The 20-Email Funnel They Used to Sell $3 Million in Courses

Ship 30 for 30 is a writing cohort course run by Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush.

In a recent tweet, Nicolas writes…

After 19 cohorts of Ship 30, over 10,000 students enrolled, and millions of dollars generated in revenue, we’ve learned something about email marketing.

Looks like the course was initially priced at $199-$249 back in 2021. and has since increased to $750.

If we take the average price as $300, at 10K students that = $3 million in revenue.

Nicolas shared in that tweet “how many emails it takes for someone to buy” the course…

On average, it’s nearly 20 emails!

Sometimes more.

This is something we REALLY didn’t understand when we first launched Ship 30 for 30, and we fell into the same trap a lot of creators do:

“If I send too many emails, people are going to see it as spammy. They’ll unsubscribe. They’ll never buy anything from me!”

He goes on to break down their “20-Email Strategy”…

If you are about to launch a digital product, a cohort-based course, a book, a consulting or group coaching offer…

Or, if you have a product/service for sale and want to know how to increase sales…

Here’s a 2-part strategy anyone can implement.

– The first part is 100% education.
– And the second part is 100% sales.

The first part = 10 emails aimed to educate…

– Show the customer you are the right person to help them.
– Remind them you have a product/service for sale.

These emails should be 99% free value + 1% “Oh, by the way, you can sign up here” CTA at the end.

Except for the very first email—which sets the frame for what your offer is.

The second part = 10 emails aimed to sell…

The second part of this 20-email sequence are emails intended to do the opposite of the first 10 emails.

You’ve given them a TON of free value. So here, you SHOULD hard pitch people on your list.

And the goal should be:

– Buy
– Or Unsubscribe

You do not want people sitting on your list doing nothing.

Check out the tweet for a breakdown of each email in the sequence. 

Last words from Nicolas…

That’s a lot of emails!

But that’s the point. (One of our favorite quotes, I think Hormozi said it, is “People need to be reminded more than they need to be told.”)

If you aren’t willing to go through the effort to build a 20-email sequence educating and empowering customers to take action with you, then don’t be surprised when your sales are what they are.

However, it’s worth noting that they were using a 6-email sequence before, and that was apparently good enough to earn them 7 figures.

So don’t feel like you need to create a 20-email funnel right out of the gate. 

Start simple and evolve over time.