Getting someone to join your membership on Black Friday is only the beginning: what happens next needs to give them a reason to stay. Murtaza Bambot, founder and CEO of Heartbeat, shares how to connect your offer with the first week inside your community, drawing on examples of paid waitlists, group onboarding and annual membership promotions.

You’ll learn what to plan before the sale, how to communicate the value beyond your content library, and where email can help members take their next step. A practical conversation for course creators, coaches and consultants selling memberships this Black Friday.

This episode is sponsored by Heartbeat, a platform for building a community people will pay for.

Master the Inbox listeners get 20% off their first 3 months of Heartbeat with code MASTERTHEINBOX, on top of the 14-day free trial (Affiliate disclosure: I receive a commission when you use my code).

About Murtaza

Murtaza Bambot is the founder and CEO of Heartbeat, a platform for paid communities and memberships. Before building Heartbeat, he helped run the community at Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator. His experience connecting tools and supporting founders shaped the platform he went on to build with his co-founder. In this conversation, he shares lessons from building Heartbeat and working with community owners.

Heartbeat | Murtaza on LinkedIn

Listener offer and resources
Try Heartbeat with the code mastertheinbox for 20% off your first three months, on top of the 14-day free trial (Affiliate disclosure: I receive a commission when you use my code).

Timestamps

00:00 Selling memberships during Black Friday

01:00 Plan the first day, three days and seven days

04:00 How Murtaza came to build Heartbeat

11:00 Give members a path beyond the content library

15:00 The $1 paid waitlist for a January challenge

18:00 Onboarding and automations for more members

29:00 Relevant offers inside your community

34:00 Re-engagement and Black Friday offer design

39:00 Write emails from your community’s real conversations

44:00 Are you ready to build a paid membership?

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...

Your Black Friday offer is live, but what should you email next besides another reminder about the discount? Monica Badiu walks through eight types of Black Friday emails, from announcements and value-building messages to objection handling, social proof, FAQs, bonuses, urgency, and last calls.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• A short announcement can work when your audience already understands the offer and has been prepared for the sale.
• A value email should explain the outcome and relevance of a purchase alongside the savings.
• Objection-handling emails can address time, experience, technology, or price without assuming a discount resolves every concern.
• Social proof becomes more useful when the student’s starting point and experience relate to the reader’s hesitation.
• Urgency should explain what actually changes when the deadline passes.
• FAQ and bonus emails can answer practical questions and make implementation support easier to understand.
• A last-call email can be direct when earlier messages have already explained the offer.
• You can combine email purposes or use fewer than eight messages, depending on the buying decision.

Resources Mentioned

• Black Friday Emails That Don’t Suck — Monica’s course with walkthroughs, examples, and templates. https://www.monicabadiu.com/course-black-friday-emails-that-dont-suck/
• Master The Inbox Black Friday season — the wider collection on campaign preparation and strategy. https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-podcast/
• Copyhackers — discussed as an example of explaining purchase value in context.
• Mindvalley — mentioned as an example of a more developed announcement email.
• Master The Inbox on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/108863531
• Master The Inbox on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mastertheinbox_

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...

You can have the best discount, the best copy, and a big list and still watch your Black Friday campaign fail because your emails never reached the inbox.

In this episode, Monica Badiu shares what she learned after flying to Poland for 48 hours to sit in a room with email deliverability experts who collectively send millions of emails per month including Bouncer CEO Radek Kaczyński, deliverability expert Aleksandra Szulecka-Szmyt, and Kath Pay from Holistic Email Marketing

The decisions you make in September and October determine whether your Black Friday emails land in the inbox or spam, and by November, your reputation is already set.

Resources mentioned:

Revive Your Email List → monicabadiu.com/revive-your-email-list/ If you want to go deeper on the re-engagement piece specifically, the part that most course creators need to start with, the Revive Your Email List course walks you through the exact three-step framework: how to audit your list, the email templates to re-engage inactive subscribers, the nurture strategy for bringing people back after they re-engage, and real case studies from actual campaigns.

Join the community → skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845 And if you want to stay close to everything Monica is sharing on Q4 — offers, funnels, what to send your subscribers, copy teardowns, the full Black Friday strategy — the Master The Inbox Skool Community is free to join and active throughout the season.

• Connect with Radek Kaczyński https://www.linkedin.com/in/radoslawkaczynski/
• Follow Kath Pay https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathpay/
• Learn more about Bouncer https://www.usebouncer.com

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...

Everyone talks about ad budgets and creative strategy for Black Friday. Almost nobody talks about what's happening in your nervous system while the dashboard is flashing red. In this episode, Monica Badiu sits down with Rita Ainsworth — a performance marketing veteran who burned out twice before walking away at the peak of her career — to talk about Q4 ad strategy, the hidden cost of running campaigns under chronic stress, and the counterintuitive truth she discovered: doing less is often the highest-leverage move a high performer can make. Whether you're running ads or managing email campaigns this Black Friday, this conversation will change how you prepare.

About Rita Ainsworth

Rita Ainsworth spent over a decade in performance marketing, managing multi-million dollar ad budgets and leading teams across international time zones. After burning out twice — including one episode that left her unable to work more than two hours a day for months — she walked away at the peak of her career and went deep into the science of stress, energy, and the nervous system. She now coaches founders, operators, and marketers on how nervous system state shapes performance, decisions, and leadership. Her practice is built on one principle: state before strategy.

• 🌐 Website: ritaainsworthcoaching.com
• 💬 Find Rita on LinkedIn
• 📋 Take Rita's Nervous System Quiz: find out if you're regulated, stressed, or heading toward burnout, plus practical tips based on your results.
• Find Monica on LinkedIn

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...

Have you ever wondered how often other course creators are emailing their lists — or what they're actually sending? In this episode, Monica Badiu shares six findings from a real competitive study she ran for a client in the language learning space, based on a few hundred emails received over the past year from creators teaching English, French, Spanish, and more. From sending frequency and welcome sequences to launch structures and list hygiene, this is what email marketing actually looks like behind the scenes — and what you can take directly from it for your own list.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• How many emails the most consistent-revenue creators are actually sending per month — and how solo creators compare
• Why emailing only during launches is creating a cold list problem — and what to send between campaigns instead
• What "the angle" is, why it's the single biggest differentiator between creators selling similar things, and how three creators selling the same course type use completely different emotional frames to convert
• What a deeply personal, front-loaded welcome sequence looks like in practice — including one that opens with a regional British greeting instead of "Hi first name"
• Why the deadline email is non-negotiable in every launch — and what separates a deadline email that converts from one that feels like noise
• Why re-engagement campaigns are rare among course creators — and why that's a costly mistake, especially if you're running ads

Resources Mentioned

• 📧 Re-engagement Campaign Course — the exact strategy, email templates, and nurture sequence to win back inactive subscribers and clean your list properly → https://www.monicabadiu.com/revive-your-email-list/
• 💬 Find Monica on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu/
• 📸 Find Monica on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/itsmonicabadiu/

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...

You have decent open rates. But clicks? Nearly zero. And sales? Not happening. In this episode, Monica Badiu walks through the seven specific reasons your sales emails are getting opened but not acted on — from subject line mismatches and weak CTAs to bad timing and emails that are trying to do too much.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• How to diagnose whether your bottleneck is inside the email, on the sales page, or at checkout — before you change anything
• Why a curiosity-driven subject line can actually hurt your click rate if the body doesn't deliver on its promise
• What segmentation has to do with clicks — and how two versions of the same email can speak to completely different audiences
• Why vague, repetitive promo emails fail even when the offer is solid
• The difference between action-based and benefit-based CTAs — and which one actually gets clicked
• Why your email's only job during a promotion is to make clicking the sales page feel like the obvious next step
• How to use timing and current events to make your promotional emails feel immediately relevant
• What real urgency looks like — and why "sale ends tonight" isn't enough anymore

Resources Mentioned

• 📋 Free Email Bottleneck Assessment — find out what's blocking your email revenue → https://www.monicabadiu.com/email-revenue-self-assessment/
• 💬 Master The Inbox Skool Community — three plans based on how much access you want → https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845

The 7 Reasons at a Glance

1. Subject line and body mismatch — you earned the open but didn't deliver the promise
2. No segmentation — the same email going to everyone speaks to no one specifically
3. Emails that aren't saying much — vague content with no story, no transformation, no reason to care
4. Weak CTA copy — action-based instead of benefit-based
5. The email is trying to do too much — selling, closing, and sending people to five different places at once
6. The email isn't relevant to where your reader actually is right now
7. No real reason to act now — urgency without stakes

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

• Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
• Join the free Master the Inbox community https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845
• Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
• Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.mastertheinbox.com
• Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
• Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
• Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
• Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: ...