- ThriveLetter Weekly
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- 6 ways to monetize your newsletter
Welcome back to another power-packed newsletter, and today we are talking about newsletter monetization.
We will discuss
Different ways to monetize your newsletter
How to choose what’s best for you
Examples from other creators
Sponsored Content
Sponsorships are a great revenue source. You already know about how sponsorship works in general.
But, how does it work for newsletters?
Newsletters have ad slots, where the brands can promote themselves.
You can promote any number of ads to say.
However, it will be disgusting to read a newsletter, filled with 20 ads.
Having a primary ad slot is the first thing that the reader will see before even reading the newsletter.
Alongside, one or two secondary slots. Don’t overload the ads.
HOW TO CHOOSE AND GET SPONSORS?
One word answer to this is, REACHOUT!
Once you have a good enough audience, you should reach out to brands, to ask them if they would be interested in sponsoring your newsletter.
To whom to reach out?
The people of YOUR INDUSTRY. Your sponsors should have some real value, product, or service to provide to your audience.
Choose the products or services that will directly benefit your audience.
Anything irrelevant will do two things:
Reduce your audience's trust in you
Sponsors will reduce because YOUR people are not interested in buying their products.
HOW WILL YOU FIND THEM?
Since the sponsors are going to be of your industry. They will be:
Doing similar things as you
Having a product your audience will need
Selling to similar people whom you are targeting
HOW TO ALIGN YOUR SPONSORS AND AUDIENCE?
You must be aware of the likes-dislikes, motivations, and intentions behind the actions of your audience.
It is important to communicate these things well to your sponsors.
And, make them clear about the expectations. Set the expectations right.
Affiliate Products
This isn’t something new for creators.
To generate revenue from Affiliate Marketing, you should command high trust.
Especially in the case of newsletters, because
The products you choose should be valuable to your audience.
Use genuine and reputed products. Because ultimately, it’s YOUR people who are going to buy it, from YOUR SUGGESTION. Don’t disappoint them.
Do proper research, or first use the product yourself and promote it only if it resonates with your audience.
HOW TO CHOOSE PRODUCTS?
See the products you use in your business and are related to you.
Are you satisfied with it?
If yes, will it be of use to your audience?
The second question is more important, because what if the thing YOU FIND USEFUL, YOUR audience doesn’t?
Subscription-based or Paid Newsletters
This is common in industries like, business news, fitness, and finance. But, this can be extended to practically any industry.
You can offer premium newsletters to dive deeper into your industries, giving better insights and reports.
Keep in mind that you have to offer MORE QUALITY than your free content (or Free newsletter.)
You can provide things like,
- Private Community Access
- Weekly/ Monthly webinars
- Some sort of exclusive series
- Exclusive breakdown of reports
You can use your creativity to make your newsletter stand out from the rest.
Offering additionals in your premium newsletter will significantly increase the impact of your newsletter in your customer’s mind.
Promote Your Products
You should promote your products through the newsletter.
But, the mistake you might make is overloading these promotions.
No one likes to constantly be bombarded with messages saying, “Buy this or the offer will end”.
HOW TO BUILD A PRODUCT?
Now, you have an audience, but you don’t have a product, but you want to build one.
Choose something YOU will buy.
How can people just behind your journey use it?
Is that the knowledge your people will buy?
Build a product that fills two conditions:
You will enjoy building it and using it.
Your audience can gain real value from it.
Steps you can follow:
Validate your ideas, and see if your audience is interested (Ask them to fill a google form, ask about what they want and need in that, what are the problems they might be facing.)
Make a Minimum Viable product and try selling it, and add any updates as per the feedback (people who bought early get discounted prices and further versions for free.)
When it finally gets ready LAUNCH IT (at full price and add the reviews of your beta customers.)
This isn’t simple, however, if you give enough time, and practice, you will be able to launch more products faster.
REMEMBER
You can have a diverse personal brand, but when you BUILD AND SELL a product, it should only cater to ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME!
Events and Webinars
We talked about monetizing through a paid newsletter, where you can also host these webinars for your premium members.
OR
Do sell (weekly) webinars.
On these webinars, dive deeper into your area of expertise.
Give a deeper understanding to the topics which get harder to understand with written words. You will increase your trust.
HOW CAN YOU GET STARTED?
Have an Agenda to talk about and prepare for it thoroughly.
If possible, assign different roles to different people (like, handling technical issues, and to take care of the chats and messages.)
Choose a software that is convenient and easy to use.
Make sure to ask questions to the audience (It should not look like you are talking to your screen.)
Prepare a Q&A to make it more engaging.
It can be a lot to handle at first, if it is going to be your first webinar. But, as you go on doing it, you will feel more at ease.
Consulting Services
Consulting works best when you want to GUIDE the client and they want to do the needed work themselves.
Consulting has some Pros:
You need fairly small audience to start for consulting
It is a high ticket service, so you can earn more serving less clients
You don’t need to be an EXPERT, just promise guide your client near to your level
You can personalize your services
However, you need to choose consultancy wisely because:
Not all consultants make really good money.
Not all industries need consultants
Not everyone is good at listening and solving other problems.
You have to go through not just one, but a number of calls (sometimes) to deliver best to the client.
WHICH WAY TO GO?
Long answer short, try every one of them, choose what gives you the best results, and double down on them.
Also, you should never limit yourself to just one, choose hybrid and more than one.
To grow your newsletter, you should have a good presence on social media. This increases your chances of making your newsletter more successful.
Sometimes we know what to do, but we need some practical inspiration from people doing it.
So, I have compiled a list for you from different industries and people monetizing in the ways that we have mentioned.
(Author, Podcaster, Speaker, Coach)
You might know him from YouTube.
He uses his newsletters most effectively, to share stories, to promote his coaching programs, and his books.
He has three books published so far, and his newsletter subscribers got the first chance to do the pre-bookings.
(Success mentor to CEOs & high-achievers)
Darren has a daily newsletter, and he is able to do this because he has a team to take care of it.
He mostly promotes his other content on the internet, mainly, PODCASTS.
He is great at informing people in what’s new that can be listened.
(Accelerating solopreneurs & agency founders with sales + systems)
Ken is a business coach and uses a free guide as a Freebie to get emails.
And promotes his Coaching calls, services, and other premium things for business owners who are interested in scaling.
CHENELL BASILIO
Chenell runs a newsletter called, “Growth In Reverse” and she breaks down many successful businesses and creators.
She also used her newsletter to get sponsorship from Ken Yarmosh.
This is a perfect example of a primary ad slot. This appears before her content and is also useful to her audience.
As you can see, everyone uses different methods depending on:
What resonates with them.
What works for them?
That’s a wrap for this week’s newsletter.
Best
Sayan & Pratistha