Case study · personal finance coaching · December 2025

$396K in one month from a list that averaged $92K.

One December did more than four times what the list made in a normal month. Same list, same offer, same brand. The difference was what the emails said and when.

Client BudgetdogWhen December 2025Role every email the brand sentList six figures
The month
$396,333
from email in December 2025, from the company's own scorecard
$92K
the list's average month for the eleven months before it
4.3×
December against that average
1.64%
peak click rate on the year-end campaign, December 22 to 28

Every figure is from the client's scorecards, verified in September 2026. The full emails go up on this page once they're pulled from the sending tool.

The context

A seven-figure personal finance brand selling a high-ticket coaching programme through booked calls. A list in the six figures. Daily email, run by a previous writer, that had averaged $92K a month for the year. I'd taken over every email the brand sent in October.

What I was hired for

To write every email. Daily emails, launches, the sequences behind the sales calls. Measured on one thing: the money the emails made, tracked back to each send.

What was done

December is when the list is deciding what next year looks like, and when most brands go quiet or send a discount. This one didn't go quiet. The daily emails ran through the month, and the year-end campaign ran from December 22 to 28, on top of them, built around the decision the reader was already making about January.

The campaign's peak click rate was 1.64%, on a list that size. The rest of the month's emails carried the conversation to the call.

What happened

$396,333 from email in the month. The list's average for the previous eleven months was $92K. Four times a normal month, from the same list and the same offer, with nothing new to sell.

What it says

A list doesn't have a fixed value. It has a value on the day, set by what the emails say and whether they're talking about the thing the reader is already deciding. December was the reader's decision month. The emails met them there.

Read nextThe emails that fixed a no-show problemShow-up 55% to 63%, close rate 23% to 33%.
The yearA list that made $96K a month started making $116KSame list, same offer, same brand.

Send me ten of your emails. I'll send one back written in your voice, before you decide anything.

For founders who already have an email list and something to sell to it.