How Molly Thompson transformed her email list by listening to her audience
When Raptive creator Molly Thompson launched What Molly Made in 2015, building her email list wasn’t a high priority. She focused on creating quick, healthy, approachable recipes—perfect for busy growing families. After she was diagnosed with PCOS in 2018, Molly expanded her content to include hundreds of PCOS-friendly recipes, becoming an invaluable resource for readers navigating the same diagnosis.
But as the digital landscape shifted and organic traffic became less reliable, Molly knew she needed to give her email list more attention.
“Email is critical for me at this point,” she said. “It’s probably 30 to 40% of my overall work. Two years ago, it was more like 5%.”
Molly spent the bulk of 2024 growing her email list, with incredible results.
“At the start of the year, I had 16,000 email subscribers. By the end of 2024, I had 130,000.”
How Molly catapulted her email list in a year
Of course, the biggest question is how did she do it? We talked to Molly about her approach, what she learned, and how you can follow her playbook for email success.
Molly attributes her growth to one key factor: hiring someone to help.
“I couldn’t have done it without hiring it out at this point in my business,” she said. “It was a little bit of a risk financially, but it totally paid off.”
Molly posted a job description on Instagram and embarked on an intense hiring process, vetting applications, conducting phone interviews, and requesting assessments where she paid shortlisted candidates to complete a short project.
Once she had her new hire in place, they put together an email strategy.
“We started sending weekly meal plans, which generate a ton of traffic to our site,” Molly says. “Open rates are about 55%. I get upwards of 300,000 pageviews a month just from email, almost solely from the meal plans.”
Right now with the volatility of Google and even social, email gives me so much peace of mind.
Her direct traffic is now between 400,000 and 500,000 monthly visitors—almost one million pageviews a month related to email.
“I can’t attribute all of that direct traffic to email, but I do think it plays a huge part,” she says. “I definitely noticed a correlation. When my email list went up, my direct traffic went up.”
That comes down to increased brand recognition. “When people see emails in their inbox from me, and they trust my recipes, they’re going to go to my site when they want to make something versus searching on Google.”
Molly and her email coordinator meet weekly to review a scorecard of data—open rates, clickthrough rates, and traffic—then they troubleshoot any declining numbers.
“That’s been really helpful for our email traffic, really closely monitoring the analytics every single week to look at what’s working and not working,” she says.
But the real secret to Molly’s email success is that she finds out what her readers want and gives it to them.
Streamlining data analysis with AI
To find out what her readers needed, Molly asked them directly, leveraging AI for efficiency.
“I used ChatGPT and said ‘I’m trying to get to my audience’s pain points. Come up with six questions I can ask to understand what they’re struggling with when it comes to my niche.’ Then I shared the survey on my Instagram story and sent it to my email list,” she says.
Molly got around 2,000 responses, which she pasted into ChatGPT. She then asked it to analyze the responses, identify key themes, and generate a list of her audience’s pain points.
“Now I have a list of specific pain points in my project management tool to go back to all the time,” she says. “And for each of the pain points, I had ChatGPT pull out specific quotes from the survey I can use within my email. The goal is for people to think, you’re talking to me. I’m struggling with this and you’re helping me.”
Finally, she used ChatGPT to generate 30 email newsletter ideas that would solve her audience’s problems.
“Everyone needs recipes for holidays and dinner ideas; those things are always helpful,” she says. “But if you really know your audience, that helps a lot more.”
Giving readers what they want
Molly sends three emails each week. On Tuesdays, it’s a personal email about what she’s eating that week. On Thursdays, recipes related to a seasonal event or themes addressing a specific pain point. On Saturdays, she sends her popular weekly meal plan.
Molly and her email coordinator also tap into the wealth of data they already have, searching the comments on her site for phrases like “kids love this” to find recipes her readers said their kids love. Then they create a roundup for her Thursday email with the subject line ‘Recipes readers say their kids love,’ which Molly says helps improve open rates and build greater trust.
While three weekly emails may feel like a lot, Molly puts the control in her readers’ hands. At the bottom of every email, readers can update their preferences to opt into the emails they want.
“You can train your audience on what to expect,” she says. “Be upfront in your welcome series about how many emails you send, and people won’t get frustrated. Sending more emails just to send more emails isn’t helpful.”
Where to start if you’re not in a position to hire
Looking to grow your email list but can’t expand your team? Molly recommends setting up systems and leaning into your existing content. She sends one freebie each month and has a template in place for her ebooks, landing pages, and automated emails.
“It takes a little bit of extra effort up front, but now I have 15 months of lead magnets, with at least five that I know perform really well.”
And don’t worry about repeating templates; in Molly’s experience, it’s not necessary, especially when you’re strapped for time.
“Nobody notices that you’ve used the same landing page. They don’t care,” she said.
Repurposing old content is a great way to avoid spending a ton of time or effort on growth when you don’t have the capacity to hire.
Driving subscribers through Instagram
We asked Molly to suggest one small thing everyone could do to jumpstart their email list, and she immediately pointed to Instagram.
I have found such success growing my email list using social media.
Molly shares lead magnets on Instagram and has a conversion rate of over 90%. Her freebies range from curated ebooks to an automated email with links to themed existing content.
“One of my most successful campaigns was a breakfast ebook,” she says. “It was just 10 easy high-protein, high-fiber recipes; based on my survey, I knew that’s what people needed.”
Molly spent a month developing the recipes, put them into an ebook, and created an Instagram reel showcasing the recipes.
The result? 30,000 new email subscribers.
If you don’t have time to create an ebook, Molly recommends starting with a free, automated email that links to your best seasonal recipes—for example, a Fourth of July menu. Then share one related picture on your Instagram story with a call to action encouraging readers to sign up for the full menu.
“You don’t have to have a lot of Instagram followers for this to work,” she said. “It’s still helpful if you get even 100 subscribers. That’s still 100 people! And if it’s low effort and you have it done, you can share the same thing next year.”
Molly also uses Grocers List, an Instagram automation similar to ManyChat designed for food creators. She recently shared a simple post about ‘What to make in March,’ which was a list of recipes with a picture of a lemon cake and the caption, ‘reply RECIPE and I’ll send you the link.’ For minimal effort, the post was very successful in attracting new subscribers.
And she’s seeing a symbiotic relationship between platforms—when she implemented the social media component of her email strategy, her Instagram followers jumped from 150,000 to 600,000.
Prioritize quality over quantity
The common thread throughout all of Molly’s email email efforts is a strong emphasis on giving subscribers what they’re looking for, and she does that by getting to know her audience.
“People really value their inbox and don’t take it lightly when they give their email to someone. They’re quick to unsubscribe. If you’re not adding value and doing the work to know what they really need, you’ll miss the mark.”
Find Molly online at What Molly Made and on Instagram! Molly is also working on an ebook for creators with more insights on how to grow your email subscribers, coming soon.
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