much time agonising over the colour of a f*cking button, or the length of a sentence. It used to take me ages to make every email perfect, making sure the story flowed, the lesson was clear, editing every sentence.

Now some of my favourite emails are the ones where I've just sat down and shared something that's on my mind. There's probably spelling mistakes. I've probably voice noted it using Wispr Flow in the car park of the school pickup line. It's rough and ready, but it sounds like me, and people connect with that.

So if I was trying to make more money from my list, I would ask myself whether my emails are actually building the kind of relationship that makes somebody want to work with me, not whether I'm just ticking the box of sending something every week.

Number three:are you actually giving people opportunities to buy?

I talk about this a lot because this is where we get a little bit uncomfortable, but this is where a lot of business owners are leaving money on the table. They're doing the nurturing, they're sending lovely emails, they're sharing helpful resources, they're getting replies, and people genuinely enjoy hearing from them. But when you look at the last month of emails, they have not really sold anything.

And I know I've spoken about this before, but I want to come at it from a slightly different angle today, because I think we've accidentally made selling this big event, right? We nurture, nurture, nurture, and then suddenly we switch into sales mode. We announce a launch, we send a bunch of promotional emails, we close the cart, and then we go back to nurturing for another three months.

And there's nothing wrong with launching. I love a good launch, as you guys know. I did an episode a few weeks ago about how I've been experimenting with shorter three-day launches, which I'm obsessed with. I love the dopamine I get from a good launch.

But what if selling was just a normal part of your email rhythm? What if people regularly heard about the ways that they could work with you? Not in an aggressive way, not in a way that makes every email feel like a pitch, but in a way that makes your offers visible.

Because again, we need to remember your audience isn't thinking about your business as much as you are. You might feel like you've talked about your offer a thousand times, that you're bored of it, that you're sick of writing about it, that you assume everyone knows it exists.

But somebody who joined your list two weeks ago might have never heard about it. Somebody who's been subscribed for six months might have only seen it once and forgotten about it. Somebody who wasn't interested in August might be very interested in November because their circumstances have changed.

So if I wanted my email list to make more money, which is the whole point of this episode, I would look at how often I'm making actual offers. I would pull up my last four weeks of emails. I would count them. I would ask myself, how many times did I clearly invite somebody to buy something? And again, not a tiny link buried at the bottom, not a vague, "Just reply if you need help." An actual f*cking offer. Here's what I have, here's who it's for, here's how it helps, and here's where you can buy it.

And if I hadn't been doing that regularly, I would start there. Because you can't expect people to buy something that they do not know exists, and you also can't expect them to remember every offer you've ever mentioned.

And I think we have to stop treating sales emails like they're something to apologise for. Because if you genuinely believe that your offer can f*cking help someone, and I know you do, I know you listening have got some bloody gold... I sounded so Australian then. But it could really, really, really help someone. Why wouldn't you tell them about it?

You're not forcing them to buy. You are literally giving them an opportunity to solve a problem that they really want solved. And remember, they are perfectly capable of deciding whether it's right for them or not. Let's take the pressure off us as salespeople. Let's just give them the invitation because you wanna help, and leave it in their court as to whether they buy it or not. Let's take all that mind drama away. It's simple. So that's the third thing: making more invitations.

Number four:what happens when someone's interested?

The fourth thing that I would look at is the actual buying experience, because sometimes you've done everything else right. You've got the right people on your list, you're building trust, you're making offers, but people still aren't buying. And this is where I think we need to get curious rather than immediately assuming the offer is wrong.

Because maybe they're interested, but they don't understand the difference between your products. I'm actually a member in Maria Wendt's community. I love Maria. And she just launched a new traffic course. Incredible looking course. Of course, I bought it. I have, like, 16 pages of her things at this point. It's ridiculous.

However, I did notice in her Facebook group, a lot of people were asking, "What's the difference between this and your Instagram course? Do I need the traffic course?" And what stood out to me, which is unusual because she normally nails this, is that the offer wasn't clear. People didn't understand, especially the ones that have bought things in the past, which really is your warmest audience. People didn't understand the difference with this offer.

So again, I want you to be thinking about your things. Do they understand the difference between your products? Maybe they're not sure which one is right for them. Maybe your sales page is confusing. Maybe you've given them six different links and they don't know where to go. Maybe they've got a question that they haven't asked yet. Or perhaps the offer simply isn't right for them. That's possible, too.

And I think this is where, again, your emails can do a lot of the heavy lifting. You can answer objections. You can share examples. You can explain who something is for and who it isn't. Maria's emails could have done that, right? If she'd done a little bit more tee-up content, she could have spoken to the fact that this is different from her other courses.

You can send a hand-raiser email asking whether somebody wants help with a specific problem. You can invite replies. You can actually listen to what people tell you. Because sometimes the most valuable thing you can do isn't write another sales email. It's to find out why people aren't buying. And then you get to address the real issue, not the issue that you've invented in your pretty little head, right?

We often do that. We think we know what the issue is, what's stopping them, what the resistance is, and then they tell us, and we're like, "Oh, that wasn't what I thought it was." We need to ask.

And then there's another piece here, too. What happens after somebody buys? Do they get a good onboarding experience? Are they still being sent emails promoting the product they've just purchased? Are you following up? Are you collecting feedback? Are you learning which emails actually generated the sale? All of that matters. It's not just about getting the sale. It's about creating an experience that works for both your customers and your business.

So, they're the four things that I would investigate. Again: what happens when someone joins your list? What relationship are you building? How often are you making offers? And how easy are you making it for people to buy?

But here's the thing. I don't want you to hear this episode and immediately think, "Holy sh*t, I need to rebuild my entire email marketing system this weekend, because Kylie said so." Please don't. Please don't. I want you to look at what you've already got, because you might be already doing three of these things really well.

Maybe your start here email is brilliant. Maybe your subscribers love hearing from you. Maybe your offers are super clear, but you're only making an invitation to buy once every three months. Then that's the gap. Or maybe you're selling regularly, but the wrong people are on your list. Okay, that's a different problem. It just needs a different solution.

The point isn't to have more moving parts. We keep things simple around here. Do not forget it. We just need the right parts working together.

Now, this is something I'm thinking a lot about as I'm building out a new signature course for you guys. I've been quietly working on something behind the scenes called the Money-Making Email System. I'm really excited about it. It's the biggest email marketing course I've created. It's literally putting all of the pieces together instead of teaching things separately.

The reason that I'm building it isn't because I think people need another 100 videos to watch. We don't have time for that. It's because I wanna help business owners understand how all of these pieces fit together. The foundations, the freebies, the email list growth, the nurturing, the selling, the automations, the numbers. The whole system.

And when thinking about my ideal client, I know that they're time poor, that they're impatient like I am, that they want results yesterday. So I created a fast-track path that somebody could literally do in a weekend, so it's really clear what to do first.

So that's what I've been building. The full course opens December 1st, but I've quietly opened pre-sale access at $297 throughout November. If you're on my list, you've already kind of heard about it. I sent out some hand-raisers this last week, and I'm getting some eyes on it. After November, I'm gonna increase the price to $997. Now, I'm not doing the big announcement just yet. That's coming. But if you're interested, I'll put the details in the show notes so you can go and have a look.

And whether you join it or not, I really want you to take what we've talked about today and look at your own email marketing, because there might be something really obvious that you can just tweak without creating anything new.

So here is your challenge. Before you decide you need more subscribers, before you create a new freebie, before you spend any money on ads, look at what happens to the people who are already joining your list. Are they being introduced to your business? Are you building a relationship? Are you making offers? Are you helping them take the next step?

Because your email list isn't supposed to be a collection of email addresses. It's supposed to be an asset that supports your business, that creates revenue for you to go and f*cking live your life. And I want you to start treating your email list like the asset that it is.

All right, my love. That is it from me this week. Again, if you wanna have a look at the details on the down low for the Money-Making Email System, the link is in the show notes, or you can just go to kyliekelly.com/course and that will direct you there.

I'm really excited for the episode next week. I'm gonna be breaking down five email types that I would send to make more money tomorrow. I think at this time of the year, we have a really beautiful opportunity to make some significant income before the end of the year, and these five different email types are gonna help you do that. So I cannot wait to share that with you. Have a beautiful week, and I will speak to you again next week. All right. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of The Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others. Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their business and make a bigger impact. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.