This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase.
Let’s be honest, the first week postpartum is pretty much a whirlwind.
Labor is exhausting, you aren’t sleeping, and you feel like you got run over by a truck.
Accomplishing much other than surviving that first week is unlikely, – but in my first week postpartum I launched a sale that brought in $2.5k in course sales. $2,703 to be exact.
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So, how did I pull it off?
I’ll be honest I didn’t plan for this sale to happen right as I had my baby, but that is how the cookie crumbled.
My little girl decided to come almost three weeks early, right as I was launching the one-year anniversary sale for my course Pin to Profits: Affiliate Marketing.
The sale launched the morning of 9/20 and I checked in to Labor and Delivery at 9:00 PM that same night. We welcomed our sweet girl early in the morning on the 21st.
Understandably, I was away from work most of that week (I didn’t even bring my laptop to the hospital), but there were systems in place that allowed for the course sales to keep coming in – while I was up all night with my cuddly newborn.
Creating Your Own Product
When you’ve created your own product you have control over how and when you promote it!
With sponsorships and affiliate marketing, you have to wait around until you have a scheduled promotion – which may not fit in with your life or when you need an influx of cash from a sale.
Having your own product gives you creative control!
There are lots of different products you can create and sell on your blog.
There are courses, ebooks, printables, stock photos, physical products, services, etc.
I am partial to courses and ebooks but you really can sell anything, just keep in mind the time commitment and how passive it is.
Obviously, I couldn’t have had sale and fulfilled a bunch of orders for a physical handmade product or taken on multiple coaching clients in my first week postpartum. It just wouldn’t have been possible, but with digital products? No problem!
I use Teachable to host my courses and ebooks. It is a platform that made the entire process super simple. They process my payments, host the materials, have a built-in affiliate program (and payout the affiliates for me!), etc.
If you are thinking of creating an online course I’ve created a free mega-guide including all of the tools and resources I use to create my online courses.
Read: The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Online Course.
Email List
Once you have a product you need a way to share it with potential buyers. Building an email list is crucial. I’ve been building my email list on Moms Make Cents for two years now and now have just shy of 20k subscribers.
However, I have my email list segmented with ConvertKit so for this promotion I shared it with about 12k.
Your email list is one of your biggest assets. Whether you are promoting your own products, affiliate products or doing sponsored posts with brands this is a SUPER powerful way to reach your audience.
If you haven’t started your email list yet do it now!
ConvertKit has put together an awesome free webinar all about how to get your first 1,000 email subscribers to get you started!
Click here to learn the 3 Steps to Your First 1,000 subscribers >>
I’ve been with ConvertKit for two years now and can’t sing their praises enough.
Here are a more few resources on starting and building your email list:
Why You Need An Email List + How To Start One
The Beginner’s Guide To ConvertKit
How To Use A Free Email Course To Build Your Email List And Make Sales On Autopilot
A look at the sales emails:
I always find it helpful when I can see the exact process that someone used to achieve their results so I thought I’d share the emails and how it corresponded with the sales that came in.
Email #1: Launch Sale – Make Announcement
This email I kept it pretty basic, I announced the sale, provided social proof by stating how over 500 students had already enrolled in the course and outlined what was included. This showed the value and allowed the reader to determine if it was something that would be helpful to them.
Day one revenue: $535
In between email #1 and email #2 there were a couple of sales that came in. But the majority of the sales happened at the beginning of the sale and then at the very end of the sale. This is pretty typical of an online promotion.
Email #2: Social Proof + Bonus
In Email #2 I built up more social proof by sharing what other students were saying and the excitement that was buzzing around the sale. Excitement is contagious! Excitement begets more excitement leading to more sales!
In this email, I also answered some of the FAQ’s and featured the bonus that is included with the course.
This email included a Motion Mail timer which creates urgency and reminds the reader that this is a limited time offer.
Day 3 Revenue: $111
Email #3: Last Call
I like to keep my last call emails short and sweet. This is just a reminder that if they want the deal it is their last chance to get it. I sent this email about 8 hours before the sale ended.
Sales had already ramped up before I sent out this email since people had already seen the previous two emails which included the end date and time. This email, although it is short, can be one of the most powerful.
This email is the last reminder for those that planned to buy but had just forgotten and is the tipping point for those that are on the fence.
2nd to last day: $716
Last day: $814
The total revenue for the sale was $2,703.
The majority of this revenue came from my Pin to Profits: Affiliate Marketing course which was on sale for $37. (I have super reasonable prices on my courses, and these price points are realistic if you are selling in a business to business niche or in a business to consumer niche).
However, there was one thing that I did that brought in about $500 more in sales.
Using Upsells To Increase Revenue
When someone purchased the Pin to Profits: Affiliate Marketing course after they completed their order they were then offered to upgrade to my full five-course Pinterest bundle at a discount.
This added on about $100 in revenue for every student that took the offer. This literally required no extra work from me and brought in extra money to chip away at all those hospital bills that will be coming 😉
If you haven’t tried an upsell before it can be a great way to increase your revenue!
All in all, once I scheduled my emails in ConvertKit this sale ran on auto-pilot. When I got home from the hospital I responded to a few customer service related questions and inquiries from interested students, but that was it!
If you want to hear more about how I kept passive income coming in during a really challenging pregnancy I outlined the five most important pieces of my passive income strategy in this post.
What passive income systems have you set up in your business?
