Why Your Email List Should Be Generating 40% of Your Revenue (And Exactly What To Do If It's Not)

What if I told you that you could add another $10k, $20k per month to your revenue without getting a single new lead, without raising your prices, and without teaching one more class?

Most studio owners are laser-focused on acquisition. You're running ads, posting on Instagram, chasing referrals. And all of that matters. But here's what I keep seeing: studio owners completely ignoring the gold mine sitting right in front of them.

Their email list.

Here's the deal. I want you to walk away from this post knowing one benchmark: 40% of your total revenue should be coming from your email list.

If you make $50k per month, around $20k of that should be coming from email. If you make $30k per month, then $12k should be coming from email.

And I'm going to guess that for most of you, it is nowhere close to that.

Maybe 10%. Maybe 5%. Maybe you genuinely don't know.

Let's say you're making $30k a month and only $3k is coming from email. That means you're leaving $9,000 per month on the table. Which is $108,000 per year that you are not making from an asset you have already done the work to build—and one that you already own.

You already have their email addresses. You already have their trust. You're just not using it.

So let's talk about why.

The Monthly Newsletter Trap

Here's what I see happen constantly. A studio owner has an email list—maybe 500 people, maybe 2,000, maybe 11,000—and they think: I don't want to bother people with too many emails.

So what ends up happening? They send one generic monthly newsletter.

I opened my email on March 1st and found five monthly newsletters from local studios in my area. Each one almost looked exactly the same. Announcing the events and workshops happening that month. Pretty pictures. A Canva graphic or two.

Here's what I did with those emails: I opened them, scrolled through them, and deleted them.

That is what most of your people are doing too.

Because email marketing does not mean sending one monthly newsletter. Email marketing is about actually selling via email. And you might be avoiding that right now because you don't want to be pushy.

That is so common. And the result is that nobody buys, you leave the $108k on the table, and the people who need your help most aren't getting it—because you're not showing up enough.

Announcing Is Not Selling

Let's say you have a workshop coming up. You think, okay, I'll send an email and tell people about it. You send one email. Maybe post about it on Instagram once. Then you wait and see who signs up.

Sales don't trickle in. You start wondering: is it too expensive? Wrong date? Are people not interested?

That's not what's happening.

What's happening is that you never actually emailed them enough to sell them on your workshop. What you did was announce it and hope.

Announcing isn't selling. This is teacher thinking: I'll share the information, I'll put it out there, and people will figure out the rest. CEOs don't think that way. CEOs lead people to action. They follow up. They speak directly to objections and hesitations. They invite repeatedly.

And if you're staying quiet more broadly—not emailing consistently, not showing up in people's inboxes—it might be coming from something deeper. Maybe you're uncomfortable being influential. Maybe you're scared some people won't like your emails, or won't like you. I know, because I was in that spot for years.

I thought if I just sent the newsletter and made a pretty graphic, people would show up and buy. I thought being "salesy" was something to be ashamed of. And that thinking kept me burnt out, kept me broke, and kept me driving all over town trying to find new people to fill classes.

Here's what I finally realized: you hiding, you not emailing consistently, you staying quiet—that isn't humble. It's actually a disservice.

Your people want you to show up. They need you to lead them. When you don't email them, you're not serving them.

Here's What Changes

You have the exact same email list you had at the beginning of this post. But I hope you can see it differently now.

Those people signed up because they wanted to be on your list. They opted in. That thought alone should make you feel confident, responsible, and influential.

So here's what I want you to consider: going from one monthly newsletter to emailing two to three times per week.

Every single email you send moves people forward. It helps them see a problem they didn't know was there. It helps them see a solution they didn't know existed. It addresses an objection, a doubt, a fear. And it invites them into action.

When you promote a workshop and you follow up five to six times—or more—via email, you can track what's working. When an email doesn't convert, you know what to change. You're no longer guessing. You're building a skill.

The next time you go to promote a workshop, think to yourself: people need to hear this multiple times before they act. Me sending multiple emails is actually helping them show up.

For a single workshop, you might email nine to twelve times—every email taking a different angle. The problem the workshop solves. The specific result someone will walk away with. An objection you're hearing from people who are on the fence. A follow-up to people who clicked but didn't book. A last call.

That is what fills a workshop. Not one email and a hope.

Email Marketing Is a Skill. Treat It Like One.

You didn't know how to teach Pilates or yoga right out of the gate. You learned. You practiced. You got better.

Email is the same.

You commit to showing up consistently. You move people through their buying journey. You follow up. You track results and you get better over time. If it doesn't work immediately, that doesn't mean you quit—you didn't quit the first time teaching a student was hard. You adjusted.

The identity shift that comes with this is real: you stop being a teacher who sends out a monthly newsletter and you become a CEO who uses email marketing to lead and generate revenue. You know that emailing your list isn't bothering people—it's serving them. Inviting them to buy isn't being salesy. It's doing your job.

Your Next Move

If less than 40% of your revenue is coming from email right now, you're leaving money on the table. The fix starts with an identity shift, getting comfortable with being visible and influential, and learning how to write emails that actually move people to action.

Start here: aim for three to five emails per week to your audience. Make 60% of those nurture emails. Then watch what your email list can actually do.

You've already built the asset. Now it's time to use it.