What does it look like when a proven email launch strategy stops working and the person behind it decides to play her way back to her best results yet?

Liz Wilcox , the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, keynote speaker, and the woman behind a $9 membership that has generated multiple six figures , shares the full behind-the-scenes of her 13th Christmas in July Annual Pass sale. A tiered waitlist, Golden Tickets, a 15-minute-only 50% off flash offer, and a mindset shift that changed everything.

If you have ever felt like your launches have plateaued, or you want to understand how email and waitlists can work together to grow your list and drive serious revenue, this episode is required listening.

INSIDE THIS EPISODE

1. Why Liz calls email marketing the CEO of her business and why that analogy is more accurate than it sounds

2. What an email-first business actually means and how to build one

3. The Open Rates Confession that proves even the best email marketers struggle with the tech

4. How the Christmas in July waitlist strategy works , tiered bonuses, Golden Tickets, and a real-life Santa Claus

5. The 15-minute flash offer that converted 13% of cold subscribers before the sale even started

6. Why Liz sent 37 emails in 24 days to different audiences and why it worked

7. The mindset of play that turned two disappointing launches into her most creative sale yet

8. What she would do differently and why she is already planning to do it again

9. How to stay compliant with email marketing laws without losing your mind

10. Two questions Liz asks herself whenever she feels stuck in her business

GUEST RESOURCES

Guest: Liz Wilcox

Website: https://lizwilcox.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/emailmarketingwithliz

Free Gift: The Mega Swipe File , a complete welcome sequence, three newsletter samples, and 52 subject lines for a full year of email prompts. Link in show notes. Click here to get the free gift 👇

https://lizwilcox.ck.page/4072e76815

EPISODE TIMELINE ⏱️

[04:02] – How Liz went from RV travel blogger to email marketing expert

[06:38] – Why email is the CEO of her business and why that analogy is more accurate than it sounds

[08:36] – What an email-first business actually means and how to build one

[09:40] – Open Rates Confession: a week of email mistakes that proves even the best struggle with the tech

[12:36] – Introducing the Christmas in July Annual Pass and the waitlist strategy

[17:46] – The tiered bonus system: how each milestone unlocked a reward and made the waitlist shareable

[19:37] – The Golden Tickets inspired by Willy Wonka and why curiosity drove people to join

[24:35] – The play mindset: Liz's 2026 word of the year and how it shaped the entire launch

[29:00] – Why she sent 37 emails in 24 days to different audiences and why it worked

[36:45] – Eight sales emails in 48 hours and $37,000 in revenue

[43:21] – What she would do differently: more affiliates, earlier prep, more emails

[44:47] – The Mega Swipe File: a done-for-you welcome sequence, newsletters, and 52 subject lines

[52:18] – How to stay compliant with email marketing laws without losing your mind

[54:43] – Two questions Liz asks herself whenever she feels stuck in her business

CONNECT WITH US

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.sapphire_/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayebanoabenwari/

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@dr.sapphire_

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/sapphirelearninghub/

Website: https://sapphirelearninghub.com/

[INTRO]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Hi listeners. Welcome back to Email Marketing Experiments. Today I am super excited because I have somebody with us — the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing. She is a keynote speaker, the CEO of a membership that shows small businesses how to build online and make real money. She is best known for turning a $9 offer into multiple six figures and helping you untangle your online income knots with her Fresh Steps Framework. She loves 90s headbands and the beach. I am talking about no other person than Liz Wilcox. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Liz Wilcox: You are so sweet. Thank you. Anytime I can talk about electronic mail, that is what I am going to do. I am going to geek out today.

[BACKGROUND]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Before we dive in, I want our listeners to get to know you. You have run over 50 miles — more than once. Tell us about that.

Liz Wilcox: It is a lot of miles. In my personal life and in my business, I take on a lot of responsibility. I love running because everyone leaves me alone. No one wants to go for a 50-mile run with you. I found ultrarunning — that is what it is called when you run more than a marathon — and I thought: if I could train for ultramarathons all the time, I would have alone time every single day.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Fifty miles is about 80 kilometers. I have tried a 10K and I know it was not easy. So when you are doing 80 kilometers more than once, that is a serious challenge.

Liz Wilcox: A 10K is not a short distance. Kudos to you.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: And I have seen you post about being on Survivor — you even got fourth place. Congratulations.

Liz Wilcox: Thank you. I do not do anything small. If I am going to do it, I am going to do my best.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: You started your journey as an RV travel blogger and found your way to email marketing. Tell us that story.

Liz Wilcox: When I started my travel site, I knew I wanted it to make money. I grew up incredibly poor and I thought this was my ticket out. I started listening to podcasts, going to webinars, and everyone said the same thing: it is all for the email list. Get people off social media and onto an email list. So I started growing my list from day one and selling to it as soon as possible.

After a few years, I realised I was actually really good at emailing. People would ask why I had not posted a blog in a year. I told them I was focused on growing the email list. While everyone else was chasing blog traffic and ads, I was doubling down on email — and I made a lot more money. That is when I knew I needed to be teaching this. I eventually sold the travel blog and went all in on email marketing around the pandemic.

[EMAIL MARKETING JOB DESCRIPTION]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: If you were to give email marketing a job description, what would it be?

Liz Wilcox: The CEO. Email is the end-all-be-all. I am an email-first business and I teach people to be email-first. You do not own YouTube. You do not own Instagram. Everything you do should be to grow, nurture, and sell to your email list. Email is king. Email is the CEO.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: That is the first time I have heard email described as a CEO. I have had community builder, revenue driver, lead generation — but never CEO.

Liz Wilcox: The CEO is the boss. Why do people quit their jobs? Not the pay, not the bonuses, not the co-workers. Usually the boss. Email is the thing that makes or breaks your business. If you have a strong email strategy and a quality list, you are in business. If not, you are shutting down very quickly. The quality of your list drives your business growth — just like the quality of a CEO drives a company.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: You also use the term "email-first business." What does that mean?

Liz Wilcox: It means everything I do is to grow, nurture, and sell to the email list. If I am on Instagram, it is only to drive people to my email list. If I am on YouTube, every video points back to my email list. The email list is the top priority. Everything I do is for the email list.

[OPEN RATES CONFESSION]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: We have a segment called Open Rates Confession. What is your biggest email marketing mistake?

Liz Wilcox: It was not one email — it was a week or two of mistakes. I sent emails to the wrong people. I forgot subject lines. I sent an email saying a bonus was expiring when it was not. I even forgot to send an important email about a live event — nobody showed up because I never told anyone it was happening. And honestly, that happens more than I would like to admit.

I am so good at strategy and content, but the tech — I keep messing up. The better I get at strategy, the worse I get at tech. I am sending wrong calendars. My links are not working. I am forgetting subject lines. Elizabeth, just send a test email. Just do it. And that is my confession. It is also time to hire a VA.

[CHRISTMAS IN JULY WAITLIST STRATEGY]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Let us get into the Christmas in July waitlist strategy. Tell us what the Annual Pass is and how you came up with this idea.

Liz Wilcox: I have a $9 a month membership. Three times a year, I open up an Annual Pass for $108 — that is $9 times 12 months. There is no discount. But if you pay for the full year upfront, you get access to all my other products for free. Templates, Q&As, mini courses, courses on launching, list building, email metrics, building community with email. The full curriculum. I run this in March, July, and November.

I have launched it 13 times. I used to do a waitlist early on, then stopped because I felt I did not need it anymore. I would just send to the whole email list. But launches 11 and 12 did not go well. I realised the problem was not the list — it was me. I had gotten too comfortable. So for launch 13, I asked: what can I do differently? That is when I came up with the Christmas in July waitlist.

I took inspiration from software companies. They give things away just for being on a waitlist — bonuses, behind-the-scenes access. I had not seen anyone in the digital marketing space do that. So I did it.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: You have done this 13 times. How do you keep from getting tired of it?

Liz Wilcox: Because it works and I love money. I support three households — mine, my sister's, and my mother's. In my family, I was the cycle breaker. Everyone told me I was the one who was going to make it. I felt that in my heart and I say it with my chest now. That is why I do it over and over again. I do not get bored — I get curious. When it stops working as well, I ask: what can I do to bring it back to the golden days?

[THE STRATEGY IN DETAIL]

Liz Wilcox: My goal was 2,000 people on the waitlist. I decided to give things away at different tiers. At 250 people, a bonus unlocks. At 500, 750, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 — each level unlocks something different. The bonuses were things from inside the membership. This did two things: it got people excited to share because they were unlocking prizes together, and it gave people a preview of what they were actually buying without me saying "here is a preview."

The first unlock was a list-building course from inside the membership. I said: we have already unlocked this, so you get it before the sale even starts. People thought — if she is willing to give this away for free, what else is in there?

I also created Golden Tickets. Five tickets hidden randomly throughout the waitlist period. I did not tell people what they were — just like the kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory did not know what was inside. The golden ticket turned out to be personal one-on-one time with me: a full audit of their online ecosystem, a welcome sequence, and a sales sequence they could use within 12 months. I do not take clients, so people were completely blown away.

I also got a real member of my community to help — someone who literally plays Santa Claus as his business. He made videos for the waitlist landing page saying things like "We have even heard about this waitlist at the North Pole."

By the time the sale started, we had 1,796 people on the waitlist. We did not hit 2,000, but I will take that win. Six weeks later, we have added another 150, so we are just under 2,000. And 955 of those people were brand new to me — not previously on my email list. That is 955 new subscribers in three weeks.

[THE 15-MINUTE FLASH OFFER]

Liz Wilcox: Here is the thing I did not mention yet. When someone joined the waitlist, the first automated email did not have all the details. Instead, it said: you just joined the waitlist and I will send you all the details in a moment — but right now, if you click this link in the next 15 minutes only, you can get the Annual Pass for 50% off. You will never see this offer again.

Most of those 955 new people had no idea what the Annual Pass even was. They just saw 50% off and decided to go for it. We made 250 sales in those 15 minutes — that is about 13% of everyone on the waitlist purchasing before the sale even went live. Crazy. And those people have been some of the most active members since, because they got a deal and they are determined to squeeze every drop out of it.

[TOTAL EMAILS AND CADENCE]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: How many emails did you send across the whole campaign?

Liz Wilcox: Let me count. Nine emails to affiliates before the sale. Nine emails to my full list getting them onto the waitlist. Nine emails to people already on the waitlist. Two automated emails when someone joined. Eight sales emails in 48 hours. That is 37 emails in 24 days — to different audiences, so not everyone got all 37.

For the sales emails, I started at 7 or 8am Eastern, then noon, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm. Then repeated the next day. The more emails I send, the more money I make. From those eight emails alone, I made over $37,000. My offer is $108, so I need volume. And people thank me for sending so many emails — they say things like: I'm so glad you sent that last email because I meant to buy this morning but something came up.

The first email of the sale had a 52% open rate. The very last email had a 53% open rate. Numbers went up as the sale was ending, not down.

[THE MINDSET OF PLAY]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: What was going through your mind when you were building all of this?

Email can feel intense. I just called it the CEO. What is more intense than being the boss? But email is also human to human. It does not matter if you are B2B or B2C. It is H2H — human to human. And I asked myself: what do my people need right now? What is going to help them see the light? And the answer was play.

[WHAT SHE WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: What would you do differently next time?

Liz Wilcox: I would get more affiliates involved and give them more notice. I only told them about two weeks before the three-week launch period. Affiliates have their own promotional calendars. If I had started earlier, I could have gone from 1,800 to 4,000, 6,000, maybe 10,000 on a waitlist. That is the main thing I would change.

[THE MEGA SWIPE FILE]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Tell us about the free resource you are giving away.

Liz Wilcox: My Mega Swipe File. If you are looking to start your email list or make sure it is really honed in, I have an entire welcome sequence already written for you. It is designed to help subscribers flip the switch from "I just got this freebie" to "oh, this is a real business with real solutions for me." It also includes three newsletter samples directly from my membership showing you how to get people to reply, click, and buy. And it gives you 52 subject lines — a full year of email prompts. Because writing from scratch totally sucks. Let me do it for you.

[RAPID FIRE]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Rapid fire. Weekly versus daily emails?

Liz Wilcox: Weekly is a great starting cadence. When you feel really connected to your audience, ramp up to a few times a week or daily.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Long versus short emails?

Liz Wilcox: Short. Always. Nobody cares. They are skimming. Get in, get to the point, get out.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Automated or live emails?

Liz Wilcox: I only automate my welcome sequence. Everything else is live.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Complete this statement: when it comes to email marketing, deliverability is blank.

Liz Wilcox: Key. But it is not as complicated as people think. When you make friends in the inbox — get replies, get clicks — you can pretty much say whatever you want and you will land in the inbox. Get your authentication set up and send emails people want to interact with. Your deliverability will be fine.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: What about the spam tab versus the promotions tab?

Liz Wilcox: Spam tab — nobody wants to land there. Promotions tab — you are literally a business that is promoting. Do not have a heart attack. Replies are the best way to get back into the inbox. When someone replies to me, I tell them: you probably landed in my promotions tab because you have not replied to me in a while. But now that you have, we are good.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: One email marketing myth you want to bust?

Liz Wilcox: Storytelling. Everyone will tell you to tell stories. But get in, get to the point, get out. Nobody cares until they are a super fan. What I do is short personal updates — two or three sentences about something I have done since I last emailed them. Then the link. That email is four sentences and people love it. They click because I did not give them a bunch of fluff to decipher.

[STAYING COMPLIANT]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: How do you stay updated with email marketing laws and policies?

Liz Wilcox: Use a legitimate email service provider with longstanding practices in place. A legitimate ESP will make sure you are sending legal emails because they do not want to get shut down either. Their deliverability is affected when yours is. Then, set a calendar reminder every six months to research whether new policies are in place. And actually email your ESP and ask: there is a new rule in France — what are you as a company doing to ensure I stay compliant? Put the responsibility back on them.

[CLOSING]

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Any final words?

Liz Wilcox: When I feel stuck, I ask myself two questions. Number one: what would this look like if it was easy? And if it just cannot be easy, I ask: what would this look like if it was fun? Between those two answers, you can usually find your right next step.

Dr. Ayebanoa Benwari: Thank you so much, Liz. This has been an absolute delight. Do not forget to play and have fun. Do not forget to keep trying. And do not forget to send more emails. Thank you for coming.

Liz Wilcox: Thank you so much. I cannot wait to see what we all do with email marketing.