How Writers Can Generate Revenue from Their Email List

by Susan U. Neal RN, MBA, MHS @SusanNealYoga

Do you have an email list yet? A large email list is crucial to your business. If you need help with getting your email list started, please see the blog, Tips for Optimal Email Marketing That Will Engage Readers & Grow Your Email List. After you established a sizable email list, it’s time to earn revenue from it. 

We need to support our publishing ministry financially to keep our business viable. 

3 ways to monetize a newsletter or email automation include: 

1. Sell your products and services.

2. Sell affiliate products and services.

3. Find newsletter sponsors to pay you.

Your newsletter or email automation must provide value, fun, and relevant information to your readers. When it does, readers will stay on your list. The more subscribers you have, the more profitable your list will be.

Offer Your Products and Services

However, you don’t want to hit up your subscribers with frequent offers. How often should you include an offer in your newsletter? Use Edie Melson’s five to one rule for social media. Give your subscriber five benefits before providing them with one of your offers. You want your reader to keep opening your emails, so you have to give them value. If you send a weekly newsletter provide one offer per month. If you send a newsletter twice a month, have one offer every two months. You always want to provide more value than your number of buy offers so the reader will continue to open your emails. If they know, like, and trust you, then they will buy from you.

If you would like to know more about how to establish a large email list, how often to send an email, and the secret to opt-in gifts, please see my Course: Optimal Email Marketing from Opt-In Gift to Email Automation at CIPA.Podia.com.

Newsletter Sponsor

A newsletter sponsorship is a paid advertisement in your email. But you can easily incorporate this advertisement into the reader experience. In fact, you can include content in your newsletter that blends well with your sponsor’s product. For example, a blog about toxins in the water works well with a water purification advertisement or an affiliate link. This ad helps the reader know where to go to get the product they desire. You can include newsletter sponsorships at any time. Add them to the bottom of your email or wherever you want in your newsletter. You could say this newsletter is brought to you by …

To get started with finding a sponsor, create a media kit to include along with your pitch email to give to sponsors. You can grab your free media kit guide at https://christianpublishers.net/free-gift/.

You need to acquire 10,000 subscribers on your email list before you go after sponsorships. For example, convert kit is a great program to become an affiliate with, but they require 10,000 people on your email list to be a sponsor. 

Before working on sponsors, focus on setting up at least one big ticket affiliate program, next focus on selling your own products and services, and finally after you have 10,000 on your email list seek monetary sponsorship.

Affiliate Offers

An affiliate program is an arrangement where a company will pay you a commission for finding buyers. You sign up for the affiliation with the company and they give you a specific link to use to sell their product. This special link lets the company know that you found the buyer. You can post affiliate links in blogs, your website, or a newsletter.

Find several affiliate programs you could incorporate into your newsletter and plan on creating emails for the affiliate offer. You want to make sure these affiliate programs are in alignment with your core values and brand. For example, as an a author coach teaching about email marketing, I’ve become an affiliate for Active Campaign and ConvertKit (here is my affiliate link).

For purchase links, a 1 percent purchase rate is typical. So if you have 100 people on your list you can expect one person to buy your offer. If you find an affiliate program you can make $100 from one sale, if you have 1000 people on your email list you could expect 10 buyers, which would provide you with $1000. Not bad, huh?

If you don’t have .5 to 1 percent of your subscribers taking you up on your offers, then the offer may not be a good match for the audience. So you have to figure out what your audience likes. Test your offers in your emails to see if they work. Try different subject lines and formats for the newsletter offer.

Try to find affiliate programs where you make at least $100 from one sale. This makes it much more worthwhile than $10. For example, affiliate courses usually pay a 30 to 50 percent commission for the sale. So the course would need to be valued at several hundred dollars for it to be worthwhile.

When you say yes to one affiliate offer, you are saying no to another one. So make sure your affiliate offers are big dollar makers for you. This is how you monetize your newsletter. 

In the fall, you could create a gift guide for your subscribers that includes links to all of your affiliate products. You can include lower price items with an affiliate link from Amazon on this guide. Send the gift-buying guide in early November when most people buy Christmas gifts. 

How do you introduce an offer in your email? You tell them how it affected you and improved your life since you use the product. In the email you can also add, “If this offer is not for you, maybe you would like this freebie.” So you are giving them something besides the offer. The freebie made it worthwhile for them to open the email. 

When you send an affiliate email offer, you usually send three emails about it. The first one includes general information about the offer. The second one lists everything they will receive from the offer and includes how long this offer is open. It’s also great to say, “If you have questions about this offer please reply to this email, and I would be happy to answer them.” In the third email, the subject line should say, Last Day of Sale. Sending three emails within one week is acceptable.

Next Steps

To get started with monetizing your email list, here are your next steps.

• Create a couple of emails in your automation which highlight your books, coaching, and courses.
• Create a list of potential affiliate products. 
• Determine which affiliate to use and sign up. 
• Incorporate affiliate links into your email automation.

For more information about email marketing and monetization, please check out my Course: Email Marketing at CIPA.Podia.com. May God bless your journey to financially support your ministry.

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How Writers Can Generate Revenue from Their Email List from author @SusanNealYoga on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

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Susan U. Neal, RN, MBA, MHS: Susan’s mission is to improve the health of the body of Christ. She has her RN and MBA degrees, as well as a master’s in health science. She is a CERTIFIED HEALTH AND WELLNESS COACHwith the American Association of Christian Counselors. She published five books, the Selah award winner 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, CHRISTIAN STUDY GUIDE FOR 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, HEALTHY LIVING JOURNAL, SCRIPTURE YOGAa #1 Amazon best-selling yoga book, and YOGA FOR BEGINNERSwhich ranked #3. She published two sets of Christian Yoga Card Decks and two Christian Yoga DVDs that are available at CHRISTINAYOGA.COM. Her digital product HOW TO PREVENT, IMPROVE, AND REVERSE ALZHEIMER’S AND DEMENTIA is a great resource. To learn more about Susan visit her website SUSANUNEAL.COM You can also connect with Susan on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and INSTAGRAM.

Featured Image: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash