Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Marketing Coordinator Built a 5000 Monthly Side Hustle in Email Copy
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment every side hustler knows — you land your first client, and you realize you have no idea what to charge. Today I want to tell you about someone who figured that out very deliberately, and she did it in a niche that most people overlook. Luna: I love a good under-the-radar niche. What was hers? Lucas: Email copywriting. Specifically, writing email newsletters for B2B startups. Her name is Jenna — she was a marketing coordinator at a mid-sized software company, making about 55,000 a year. And within eight months, she built a side hustle writing emails that pays her 5,000 a month. On retainer. Luna: Okay, that's impressive. But also — email? Everyone says email marketing is dying, right? Lucas: Everyone says that, and it's completely wrong. Email marketing has an average ROI of 36 to 1. For B2B, it's even higher. The thing is, most companies are terrible at writing emails that people actually open. And Jenna saw that gap. Luna: So how did she start? Did she have a portfolio of emails? Lucas: She had almost nothing. She'd written a few internal newsletters at her day job, but nothing she could show publicly. So she did something clever: she offered to write a free month of emails for a local real estate agent. The agent had a list of 2,000 people but never sent anything. Jenna wrote four emails over four weeks — one per week — and the agent saw a 22 percent increase in open rates and three direct inquiries. Luna: So she used that as a case study. Lucas: Exactly. She got permission to publish the results — with the agent's name blurred — and she put that case study on a simple one-page website. Then she started cold emailing founders of small B2B startups. Her pitch was basically: 'I increased open rates by 22 percent for a real estate agent. I can do the same for your newsletter.' She charged 500 a month per client, and she landed two clients in the first month. Luna: Five hundred a month per client — that seems low. But she had ten clients to hit 5,000? Lucas: She actually raised her rates over time. By month eight, she had seven clients paying between 600 and 1,000 a month. Some were weekly emails, some were bi-weekly. The average was around 700. So seven clients got her to about 5,000. Luna: Seven clients, each getting a few emails a week — that's manageable alongside a full-time job? Lucas: She was very disciplined. She wrote emails in batches on Saturday mornings. Each client took about two to three hours per week, including strategy. So she was working maybe 15 to 20 hours a week on the side. But the key was the retainer model — she didn't do one-off projects. Retainers gave her predictable income and predictable time. Luna: Predictable income is huge when you're trying to avoid your boss finding out. You can't have wild swings in hours. Lucas: Right. And she was careful about that. She set a rule: no calls during business hours. All communication was async — email or Loom videos. She also turned down two clients who wanted weekly calls. That boundary probably saved her from burnout. Luna: So the real takeaway isn't just 'write emails' — it's that she found a specific, high-demand service, built a case study, and then used cold outreach with a clear offer. That's a template anyone could follow. Lucas: Absolutely. And I think the niche matters. Email copywriting is less competitive than, say, web design or social media management. And it's recurring. Once you're in the flow, you become a trusted part of the client's business. Luna: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the show going, and we really appreciate it. So back to Jenna — she told me that the hardest part was the first three months. She had two clients, making about 1,000 a month, and she almost quit because she wasn't sure it would scale. Luna: What kept her going? Lucas: One of her clients forwarded an email she'd written to a friend, and that friend became a client. That referral validated her work. Then she started asking every client for referrals at the end of the first month. She offered a 10 percent discount on the next month if the referral signed up. That's how she went from two clients to five. Luna: Referral incentives — classic, but it works. Did she ever get burned by a client who wanted too many revisions? Lucas: She had one client who was super indecisive. They'd go back and forth on subject lines for hours. She eventually added a clause to her contract: two rounds of revisions per email, then additional revisions at 50 dollars per hour. That stopped the scope creep immediately. Luna: I love that. Boundaries in writing are everything. So what's Jenna doing now? Is she still side hustling? Lucas: She actually quit her full-time job about a month ago. She's now doing email copy for a few bigger clients, charging 2,000 per month each. She only has four clients, but she's making more than she did at her day job — and working fewer hours. Luna: That's the dream, right? Not just the money, but the control over your time. So for someone listening who wants to try this — what's the single first step? Lucas: Pick a small business you know — maybe a friend's startup, or a local shop — and offer to write one free email. Not a month, just one email. See if you can improve their open rate. Then use that as your case study. You don't need a huge portfolio. You need one good result. Luna: One good email. That's a pretty low bar to start. Lucas: And if you can do that consistently, you've got the foundation for a 5,000-a-month side hustle. It's not magic — it's just showing up and writing for a niche that pays. Luna: Alright, I think I might actually try this. Lucas, thanks for the story. Lucas: Happy to share it. Next time, we'll look at how a former teacher built a side hustle doing virtual bookkeeping — and why that niche is blowing up right now.