How to Monetize Email Newsletters: 6 Effective Strategies

Monetizing your newsletter is the fun part. 

After spending months creating engaging newsletters, adding more subscribers, and optimizing for better open and click-through rates, it’s time to make money from it. Well done so far!

But how do newsletters make money? There are many ways to make money from a newsletter, how do I know which one is right for me?

Don’t worry. 

If you’re not sure how to monetize your newsletter, this guide is for you. We’ll review six top ways with examples and specific scenarios so you can pick the right newsletter monetization methods. 

Let’s begin.  

6 best ways to monetize your newsletter

I reached out to successful newsletter creators and only picked strategies that worked for most of them, so you can also leverage them. With each method, I’ll also list how to start with examples from established newsletters. 

1. Sell your products/services

The best use of any newsletter is to collect your ideal audience in one place and nurture them to convert them into customers. If you started your newsletter with this goal, just follow these steps: 

• Keep creating educational content on topics that highlight a problem and position your product/service as a solution to nurture your prospects

• Mention your solution’s features/benefits

• Promote your product with special offers 

This process will get you many product sales, even when followed many times. Remember, email marketing brings $36 ROI for every dollar spent. So, if you own a product or service business, focus your newsletter monetization on getting more sales. 

Here’s an example of Matt Barker, a LinkedIn expert, promoting a special Black Friday deal on his course to his subscribers: 

But what about non-holidays? How do I promote my product/service then? 

You can use newsletters as a part of your sales funnel. By adding prospects to your email list and sending product-focused educational content, you’ll let them know of their hidden pain point and how your product is the solution:

2. Create a paid newsletter

Creating a paid newsletter and giving access to your premium content to only a handful of paid subscribers is a great way to build a recurring income stream. The best part is that you’ll get paid monthly, and each time you add a new subscriber, it adds to your current income. 

For example, subscribers pay $7.99/month to read Michael Spencer’s AI Supremacy.

You can also start a paid newsletter and make money from every newsletter issue you send. But why would anyone want to pay to read my newsletter? 

Valid question. The only catch with paid newsletters is that they’re effective for people with an established online presence. Subscribers will pay to read your newsletter only if they know you’re a known expert in your industry. 

Michael Spencer is well-known on LinkedIn for all things related to AI. To grow your paid newsletter, start with building an expert online presence. 

I already have a newsletter and don’t want to start another. What should I do? Simple. You can convert your existing one into a paid newsletter. No, not suddenly start charging X/month to all your subscribers, but add extra tiers of content only available to premium subscribers. 

Here’s an example. Ben Goodey runs How the F*ck, an SEO newsletter available to both free and paid subscribers: 

Premium subscribers get extra content compared to free readers. This also works if you’re not that established — start with free newsletters while slowly building your online presence and later turn it into a premium subscription. 

3. Sell ad spaces to sponsors

Don’t want to get into the subscription model? Well, don’t have to when you can sell ad spaces to sponsors in your free newsletter. Here’s how a sponsored ad space looks in a newsletter:

Selling ad spaces is the easiest way to monetize your newsletter, as you only have to focus on increasing your subscriber count. The more subscribers you have, the better sponsor deals you’ll get. 

But the key to getting fantastic sponsor deals is keeping your newsletter focused on one topic and highly engaging subscribers with high-quality content. 

I have X subscribers, but I haven’t gotten any sponsor deals. What should I do? 

If you haven’t gotten any sponsor deals, you can reach out to brands you love. Or promote your request on social media to get interested people to contact you.

You can also cold pitch to brands you’d like to sponsor. Remember to choose brands that match your newsletter’s purpose and can help your subscribers — don’t go after shiny, irrelevant brands.  

4. Promote sponsored emails

If your subscriber count is low and you don’t get brands for sponsor deals, you can sponsor people in your industry. These can be your friends or influencers who offer complementary solutions to yours. 

How it works? 

It’s like sponsored ads, but you sell an entire newsletter issue instead of selling a place in your newsletter. You allow them to write a newsletter to your audience. 

Let’s understand it with a scenario. I offer content marketing services, and I want to sponsor a friend in my newsletter who offers SEO services. So, I’ll strike a deal with my friend and allow them to send my subscribers one (or more) newsletters.   

But why complementary services? 

When two people offer different services to the same audience, they can benefit by helping each other. Person A can leverage Person B’s audience and vice versa. 

Here’s how Ben Goodey, an SEO expert, collaborated with John Harrison, a well-known copywriter. John wrote a newsletter for Ben’s audience.  

John also promotes his copywriting guide in this email — a great idea to get more members to his community. You can also contact influencers in your industry and see if they’re interested in such collaboration. 

I reached out to many sponsored brands and influencers but haven’t heard back from any. Are there other methods than this?

Yes, there are. 

5. Promote affiliate products

Working with sponsors makes you limited and dependent. You can only work with brands that accept your proposal and make money only when they have deals available. 

Affiliate marketing lets you get control in your hands. You decide which products to promote when to do it, and how. Plus, you earn a sweet commission for each product sale using your affiliate link. 

Here’s how affiliate marketing looks in a newsletter: 

Although you get to choose whatever products you want to promote, staying focused on your niche is a good idea. Choosing genuine products that you’ve tried and loved and can actually help your subscribers will help you make more revenue than randomly promoting any product for a hefty commission.  

You can look out for special holidays like Black Friday or Thanksgiving to promote specific deals to increase your revenue:

6. Add tip links

I don’t have a product or service. I don’t want to get into affiliate marketing. I just want to make money by writing newsletters. What should I do?

The lowest effort-taking method to monetize a newsletter is to add tip links. Platforms like Buy Me a Coffee, SubStack, and Beehiv, allow you to place tip links in your newsletters so readers can show gratitude for your work. 

The key to making this successful is to deliver content of high value that is either difficult to find or takes hours of research. For example, after spending hours finding these from various sources, Kaitlyn Arford compiles and sends 100 freelance opportunities to subscribers every week.   

Be mindful of where to add the Buy Me A Coffee link. If you don’t want to annoy your readers, a safe place to add it is to the bottom of the newsletter right after the sign-off. Here’s how Kaitlyn includes a Buy Me A Coffee link at the bottom of her newsletter: 

Her newsletter is free, but to support her work, people also subscribe to her membership plans:

Adding tip links is also safe because you’re not appearing salesy but giving people the power to decide whenever they want to support you. This way, you keep your subscribers happy and make money now and then. 

Maximize revenue with multiple monetization methods

Each monetization method has its pros and cons. But that doesn’t mean you have to stick with one way only. If you do it, your audience will get annoyed. Think about it, if each of your newsletter issues includes an affiliate link, your subscribers will figure out you’re only interested in selling and won’t bother opening your emails. 

So, a safe and revenue-friendly way is to combine 3-4 monetization methods. For example, one of your emails is about a critical problem and positions your product as a solution. Another email includes a sponsored post of one of your favorite influencers that your audience likes. 

A healthy mix will keep your readers entertained, and you can generate revenue from different strategies. You’ll also figure out which method allows you to make the most profit to scale it further. 

But to work on different strategies, you need proper planning and execution. That’s when a platform that automates execution can save you critical hours. Waveon allows the creation of newsletters with a product link only. Schedule a demo today >>