Liz Wilcox found herself at a crossroads.

With a growing email list of beginners wanting to learn about email marketing, she knew she wanted to find a way to step away from client work within a couple of years.

She had just signed a huge copywriting contract worth $20,000… her biggest one yet. But instead of excitement, all she felt was dread about the massive project she now had to take on.

And as a single mom, she knew the importance of creating a business that would support her lifestyle and allow her to be present for her family.

This is where the idea of “low cost = low responsibility” appealed to her, as it would allow her to serve her audience at LizWilcox.com while maintaining a manageable workload.

So Liz had the idea to create her flagship offer The Email Marketing Membership — a set of done-for-you email newsletter templates that members could access for just $9 per month.

Tune in to Episode 600 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

How to come up with ideas for your own recurring revenue membership
How Liz built her own email list and audience
How to improve retention and continue delivering value to members

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Selling Her “Sawdust”

That $20,000 contract made her realize a key truth: trading time for money wasn’t going to lead to the freedom she wanted.

It doesn’t matter how big her projects got or how high she raised her rates because her future remains constrained by working for others and producing results for them.

And then an idea hit her: by selling her “sawdust”—those newsletter templates she made—she could solve a recurring problem for her audience in a recurring way. All while minimizing her time investment.

As she reflected, a few things stood out:

Beginners often find it difficult to send regular emails
No one was offering ready-made newsletter templates at an affordable price
She had tons of email templates for clients that she could adapt and re-purpose

She got the idea from helping clients one-on-one and seeing the problems they usually have with email marketing.

Growth and Traction Out the Gate

To get started, Liz asked her email subscribers for their thoughts on the membership idea.

Since she already had an email list of 800 people, she had a ready-made audience to promote her membership to.

So she sent them an email with the subject line, “Can I have $9?” and shared her goal of reaching 100 members in 30 days. 

“I’m gonna send you a newsletter template every single week. It’s $9. If you’ve been on my email list for a while, you know my stuff is awesome. So why not join?”

This strategy of public accountability created a sense of urgency and excitement around the launch, and within 28 days, Liz hit her first 100 members!

The hype around reaching that benchmark also created natural word-of-mouth publicity on social media.

As the community started to take shape, she decided to create an affiliate program to incentivize sharing. Offering 50% recurring commissions on every $9 membership was lucrative enough to drive strong promotion.

After only 3 months, she grew to 700 members with the help of these affiliate partnerships.

Pricing Strategy: Annual Plan

When Liz’s membership hit the 9-month mark, things were going incredibly well. Almost too well.

She started to wonder — what would happen when all the initial excitement died off? How could she lock in results and guarantee growth?

Drawing on inspiration from SaaS companies with annual subscription plans, she decided to test prepaid annual access on Black Friday.

This limited-time offer included:

One year of the newsletter template membership
Instant access to ALL her other digital products
Free lifetime access to any new products she created

To build scarcity and demand, she capped it at 100 spots for the first 2-hour launch window, and they sold out immediately.

She reopened it shortly after to supply more demand, ultimately bringing in 225 annual members and $37K in just a few weeks.

This gave her the security and support she needed to step away from client work for good and focus exclusively on her membership.

Inside the Membership: Delivering Value to Members

At the core of Liz’s membership are the weekly newsletter templates.

She actually started giving these templates via a simple Google Doc link. As her membership grew, Liz added more value by opening up a community for her members once she reached 1,000 subscribers.

Three key aspects to keep her members engaged and satisfied:

Invested Support:  She regularly talks to her members and helps them use the tools and tips in the membership.
Personal Connection: She shares her own stories to connect with her members, making them feel like they belong and want to stick around.
Consistent Value: She provides helpful content like workshops and short courses, along with weekly newsletters.

Liz has created a strong community that supports each other because she always provides valuable content and builds good relationships with them.

Driving Traffic and Sales: Affiliate Marketing and Podcast Guesting

To keep growing her membership, Liz relies on two main methods:

Affiliate Marketing: She gives affiliates a big 50% commission to promote her membership. She started with SamCart for managing affiliates but switched to ThriveCart for its lower cost and similar features.
Podcast Guesting: She keeps going on podcasts to get new leads and send them to her membership site.

These two methods work together to bring in a steady flow of new members for Liz’s membership.

Serving a Diverse Audience

As her platform expanded, she ended up attracting members from all sorts of backgrounds beyond just bloggers and online course creators. They now include:

Bloggers
Content creators
SaaS companies
Real estate professionals
Even nuns!

Why does it appeal to such a wide spectrum? Because EVERYONE needs to master communicating with their customers and nurturing leads.

This diversity also makes the membership community more interesting and lively. Members can share their experiences and views, which leads to useful sharing of ideas and strategies between them.

Tackling Churn: Providing Undeniable Value

One of the problems Liz deals with is member churn, which is currently around 8-10%.

Although this rate is higher than she wants, Liz believes that her membership becomes an obvious choice for those who use it well because of the great value it provides.

The return on investment for members who use the strategies and templates she offers far exceeds the $9 monthly fee.

To tackle churn, Liz is always working on making the member experience better and offering more value.

This includes:

regularly updating the content library
hosting live Q&A sessions
giving personalized support and feedback

A Day in Her Life

As a single parent, Liz has organized her workday to maintain a good balance between work and family life. 

“I tend to only work about five hours a day,” She shares. This includes taking her daughter to school and handling all parenting responsibilities solo.

By prioritizing her work and delegating when she can, she makes the most of her work hours and enjoys quality time with her family.

Liz’s story is inspiring for other entrepreneurs who are juggling family responsibilities and building a business.

What’s Next?

Currently Liz’s membership sits at around 4,500 active members.

As the community grew exponentially, it became harder to provide the same level of care and personalization.

Many newcomers joined just because they knew Liz’s name, but without understanding what the community was really about.

To combat this, Liz is restructuring the membership experience to deliver more value and relevance:

Upgraded courses and materials
New interface to easily find relevant templates
Live workshops for the most critical email topics
Focusing on high-level masterminds and annual members

Liz’s stretch goal is to hit 10,000 members by the end of 2024. That would make the Email Marketing Membership a $1M business, all on its own.

But more importantly, Liz wants to regain that feeling of real relationships and impact that sparked her passion for this business in the first place.

It’s all about keeping things fresh and focused on serving Liz’s true ideal members. That emotional connection and transformation is ultimately what business success is all about!

Episode Links

LizWilcox.com
The Email Marketing Membership
SamCart
ThriveCart

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Slicethepie claims to be “the largest paid review site on the Internet.” (It’s not.)

But if you like the idea of getting paid less than $2 an hour for your opinion, it is a legit way to make money online.

In this review, we’ll break down:

how Slicethepie works
how to maximize your earnings
some better-paying alternatives to consider

Ready? Let’s do it!

How Slicethepie Works

Slicethepie pays you to “write reviews on new songs, fashion items, accessories, and commercials before they are released.”

Your feedback goes directly to unsigned artists, record labels, and designers. It’s a way for them to affordably crowdsource public opinion before releasing a new album, product, or marketing campaign.

After all, if the feedback is poor, it’s better for them to go back to the drawing board than launch a dud.

Is Slicethepie Legit?

Yes, Slicethepie is legit. The company has been around since 2007, and has raised $2M in venture funding.

In that time, the music review engine has collected over 70 million reviews and paid out over $8.5M to members like you and I.

However, some quick math indicates the average payout per review is just $0.12. That wouldn’t be horrible but some of the reviews require quite a bit of time — more on that below — and there’s a $10 minimum to cash out.

Plus, Slicethepie makes some bold marketing claims that are almost certainly false. For example, they claim to be “the largest paid review site on the internet.”

But according to ahrefs, Slicethepie only gets a tiny fraction of the traffic that other major review sites like Swagbucks and SurveyJunkie do. 

How to Make Money with Slicethepie

After you get signed up, you’ll be presented with several categories of reviews to choose from:

Music
Commercials
Branding
Fashion

Reviewing Music

In the music review section, you’re rate and review one track at a time. You need to listen to at least 90 seconds of the track before you can submit your review.

Slicethepie asks you to rate each song based on qualities like:

Rebellious
Authoritative
Compassionate
Approachable
Idealistic
Opulent
Pure
and more

You’ll also need to:

write a brief review (at least 2-3 sentences)
rate for the song on a scale from 1-10
rate your ability to hum, tap, or sing the melody you just heard

According to Slicethepie, you can earn more per review by:

Submitting detailed, varied, and constructive reviews in well-written English.
Being specific about the various aspects of the track, such as vocals, rhythm, production, instrumentation and so forth.

Here’s an example of a song review our independent tester wrote:

The singer’s passion for freedom shines throughout the song, with a clear message to resist the forces of evil. The sweet vocals are supported with a laid back production which has an R&B vibe. The melody comes mostly from the singer, with no memorable instrumental parts, whilst the arrangement of the drums can be said to be pretty standard, and provides little sonic excitement. Having said that, this is a ‘song’, as opposed to a musical piece, and it works very well as such. The message and the voice are the important things, so whilst I would have preferred more variety in the production and instrumentation, the song was well written, well performed, and a different arrangement may have obscured these elements.

What did he get for sharing his two cents? Literally $0.02.

Reviewing Commercials

Under the Commercials category, you get to watch videos and move a little slider to indicate how you feel about the video as you’re watching it.

Along with your review and rating, there are a bunch of questions to answer — way more than the other categories.

For example, our Slicethepie tester watched a commercial for Kinder eggs, and earned $0.03 after filling out the detailed review questionnaire. 

It’s kind of cool to get paid to watch videos, but also pretty slow, tedious, and ridiculously low-paying.

Reviewing Branding

The Branding category has both audio and visual branding review tasks.

Audio Branding has you reviewing voice-overs and audio clips. 

Similar to the other sections, you’ll give your overall opinion and then answer a series of questions about the clip.

Our tester earned $0.05 for this review of a 30-second ad for a mobile phone network:

“The voice-over was bold and compelling. The product was presented as being the best in the market, and the narrator enforced this message with their confident and sure delivery. It was easily recognizable as being of a similar style to other advertising elsewhere from this company, such as YouTube and television, and is both familiar and commonplace. This voice-over strongly reinforces the message that this company is at the forefront of communications by having a consistent and powerful history of delivering the same message in similar ways.”

Visual Branding seems to be mostly giving feedback on brand or product logos or packaging.

Based just on the visual, Slicethepie as for your opinion and rating in several categories, like:

Bold
Pure
Defiant
Fun-loving
Intense
Joyful
and more

Our tester earned another $0.05 for completing that review.

As you can see, Slicethepie is very much a volume game — you have to do a ton of reviews before ever earning the $10 minimum to withdraw.

My guess is most users give up before they ever reach that threshold. 

Reviewing Fashion

At press time, the Fashion section didn’t have any products available to review.

How to Maximize Your Slicethepie Earnings

There are a few ways to improve how much you can make on Slicethepie.

1. Focus on Bonus Categories

Occasionally, certain review categories will be labeled as “Bonus $$” or “Max $$$”. These are limited time promotions when completing reviews in that category earn more than normal.

2. Increase Your Star Rating

According to Slicethepie, “Your Star Rating is a measure of the quality of your reviews, compared with all other reviewers. The more Stars you have the more you’ll earn.”

How do you improve your Star Rating?

Apparently by writing longer reviews — up to 200-500 words! So there’s the tradeoff: spend significantly longer typing out reviews in the hope of earning more per review, or try to bust through them as fast as possible.

Other tips from other Slicethepie users include:

Be honest, but not rude
Use appropriate terminology
Be thorough
Create a checklist of elements to discuss in your review, like rhythm, song structure, lyrics, vocals, instruments, etc.

Our tester managed to claw his way up to a 3-star rating, but it took its toll. “Two hundred to 500 words on a rubbish song is more than I can manage and still stay sane,” he explained.

3. Refer Your Friends

Misery loves company?

For every friend who joins through your referral link, you’ll receive:

20% of all their review earnings for their first 60 days
10% after that

4. Complete Surveys

Surveys are another way to earn with Slicethepie, but there were none available at press time for us to test.

How Much Can You Make on Slicethepie?

The most we made in any of our review tests was $0.06.

Most users agree that it will take time and patience, but that getting a higher Star Rating is a key factor in earning more. A few 5-Star Slicethepie reviewers report earning up to $0.20 per review. 

One even claimed to be making $130 a week. I can only imagine how many mind-numbing hours that takes.

Let’s say you’re exceptionally fast and can knock out a review every 3 minutes, and earn the advertised average of $0.12 per review.

That’s 20 reviews in an hour x $0.12 = $2.40. 

You’d have to work full-time (40 hours), just to make $100 in a week.

And that assumes you’re banging out quality reviews in 3 minutes and earning double what we did in any of our tests.

Who is Eligible to Join Slicethepie?

Slicethepie is open to residents of “most English-speaking territories and Germany.”

Slicethepie Payout Options

If you manage to reach the magical $10 threshold to cash out, PayPal is your only option.

Important note: Your Slicethepie email address must match your PayPal email address.

On the positive side, I like how Slicethepie just pays you in dollars and doesn’t mess around with any confusing point system or virtual currency, or make you trade in for gift cards.

Can You Do Slicethepie on Your Phone?

At press time, Slicethepie doesn’t have a mobile app. The site is functional on mobile, but not as user-friendly as the desktop version.

Issues with Your Slicethepie Account

When I tried to access my account using a VPN from Starbucks, my account was locked. Thankfully, customer support got me reinstated in a couple days. 

Slicethepie Alternatives

Getting paid for your opinion can be a pretty fun and easy way to make money.

But when it comes to remote side hustles, there are better options. 

Paid Market Research

There are several sites that help match you with paid research studies online. Depending on your areas of expertise, these can pay $50-200 an hour.

My favorites are:

Respondent — Aimed at tech industry workers and other professionals. Check out my full Respondent review to learn more.
User Interviews — High-paying remote market research gigs in an easy-to-use interface. Here’s our full User Interviews review for more info.
Rare Patient Voice — For patients (and their caregivers) with rare and not-so-rare medical conditions. The average payout is $100 an hour.

Game App Testing

KashKick is a newer app that pays you to answer surveys, test new games (up to $150 each!), and redeem money-saving offers.

With the slogan “get paid to have fun,” KashKick is rated 4.3-stars in the Google Play store.

Other Survey Sites

These won’t make you rich either, but can be an easy way to make some money in your spare time. And most have mobile apps so you can earn from your phone.

Here are a few of the top options:

Prolific

Prolific is one of my favorite survey sites because it pays better than most ($7-10+ per hour), and they tell you both the payout and estimated time to complete each one upfront.

Studies range from quick 5-10 minute surveys to more in-depth questionnaires taking around 30 minutes.

Check out our full Prolific review to learn more.

Remotasks

Remotasks is one of several companies paying people to help train the next generation of AI tools. You can earn $14-$18 an hour to help:

rate and rank AI responses
draft responses to sample prompts
edit and improve AI answers

The onboarding process does take some time, but once you get through, this is a viable way to earn from home. Check out our full Remotasks review to learn more.

Is Slicethepie Worth It?

Slicethepie is a legit way to make money online, but that money will be slow to accumulate. 

Given the low payouts, the $10 minimum to withdraw funds is a mountain I fear few will ever summit.

The site is best for people who genuinely love listening to music and sharing their detailed feedback on songs.

Otherwise, my advice would be to turn your attention to some of the alternatives listed above.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra income with actionable weekly episodes.