If this is your first time here you’re probably wondering who I am and if I’m about to blow smoke up your you-know-what.  This site, JennyMelrose.com was launched September 1st, but I have been blogging for almost six years over at the lifestyle site The Melrose Family.  I am an active member of the blogging community and I have forged great friendships and business relationships with other bloggers over the years.  I want to be totally transparent with you so that you fully understand how my first e-Course launch did over 25k in revenue.

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How My First e-Course Launch did Over 25K

Before we dive in I need you to understand that I truly believe that you need two things in order for your business to succeed.  Those are hustle and heart.  There are no overnight sensations that just magically start making an income from their business.  All of your previous experiences have lead up to this point and if you’ve gone through it with hustle and heart then you’ve not only done the work, but your potential customers can see your heart all of it.

You need to start with an idea

This can’t simply be something that you’ve thrown against the wall and thought, “Oooh!  Fairy Godmother, how I wish this would make me a boatload of money and bring me tons of success,”  Your idea has to be something that you are truly passionate about. Something that you could see yourself doing every single day and looking forward to it.  My calling is teaching and helping bloggers who are trying to take their business to the next level for their families and themselves.  I know the struggle all too well.  I’ve had family and friends call me crazy and tease me about my “blogging”.  Let’s just say I like putting it to them and I want to help others do the same!

There are two books that I would recommend reading if you have an idea.  The first is The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.  It will change the way that you look at your “hustle”.  It’ll ask you how productive you really are.  Plus, it’ll teach you how to get more done in less time then you ever thought possible.  The second book is Will it Fly by Pat Flynn.  He walks you through how to test your idea and make sure that it is something that you’re audience is truly looking for.

Once you’ve tested your idea, it’s time to do the work and hustle like you never have before.

Build Your List

Remember in the beginning that I told that I launched my site on September 1st.  Well, that’s of this year as in a little more than 2 months ago and when I did so I didn’t have a list.  I have a list for The Melrose Family, but that audience is not interested in how to work with brands to monetize their influence.  Over the summer I was asked to speak at a blogger conference about Working with Brands and I routinely got messaged on Facebook, sent emails and texts asking questions about how I was making a full time income just off of sponsored posts.  I realized that my fellow bloggers were my audience.  I knew their problems and pain points so well because they had been mine.  So I set out to test my idea like Pat recommends in Will it Fly.  I reached out to 12 bloggers and told them I was putting together a course on Working with Brands.  I told them I would give them 100 dollars off as beta testers and that they would have lifetime access to all updates.  Eight of the twelve jumped on board.  Now it was time to build the course and my list.  In order to my build my list I put a couple strategies into place.

• Create a Challenge

I created a free 10 Day Pitch Perfect Challenge that walked students through who to reach out to and what to say when they reached out to brands about sponsored content.  The challenge was delivered via email over 10 days and it essentially was piece of my course delivered via email rather than video and with multiple pdfs like it is in the course.  I made sure that the challenge was worth their effort and that they walked away feeling accomplished.  I almost let them see how they needed the rest of my course in order to take their sponsored content to the next level.

With the challenge I also offered a private Facebook group, Influencer Entrepreneurs,  where they could ask questions.  That groups is now just shy of 900 members and it is extremely active.  Feel free to join!  At this point some of you might be wondering how I let people know about my challenge since we all know how social media has put a strangle on our reach.  The first is Pinterest, which I’ll talk more about in a bit.  The second is Facebook groups where my target audience hangs out.  Here’s the thing though.  I didn’t go into the groups sharing my challenge in a post unless the admin of the group allowed it.  Instead, I would look through the threads and answer questions where I could.  When something was asked about brands or sponsored posts I gave an answer and also offered up my challenge.  Before I knew it, students of my challenge were tagging me and recommending my challenge unsolicited.  I clearly succeeded on giving them quality content.

• Webinars

In the very early stages of my site I fell upon the podcast and website Femtrepreneur by Mariah Coz.  She recommended doing joint venture webinars where you reached out to others who had a list of your target audience, but your products did not compete. Now remember that I’ve been around for a while and I’ve spoken at multiple conferences so I reached out to a couple of friends and put joint venture webinars into place.  All of the people I reached out to did not have a product that they were launching at this moment so they emailed their list with a link to a landing page {LeadPages} that was connected to my email service {ConvertKit}.  Therefore, when anyone signed up, they went on my list.  In return for helping me build my list, I made my joint venture partners affiliates for my course, which I was able to do because my course is held on Teachable.  Some of my affiliates made thousands of dollars from holding one webinar!

• Guest Post & Contribute

I took advantage of this minimally.  I landed a once a month contributing role over at HollyHomer.com, but other than that I did not take advantage of this enough.  Part of my issue was that I dove into this so quickly.  I needed to do it that way though.  Otherwise, I would have procrastinated like crazy so setting a date was super important for me.  I closed cart Sunday night and I’m already thinking about who I need to reach out to in order to continue to grow my list for the relaunch.

Marketing on a Dime

I mentioned above that I relied heavily on Pinterest in order to market my course.  I didn’t simply set up a pinnable about the course and pin it a million times.  I created content for JennyMelrose.com and HollyHomer.com that easily showed how my 10 Day Challenge was necessary in order for our readers to have success when reaching out to brands.  By creating content with content upgrades {checklists, video training, challenges, etc.} our audiences saw value on the pinnable and jumped on.  Here’s the thing, they saw the freebie right on the pin.  Here’s an example to one: Why You’re NOT Hearing Back from Brands & What to Do about It!  Notice the arrow down at the bottom.  Content upgrade!

My Pinterest strategy also involves specific ways in which I optimize my pins.  I have a cheat sheet for you so be sure to grab it HERE. I also firmly believe in using a scheduling tool for Pinterest and I rely on Tailwind to keep me organized and with pins continually flowing.  I love that I can bulk schedule pins and that I can work with like minded influencers in tribes within Tailwind.  I have a full tutorial on how Tailwind help me increase traffic and engagement HERE.

The Nitty Gritty Numbers

So here are the numbers all laid out.  I launched my site September 1st with zero people on my list and now have just over 1,250.  I had 8 beta testers at $197 per tester so $1,576.  I have 85 students in my Working with Brands program at $297 per students so $25,245, which brings my grand total to $26,821.  I am so grateful and can’t wait to see the amazing opportunities that all of my students end up with.