Buy a Content Site and Build a 25K Email List With Minimal Effort

In today’s issue, I’m going to show you exactly how to buy a content site and use it to build a massively profitable email list (with very little effort).

Many of you have reached out and asked for clarity on how I find, purchase and execute a growth strategy for online businesses.

“The idea is compelling, but execution is really hard.”

Trust me, I get it.

So in the next 5 minutes, I’m going to get very tactical.

We’re going to look at a live listing currently for sale on the Empire Flippers marketplace.

I’ll:

1. Explain why I like it

2. Give an example of an offer you could submit

3. Show how to generate a 20x return w/ a simple lead magnet + email list

Let’s dive in:

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What’s the business?

The website for sale is called Strategies for Parents.

From their about page:

“We want to be your trusted source for parenting ideas and educational content.”

Here’s what I like about it:

• Stable traffic

• Evergreen content

• The website doesn’t look great

• The articles are long and well-written

• The monetization strategy is sub-optimal

Here’s the specific listing from Empire Flippers:

How would I structure an offer?

Full disclosure: I haven’t spoken with the seller, so this is theoretical.

Let's assume the listing has been live for a few months without any offers in hand.

I’d propose a $100,00 offer structured like this:

• 50%: cash at closing

• 30%: 24-month seller note w/ 6% interest

• 20%: earn-out tied to revenue over 12 months post-close

There are many creative ways to lower that 50% cash consideration.

I wrote a thread about it recently:

My Growth Playbook

The site is averaging 200,000 unique page views per month.

At $4,000 in monthly revenue, that’s a $20 CPM.

Decent, but we can do better.

More importantly, the site’s design isn't great and annoying ads are hitting you everywhere.

Check out this complete screen takeover ad:

Readers want to learn how to be a better parent, not find a new property manager….

So here’s our strategy:

• Create a free lead magnet + email sign-up form

• Convert 1% of visitors to email subscribers

• Write a valuable weekly email

• Monetize

Let’s break this down.

Create a free lead magnet + email sign-up form

A lead magnet is a compelling offer you’re giving away for free.

Lovevery absolutely crushes this. Check out this pop-up on their site:

As a new parent, this free offer is super compelling. It got me to subscribe 8-months ago when we had our baby girl.

Now every week Lovevery sends me a short, but insightful email about child development specific to the age of my child.

Brilliant.

So what could we do on our site?

“Looking for ways to help your child reach their full potential? Sign up to receive our free weekly email and we’ll send you 21 proven strategies you can use to accelerate your little one’s development.”

That’s just me spit balling.

Use ChatGPT and make it 10x better.

Convert 1% of unique visitors to email subscribers

What comes next? Simply wait.

If we assume 1% of unique visitors sign-up, we’ll be adding ~2,000 new subscribers every month.

Within a year we’ll have close to 25,000 subs.

That’s wild.

And 1% is very conservative. The right lead magnet will perform much better.

Write a strong weekly email

It’s one thing to get subscribers, but it’s another to create engagement.

As a simple framework, target 50% open rates and 10% clickthrough rates.

Meaning half your list will open your emails each week.

Of those who open it, 1 in 10 click a link.

3 tips to hit these targets:

1. Craft a short, but interesting welcome email. Ask readers to reply to your email. This tells Google and other mail providers that your newsletter should hit their Primary inbox.

2. Keep each email under 5-mins and add real value. We all have a lot going on. Stick to one clear takeaway.

3. Build an idea database. Follow other people in your niche and draw inspiration from their content.

Most importantly, time box your work.

It takes me 3-4 hours each week to write these emails.

Most of us can make time for that.

Monetize

We will monetize our newsletter in two ways:

1. Sponsorships

2. Low-Cost Digital Courses

At 25,000 subscribers and 50% open rates, we can expect to charge a sponsor $2,500 per issue.

Assuming 52 issues per year, that’s $130,000 of revenue.

We’ll also develop a digital course and price it at $149.

High enough for folks to know the information is valuable, but low enough to attract impulse purchases.

Assuming 3% of our subscribers pay for the course, that’s an additional $112,500 in revenue.

There’s almost no cost to service this revenue aside from the email service provider.

So collectively, within 1 year we generate $250,000 of super high margin revenue.

At a 4x multiple, that’s $1M of new enterprise value.

20x our initial $50K investment.

What’s the catch?

1) Online businesses, especially micro ones, are risky.

In this case, 95% of the site’s traffic comes from Google. One algorithm update could hurt the site. If you like this strategy and can afford it, try doing this on 3 different sites at once. You'll significantly lower the risk.

2) It requires some effort, particularly upfront.

You will need to establish a template for the weekly email. Selling sponsorships and building a digital course will take time as well. Eventually you can pay writers to produce most of the content for you, but likely not in the beginning.

3) There’s a technical component.

You’ll need to learn the fundamentals of SEO. It’s not rocket science and there are plenty of free resources online, but it will require some work.

That’s a wrap for today.

Sorry this issue went a bit long.

I hope you found it interesting and learned a thing or two.

If you enjoyed this newsletter please reply to this email to let me know.

Your "he seems good with money" friend,

Danny

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