May Round-Up: Results So Far

The results so far, my thoughts on each platform, and focus for the month ahead.

Lisa Slater
May 30, 2025

Platform: Beehiiv

Publication: My Content Marketing Experiment

This is a weekly email (the one you are reading right now) that goes out every Friday. In it, I share my progress, learnings and results. And, as well as sharing weekly updates, I create standalone articles where I cover specific topics in more detail.

The updates take around 90 minutes, and the guides around two to three hours, so I spend roughly eight to ten hours creating content for this publication each month.

Results this month:

Total subscribers: 50 (up 7 since last month)
Average open rate: 52.44% (up from 50% last month)
Financial investment this month: £38.07
Earnings (as a direct result of the publication): $3.20

Thoughts:

I’ve had a nice number of new subscribers this month. All of them have come through my Get Copy Confident email course, and this will be the first weekly update they receive. (Hi there, new subscribers - if you’d like more context about this experiment, check out this short intro👋).

Since signing up for Beehiiv’s paid plan, I’ve been running ads, and so far I’ve earned $3.20 (although it hasn’t paid out yet). I haven’t had any unsubscribes this month, so it seems the ads aren’t putting people off.

I also added the paid subscription option to my Beehiiv site, so you can now join my monthly co-working sessions and monthly lunch and learns for only £20 per month. It’s the same membership as TFF and WWL, and I’m interested to see which site gets the most upgrades.

Focus for June:

I’m going to continue with the scale plan for a few more months. Even though it isn’t paying for itself yet, I do like the features, and I only need a couple of paid subscribers to cover the cost. The ads are easy to add to my emails, so I’ll keep running those for now.

I’ve got a week’s holiday in June, so it’s unlikely I’ll have time to do much extra, but I want to start putting together a new lead magnet, and I need to create a more in-depth sales page about my paid membership.

Platform: Ghost

Publication: The Freelance Fairytale Newsletter (TFF)

This is a monthly newsletter that goes out every Monday. It has replaced my old daily emails and my LinkedIn newsletter.

I create one weekly email which includes a ten-minute task and some anagrams. The tasks and anagrams have all been pre-written for the year, so just need pasting in each week. The body of the email takes me around 30 minutes to write. I also write a weekly web-only post, which takes around 60-90 minutes. Altogether, I spend around six to eight hours per month on content for this publication.

Results this month:

Total subscribers: 30 (up 4 from last month)
Paid subscribers: 1 (up 1 from last month)
Average open rate (this month): 56.75% (down from 60.67% last month)
Financial investment (this month): £0
Stripe fees: £3
Earnings this month (as a direct result of the publication): £200

Thoughts:

I got my first paid subscriber via TFF this month, and they have signed up for a year, which is even better as it covers the $108 I paid for the site.

I’ve also gained a couple of free subs from various places, and my open rates have remained pretty consistent (and above 50%, which is my target for all four publications).

Cross-posting the blog posts on Medium is earning me a couple of extra pennies. It’ll never make me rich, but it’s a two-minute job to import them, so it’s not like it’s much extra work. Plus, it helps me reach a few extra people with my content.

Focus for June:

I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing with this site. I write a weekly email, plus a weekly blog post. I share the blog posts on Facebook and cross-post on Medium. I also share them on one of my LinkedIn company pages and occasionally on my personal page.

Engagement rates are pretty good, and unsubscribes are low. I think I’ve got the content just right, but I do need to grow the subscriber numbers a bit faster.

I might look at creating a lead magnet later in the year, and I’m hoping my monthly events will start attracting more people who then subscribe.

Platform: Substack

Publication 1: New Brew Thursday UK (NBT)

This is a monthly newsletter where I share my most recent blog posts and dates for the upcoming New Brew Networking events (free online networking for beer-loving business owners).

I write a top five post and a monthly roundup newsletter every month. I also add between one and three additional posts per month, depending on what we’ve been up to. So I spend anywhere between three and eight hours per month on content.

Results this month:

Total subscribers: 24 (down 1 from last month)
Average open rate (last 30 days): 58.57% (down from 68% last month)
Financial investment: £0
Earnings (as a direct result of the publication): £0

Thoughts:

As this publication is purely a passion project at the minute, it often takes a backseat. I’ve recently started experimenting with Pinterest (more on that next week), and I’m trying to be more consistent on Instagram.

My networking events get a handful of regulars and then a couple of new faces every few months. I’m going to be hosting an in-person event in July, and I’m hoping that will give it a boost.

Focus for June:

I think it will be more of the same for June - this publication isn’t going to be a priority until the others start growing and generating money. I don’t mind though, because I enjoy writing for it, and I love my networking events.

Platform: Substack

Publication 2: Write With Lisa (WWL)

This is my most recent publication, with the free version going live at the start of March. The paid membership went live on April 1st.

I write one blog post (available to anyone) each month, and I write and record one member-only audio post each month. I also write two emails per month - one for free subs and one for paid. So I probably spend around eight to ten hours a month on content creation.

Results so far:

Total subscribers: 16 (up 3 from last month)
Paid subscribers: 4 (no change)
Average open rate (last 30 days): 68.75% (up from 66.67% last month)
Financial investment: £0
Commission and fees: £4.26
Earnings this month: £30

Thoughts:

I’ve dropped the ball a bit this month when it comes to promoting WWL, but I have managed to gain a couple of new subs.

I did write two blog posts instead of my usual one, and I have set up a Pinterest board for WWL. I’ve just been a bit rubbish at adding notes.

Engagement so far is good, and now I’m running monthly lunch and learns as well as the monthly co-working events, I think the membership is even better value. I added a new events page where I’ve listed the upcoming events, and I’m going to be promoting these as standalone events across my socials too.

Focus for June:

The focus for June is to attract more members, whether it’s through WWL or one of my other publications. And I need to get better at putting notes out - I’ve been terrible with it this month.

Summary (for the year)

Totals for 2025	Beehiiv (this newsletter)	Ghost (TFF)	Substack (NBT)	Substack (WWL)	Medium	All
Subscribers	50	30	24	16	102
Paid subs	0	1	0	4	N/A
Emails sent	17	19	5	3	N/A
Average open rate	56.11%	51.86%	72.2%	66.66%	N/A
Total costs ^{(inc. fees)}	£75.18	£137.48	£0	£40.46	£39.67	£292.79
Earnings	£0	£200	£0	£251.07	£46.56	£497.63
Profit						£204.84

I said at the start of this experiment that I didn’t expect it to make any money for at least three months, probably six. We’re five months in, and we’re starting to see movement. Next month, I’m away for a week, so things will probably be pretty quiet, but I’ll be putting plans in place to grow things over the summer and hopefully by the end of the year, the hard work will have paid off.

I’ve added Medium to the table this month. Technically, it wasn’t part of this experiment (although it was an issue with Medium that inspired it). However, now that I’m earning a little bit from resharing content, it feels like the earnings should be included. And if the earnings are included, the cost should be too. I paid £39.67 for Medium membership way back in November.

I’m not too concerned with the follower number as they don’t seem to count for much on Medium. I have 102, but views on my posts are nowhere near that number. Some will opt in to receive email notifications when you post something, but you don’t really get any usable stats about email opens.

Anyway, I don’t think the earnings will be much going forward. I managed to get a story boosted in April, which is what has boosted the earnings over the last two months, but most stories make less than twenty cents.

I’m going to be talking about cross-posting on my June Lunch and Learn, which is all about recycling and repurposing content. Access to all my events are included in my monthly membership, or you can sign up for any of them on a pay-as-you-go basis for £15 per event. I’ve added a new page to my website showing all upcoming events and booking links.

Events - Make Your Copy Count

Every month, I host two live online events: a co-working session and a lunch and learn with Q&A. You can book any of these events on a pay-as-you-go basis for just £15 per session.

makeyourcopycount.com/co-working-events

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May Round-Up: Results So Far

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