EP 487 | How to Create an Email Newsletter People Actually Want to Read featuring Megan Yelaney [Empire Exclusive]
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The $80,000 Email Template
Get access to the email (and a fill-in-the-blank template) that was directly responsible for selling over $80,000 worth of courses, memberships, and digital products in 2025.
In this Empire Exclusive episode, Allison sits down with business strategist Megan Yelaney to talk about how she’s using email to create real connection, build demand, and make her newsletter something people actually look forward to reading.
Megan's approach to her newsletter doesn't involve cramming every email with “mind-blowing value”. Instead, Megan shares the simple three-part format behind her weekly newsletter, The Weekly Edge, and how she blends personal life, behind-the-scenes business content, and client wins in a way that feels both strategic and genuinely human.
TAKEAWAYS:
Your newsletter doesn’t have to be packed with constant education to be valuable; connection, transparency, and behind-the-scenes context can be just as powerful.
Megan’s three-part newsletter format makes email easier to write by giving each issue a simple structure: life, business, and client stories.
Behind-the-scenes content is working because people want to see how you actually operate, make decisions, solve problems, and balance real life with business.
Client wins become more compelling when you give context, not just screenshots, so your audience can understand the transformation and see what’s possible for them.
A weekly newsletter can become a repurposing engine for your content instead of another one-off task that disappears after you hit send.
Resources:
Get access to the singular email (and a fill-in-the-blank template) that was directly responsible for selling over $80,000 worth of courses, memberships, and digital products in 2025 by clicking here.
Attract dream clients with your unique origin story with Megan's Business Story Blueprint
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Transcript:
WELCOME MEGAN
Hey, Megan. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you. Hi, excited to be here.
FROM NETWORK MARKETING
So before we dig into all things email marketing, which I'm very excited to talk with you about, can you paint the picture for our listeners and tell us just a little bit more about your business so that we have some context for our conversation? Yeah, totally. I've had, I feel like, many lives in business at this point, as I'm sure so many people have. Many, many pivots. I got started quite a long time ago. In 2011 was actually when I signed up for my first business in network marketing. Kinda dabbled for a second, as most people do with that, and then realized, oh, there's actual opportunity here. So I finally dove in a few years later after going to, like, a big live event. Literally seeing people, like, shred their mortgages at the live event, going, "Wow, these people are making real money. Like, what am I doing?" And I was just doing nothing. So dove all in, and about a year and a half later, I went full time in it. I was able to quit all my side jobs. I was cocktail waitressing in Los Angeles. I was living in LA after graduating from San Diego State, and I was also acting. I was performing. I was doing background work in film and television. So I was living a starving artist life. So when I saw this business opportunity and realized, wait, I could actually make, like, real money, not just like, you know, background work, acting money type of survival, I really went all in. And then I moved, back to New York where I'm from, and I met my now husband, and that kind of sparked like, okay, I'm gonna really take this seriously. But I started to learn, as one does in any business, so many other things about business besides just the narrow network marketing focus I was in, and I really wanted to talk about consumer behavior and marketing and just so much about personal growth, and I felt very limited.
PIVOTS AND REBUILD
So I branched out of that company, started my own health coaching business. Quickly realized while I loved the health aspect of the company, I was not meant to coach people in that way. It was the business aspect that I loved in the company and why I did so well in network marketing. And so I quickly pivoted to business coaching, and within about 16 months or so, we hit our first million in sales and then totally pivoted a couple years later to go from a lot of very, very high, high ticket to more of group focus. And then I had my boys, my twins in 2024. And that just completely changed my business again. And so I really went into my maternity leave feeling so confident, as I'm sure a lot, many do in the sense of I was prepared, I set up a course funnel, and hated it. The second it came out, I was like, "No, this is not for me," and what I thought I wanted was not. So I spent all of 2024 rebuilding my business, really finding who I was in my business again. I felt like I kind of lost it between 2022 and 2023, which I think a lot of people experienced, kind of the COVID come down, if you will. We were all like, "Just what are we doing?" I became a generic business coach in a sense, and I really found my voice again in 2025 last year and built my brand new program up to over 200,000 in the first year of its launch and really went back to helping people find what's unique about them, what is their edge, what makes them different, and that becomes the basis of pretty much their entire marketing plan. And so that's really what I honed in on last year and what I'm doing now, and it's just really fun to kind of- Almost go back to the beginning. It's kind of what I did in the beginning of my business, but I lost sight of it. Mm. And honestly, my boys brought me back, 'cause they forced me to. I was like, "If I'm gonna spend time away from them, I have to love what I'm doing or make great money. Ideally both." And so that really, was kind of a big pivotal year, and so we're kind of in that rebuild mode now, and it's, very fun and very scary at the same time.
ACTORS AND TEACHERS
I love your story because I see so many parallels between, like, my experience, 'cause I also started in network marketing and realized, like, I don't really like this part. I like the, like, mentoring of my down line. Like, that was- Yeah ... my, like, jam. I loved that. Mm-hmm. And then I also love that so many entrepreneurs were actresses and actors. Do, do you find that a lot? More than I thought- Yeah which is funny you say that, 'cause even, like, secretly I'm like, "Wait, I didn't know you acted for all these years," like, people that I've been friends with for a while. And they're like, "Oh, I love Fiddler. I'm doing Fiddler on the Roof right now." And they're like, "I did that show." I'm like, "What? I didn't know you performed." But I find that to be fascinating. Someone should do, like, a study on that, because I think that- Yeah ... is so incredibly interesting. True. Yeah. Me too. I think that and teachers. I find a lot of teachers also translate really, really well to coaching. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a former college professor, so yeah, I get that part. There you go. Okay. So I loved hearing your story, so thank you for sharing that.
WEEKLY EDGE NEWSLETTER
What I would love to shift now is talking more about email marketing. So in these Empire exclusive episodes, we dig into how you're using email in your business. So you have a weekly newsletter that a lot of your paying clients really reference when they're working with you. So can you give us a big picture, like snapshot of what that is? Yeah. It's called The Weekly Edge. I've been doing a weekly newsletter for a while, but as I rebranded last year and totally created this new program, I wanted everything to really revolve around the theme of my business, what are my main messages, and I wanted my newsletter to be that place where people could really, like almost appointment watch. Like they were excited that it would come into their inbox every single week. Because I, I had heard, and, and I'm sure you hear this and are like, "No, this isn't true." Um, I kept hearing people say, "Newsletters are dead. No one reads newsletters." I'm like, "I read newsletters when I like the newsletter." Yes. Exactly. So I'm like, "Well, I don't think..." It's like James Clear, I read his newsletter every single week. Yeah, you do. It's so good. So good. I look forward to getting that email every Thursday. So I knew that wasn't true, but I kind of felt that about my newsletter. Mm. I was like, meh, I was writing it 'cause I had to. I thought I had to, quote-unquote. And I knew that's not the energy I wanted to go into it with.
THREE PART FORMAT
And so I decided, hey, what do I love reading? What do I know the clients that I really love working with, what are some things they reference about me? And so when I really mapped that out, I realized they always reference something within my personal life that they connect with. Not something random, but like, "Oh, okay, I can like s- I went through that, too," or, "I had that crazy week, too, and you just validated me feeling behind or feeling overwhelmed," you know? And really just being transparent. Like my life isn't perfect. It's chaotically beautiful, I like to call it, all the time. And, and I wanna share that crazy so that people aren't like, "Oh, I feel like I'm left on an island." So that part I knew I wanted to share, a little bit of a, a blip of my personal life, and how I'm kind of balancing things. And then I wanna share a bit of behind the scenes of the business. So what I'm working on, and in this section I call it, the first section I call Edge, in Life. This one is Edge in Business. So it's either behind the scenes or a, a tip. So it could be something that worked really well for my clients, something that I'm teaching. This is definitely the section if I'm promoting something, whether it's free or paid, I will weave that in. Not so much my big offer. That's gonna have like its own sales set, but a micro offer or again, a, a lead magnet or a conversion event, something like that. So I'll weave that in there. But there's always a really great teaching point or takeaway or like template that they can use that then will lead into that pitch. And then the third section is edge with clients, and that's, you know, pretty obvious, but it's really to show, hey, the process I just showed you or the tip or, you know, what I'm working on behind my business actually translates to my clients, not just my success, so that they can see the client wins in action. And what I really try to do in that section in particular is not just, like, splash a screenshot and be like, "Look at my great client. Look what I helped them do," you know? I give context. So I'm like, "Okay, this is where this person came in, this is what they were struggling with, here's what we worked on, and here's a few takeaways," whether that's a question for them to journal on, an actual strategy, something to go implement. But I really always wanna make that something that people can go, "Oh, wow, I just got, like, a mini masterclass from that little section there." And so those are, like, the three main sections. And again, how I kinda came to this, I said, "What do people tell me that... What's one of the reasons people say that they hire me? So actually going through my framework and going, "What is a piece of my framework, of the steps I take my clients through that really clicks for them?" When they get this, they're like, "Oh, okay, I can see the next step." And for me, that's really story and framework. Actually, teaching framework. So those two are very, very big. So I tend to lean on those within my edge in biz.
BEHIND THE SCENES WINS
But I think the other part of that that I've noticed, and this is pretty across the board I'm seeing right now, like, as we're recording this in real time, is come with me as I do something. So video series or email series. It could be totally an email series, too. Is, come with me as I'm creating this program, come with me as I'm going for this goal, or I'm actually going through my own framework. Come with me as I'm using it. People are loving the behind the scenes of businesses right now. I wrote it this morning, so it's very timely as we're talking, and I went fully behind the scenes of my mastermind retreat that I hosted last week. Very in detail, the breakthroughs they had, the chaos that happened at the beginning of it, why it ended up being the best retreat ever. Like, all the highs and, and the very chaotic beginning. We had an Airbnb snafu. It was crazy, but- Oh ... it all ended up okay. It all ended up great. Oh, gosh. But I was like, "Oh, wow, what a way to start." But it was like, that's a great story. This is gonna be really good for the email next week, you know? And, and then I broke down the day by day. It was a very long section, but I know, that's gonna give so many people, a sneak into how I coach, how I handle situations. And also, hey, maybe you can take some of that for your own retreat if you're gonna run one. So that I'm noticing is really great, and that's kind of across the board with a lot of clients that I coach, is if they can weave in their behind the scenes, whether it's in a newsletter or just another weekly or regular cadence email, that's working really well right now. So those are those three main sections.
REPURPOSE AND RHYTHM
Something that's been really helpful is I'm repurposing that. So the edge in business and edge with clients especially almost always becomes a post for the week or the next week, or it's a highlight in my, podcast that week. And so I'm never just writing this and letting it, like, die with just the email. It is being repurposed into content, elsewhere. So that's something too, is when I go to write it, I know that this is really gonna be used for multiple things. And I think the, the last part I'll just share is that I genuinely love writing this every week. Mm. Like, I write it first thing on Monday morning. That's the first thing I do to kick off my work week, and I get excited to write it, and I think that's key. It's not that you're gonna love writing every email you write, but a newsletter, it's like, it's your heart and soul, and it's where people get to know who you are and how you operate and, and your process. I feel like you should enjoy writing it. And so I got to that point where I genuinely look forward to writing that every single Monday, for the next day that it goes out. Okay. So how long have you been doing this for? I've been writing The Weekly Edge for about a year now. Okay. Yeah. When you first started doing this, did you find it hard to write? Definitely. I think because I was still in that old mindset of, like, every section has to be mind-blowing value, and I looked at value as education. Yeah. I thought value only equaled education. I, and I know it's not. Mm-hmm. And I teach that it's not, but I still had, like, took that on when writing my newsletter, yeah. I'm just thinking, like, I don't have a newsletter. And I'm like, how can I bring this into my business in, like, an easy, low-lift way so that I can start to create that habit so that it becomes easier for me to write? So I love this idea- Mm ... of the three sections because you're leading with your life, and I think- Mm-hmm ... like, just based on what you said, like, your paying clients reference that. Yeah. But then also you're leading with your expertise and kind of like weaving everything together, because I think a lot of times... I mean, I struggle with this, like, how much of my personal life do I share? How much of my business life do I share? But it kind of, like, melds the two together and shows how they work somewhat together. Totally. That's honestly what I find. I think you just hit the nail on the head. And when I get replies, that's the biggest comment is people are either commenting on the personal life stuff and it starts a conversation and then can lead to a sale, right, or can lead to a client. Or they're referencing, like, how, wow, it was so cool to see what your week was like last week and then also what you worked on behind the scenes and, like, how you balanced the two. And, and it almost always ends up being that. Like, again, this week I talked about my mastermind retreat last week and I shared the edge in life was short. I said, "Hey, I wasn't actually with my family a lot last week." Yeah. "So this is gonna be a short one because I was pretty much full coach mode, and here are some little blips from the weekend with the boys," you know. Mm-hmm. And I'll share that. But it, they can see, okay, last week the balance was really just all in on business, and that's okay, and it can be that. And then another week it's a really long edge in life and business was, was small and that's, you know, showing that as well. So I think people really like the transparency of that. For sure. And it helps also to see... 'Cause I don't know, I'm a pretty nosy person. I like to know what people do. Like you said, like the behind- Yeah I love behind the scenes content. Yeah. I always have, and I think I always will. But it helps to see, like, what are you actually doing? And how- Mm-hmm ... are you growing this business? And how are you living your actual life? And how are you balancing? Are you balancing it? It... What's the priority? What's not the priority? And it shows that behind the scenes content that people love so much. Yeah, exactly. I, I definitely find that being the most, juicy kind. Like, people just want... I mean, I like reality TV, so I get it. Who doesn't? Like, I wanna know what people are doing. I wanna know what they're up to. And I always tell my clients that gets... "My b- my life is so boring," and I do the same thing. No. I'm like, "We're all boring together." Like, and we're all not boring together. And those things that you have in common with people are the ones that they reference, actually. Like, "Hey, my kid had, you know, such a tantrum last week and here's how I handled it. Do you have any tips?" Those, one, that gives me tips, and I always get replies to those, it's very helpful. But two, it's like, "Oh, yes, I have that commonality with you because I have a kid around the same age," or whatever it is, you know? Mm-hmm. It's very helpful. Yeah. Okay.
EMAIL CADENCE STRATEGY
So the rest of the time, so these go out on every Tuesday, you said? Yeah, every Tuesday. Okay. Mm-hmm. So then the rest of the week, what are you sending out? Yeah. So I, that's my, like, staple. Yeah. And then I usually have, I would say, like, one or two more focused sales emails for the month. And that's if I'm not in a, like, real structured build-up for a launch. Okay. So right now, as we're recording, I am, so I don't have those because I'm doing more focused, like, events. So those will... i'll have promo emails that will be going towards those events. So that's really... It's either, like, a sales email maybe twice a month, or if I'm going up to a launch, I will have a few emails a week. Usually at least one- Maybe two that's pushing that conversion event, right? And then I also do a good amount of collaborations and things like that. And so whether it's a summit or a bundle or just a freebie swap, I'll usually have about two max for a month. Sometimes I'm, I'm like, "Oh no, I overloaded myself on those." We all do that. Which happens, yes. Yes. I'm trying to do about two. I just know a lot of cool people that I wanna f- you know, share about. Yep. But I do about two of those a month. So that always fills it in, that I'm pretty regularly sending at least two emails a week, if not three. Some it's one and it's just a lighter week, and some it might be four or five. It just depends. But I really try to make it that it, it's pretty much 90% value, and then the, the sale is, like, maybe that 10%. Yeah. And the other ones, you can kind of schedule them, right? So you could... you get the swipe copy for the collab, you know the upcoming events, so you can kind of pre-schedule them. Yep. Whereas the newsletter is more, like, real time. Exactly. 100%, yeah. And so that's nice, too, is knowing, okay, that's all scheduled. Like, I'm doing a private podcast right now, and so all of the, the promo emails are scheduled and written and good to go. I don't have to think about that. But the thing I like about the newsletter, which, you know, if I have a really crazy Monday, I'm kind of screwing myself over 'cause it goes out Tuesday morning. But so far, it's worked out. And, you know, if I had to skip, I would skip or be late, and people would be totally cool with that. It'd be part of the story in the weekly newsletter. Yes. You know? I like that, though. And I'm usually very much a ahead of time person. Like, I don't like doing things last minute. Stresses me out. Same. But I, I like this last minute because it's- Mm ... I want it to be real time. I wanna go, "Hey, this is what happened this weekend," that I'm writing about the next morning. So, and I've noticed people like that as well, so I'm, I'm keeping that going. And it, it seems to be working, so. Yeah. It reminds me of Instagram stories. Like Instagram stories- Yeah ... are very much so real time, but you can also, you know, pre-plan things, like talking about clients. So I like that- Totally ... kind of, like, connection to that. Yeah, definitely. Very similar.
START YOUR NEWSLETTER
You got my wheels turning, Megan. Yay. Oh, I'm glad. I love it. The even marketing pro, I'm like, "Oh, yay." I know. I don't have a newsletter. How exciting. Like, I've always wanted one, but I was like, it's too much with everything else. Yeah. Like, it's too much. Yeah. But this seems like Instagram stories. Like, I can totally pull stuff from stories and put it in- Yes my newsletter, and then I'm using reused content. And after you do it, like, long enough- Yes ... you will start to, like, make notes of, "Okay, I'm gonna save this for the newsletter next week." And I even know, I'll jot down, "Okay, that's what I'm gonna talk about." So I will start to pre-plan a little. Yeah. And it's formatted already, so it's easy for my team to go and plug it in. And again, it, it repur- I repurpose so much. Yes. It becomes multiple pieces of content. Yeah. I love it. I, I'm like, "Yes, we need this, Allison." I wanna see yours. I'm excited now. Adding it to the list. Holding you till you do it.
WHERE TO FIND MEGAN
Megan, this was wonderful. Thank you for sharing all of this knowledge with us today. I am wondering if you can share with our listeners, 'cause I know they're gonna wanna be like, "Where do I find her?" Mm-hmm. Where we can find you online. Yeah. Yeah. So you're listening to a podcast, so you can head on over to Business Not as Usual. That's my podcast where we talk about all things story, frameworks, finding your edge, standing out on social media. And then I have a gift for everyone listening. It's called the Business Story Blueprint. And the reason I reference this is so much of the newsletter that I write is based on my story and based on me, and if I didn't first share my origin story and reference that, I reference that quite a bit within my newsletter every single week, I think it would, it would've, it would dilute the connection I have with my email subscribers. I have a real great connection with them. I get these replies, and I, I think it, it's in large part due to having a solid origin story. And so the way I craft it is, really a p- five-part process that doesn't just help you craft a story that's like, "Oh, you're so inspirational," and shows that you've been through what they have, but it also positions you as an expert, and that's, like, a really big piece of your story to actually sell for you. So, yeah, business origin story. And, it's gonna just really help you, map that out so you feel solid about it. For some reason, I notice people struggle with, with story. We get so in our heads about it, and that it has to be perfect, so I think this will help. Absolutely we get in our heads about it. Yeah. I struggle with sharing my story all the time, so- Yeah ... that is a super valuable resource. Listeners, the link to the Business Story Blueprint is in the show notes along with the link to Megan's podcast. Megan, thank you so much. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me.
