Building a $2M Newsletter While Getting Lazier with Katelyn Bourgoin
Feb 26, 2025
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Katelyn Bourgoin, an entrepreneur and creator of the Why We Buy newsletter, shares her journey from launching her newsletter to approaching $1M in revenue. She reveals how focusing on what works and strategic audience segmentation fueled her subscriber growth. Katelyn discusses the innovative ‘Friyay’ interactive newsletter and elaborates on using AI tools to enhance engagement. She also touches on balancing sponsorship with quality content, offering insights into her marketing strategies that drive sustained success.
Katelyn Bourgoin's strategy focuses on minimizing effort by leveraging predictable sales through targeted flash sales to her newsletter segments.
Audience segmentation plays a crucial role in enhancing engagement and conversion rates, significantly boosting sales for her digital products.
Caitlin maintains content integrity by selectively integrating sponsorships, ensuring high-value offerings while still generating essential revenue for her newsletter.
Deep dives
Caitlin Burgoyne's Business Journey
Caitlin Burgoyne, founder of the Why We Buy newsletter, began her journey in late 2020 and quickly achieved impressive revenue growth. By scaling her operations, she reached approximately $1 million in revenue in 2024 and aims to double that by 2025, targeting $2 million. Her strategy includes focusing on predictable sales rather than just monthly recurring revenue, which she associates with continual work in content creation. Caitlin's approach emphasizes minimizing effort while maximizing output, reflecting her desire to become 'lazier' in managing her expanding business.
Revenue Strategies and Growth Plans
To enhance revenue predictability, Caitlin plans to implement monthly recurring flash sales targeting segments of her subscriber list. She aims to run sales promotions for only a portion of her audience, creating urgency while avoiding the fatigue associated with continuous discounts. This strategy builds on the success of previous product launches, which she finds to be more effective when products become less accessible over time. By maintaining a diversified product offering and leveraging urgency, Caitlin seeks to increase her overall revenue without constantly creating new content.
Using Audience Segmentation and Engagement
Caitlin emphasizes the importance of audience segmentation in improving sales and engagement rates. By categorizing her subscriber base and tailoring sales offers to specific groups, she intends to optimize conversion rates. She has observed an increase in digital product sales after implementing a personalized welcome sequence for new subscribers. This deeper understanding of her audience will allow her to craft more effective sales funnels, increasing revenue while maintaining engagement.
Balancing Content Creation and Sponsored Revenue
While Caitlin has utilized sponsored revenue to cover production costs, she is cautious about relying on it as a primary income source. She aims to integrate sponsorships more organically into her newsletter without compromising the quality of content. Caitlin wants to ensure that her newsletter remains high-value and authentic, in order to sustain the trust of her audience. By opting for selective partnerships and innovative ad formats, she strives to maintain content integrity while still generating necessary revenue.
Future Plans and Innovations
Caitlin is exploring the potential of new content formats, such as shorter, engaging newsletters aimed at increasing engagement and driving product sales. This includes her latest initiative, 'Fry Yay,' designed to reward readers for engaging with educational content through interactive polls and contests. Additionally, she plans to optimize her existing website and leverage analytics to refine her strategies. By incorporating feedback and soliciting input from her audience, Caitlin looks to foster community and enhance the overall reader experience.
"Less is more. The key to growing Why We Buy wasn’t doing more—it was doubling down on what worked and cutting the rest.” — Katelyn Bourgoin
Chenell & Dylan are joined by Katelyn Bourgoin of the Why We Buy newsletter.
Chenell researched & wrote a GIR Deep Dive on Katelyn back in 2023. At that point, Katelyn's Why We Buy newsletter had just surpassed the 50k-subscriber mark and she was in the midst of earning $300k with her newsletter.
Fast-forward 18 months: Why We Buy is approaching 70k subscribers and nearly hit $1M in revenue during 2024.
That's nearly 1.5x subscriber growth and over 3x revenue in only 18 months. In our chat, we talk about what's driving revenue these days for Katelyn, and how she's approaching newsletter growth.