Making money through your email list is not as hard as it may seem, but you’ll need to know where to start.
In the beginning, build your list, nurture your subscribers with free, valuable content, and use any of the methods in this podcast to start monetizing.
1. Thank You Offer
The first place you can monetize your email list is at the very beginning on the opt-in or thank you page.
Usually, people who subscribe are interested in your brand and what you have to offer, so adding a snippet of your most popular product (or service) and a link to its landing page can end in a sale.
You can also sweeten the deal for new subscribers by adding an additional one-time-only offer.
Add testimonials and raving reviews from other subscribers or followers to help further convince the user to go through with their purchase.
2. Promo-Replay
After you’ve been emailing for a while you’ll notice which offer campaigns are wildly popular and which ones are dead in the water. The best offers with the most traction don’t have to be rewritten from scratch.
Start your next sales email with an old successful offer. People perk up at the sight of special promotions and discounts, especially if they missed one in the past or didn’t have as much trust built up with your brand.
Pro Tip: Don’t over-do promotions. Nobody likes to be sold every single day, and it gives off a bad vibe.
3. Pitch The Tripwire
I’ve talked about tripwires in the past through my blog, so I won’t dive into it too deep today. But essentially, it’s an affordable offer between five dollars and fifty dollars that is pitched shortly after being exposed to your brand.
Tripwires are a textbook example of how to make money with email marketing.
People who buy tripwires are 10x more likely to shop again and eventually buy your core offer.
4. Asking The Up-Sell
Upselling is key in most major businesses, and notice how you can rarely order any type of food from anywhere without someone suggesting the larger portion for a few pennies.
Or, if you go to the store and you want to buy a whole bunch of clothes, they’ll say “get 20% off if you sign up for a credit card.”
How can you use that in email campaigns?
Well…
- You could offer a bundle deal. Offer multiple products for the price of one as long as you still pull a decent profit.
- Offer a secondary, or tertiary product, for a lower price if they commit to the first one. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – if you’re selling something, there is the possibility for an upsell.
5. Deep Discounts
Many people will contemplate your offers, but price points are a big deal.
When potential customers are trying to back out of a high-ticket item, try offering them a lower price with similar features or throwing them a discount to keep them from abandoning your business altogether.
Many subscription- and membership-based businesses will offer a few months at a reduced price to keep people around – whether they are actually using the service or not.
6. Cross-Selling
Cross-selling is another powerful skill to add to the repertoire, and Amazon reports that as much as 35% of its revenue is generated through cross-selling.
Customers in a buying frame of mind won’t hesitate to add relevant products and services to their cart.
However, you should carefully consider what you cross-sell because an irrelevant offer can make the potential customer rethink why and what they’re doing there in the first place.
7. Abandoned Cart Recovery
Downloading an abandoned cart plug-in is easy and can help you optimize part of your sales funnel.
As a customer goes to the checkout process they will most likely input their information, get to the sales page, and then exit the browser.
So why did they leave?
They don’t trust your brand, realize shipping costs were outrageous, got distracted, were only browsing for a possible solution, they didn’t have their payment method, or something was broken on the checkout page.
An automatic shopping cart recovery email can’t solve all of your problems, but it will bring them back for reconsideration.
8. Lock Your Premium Content
If you’re an expert in your field with tons of hands-on experience and know-how, create access to premium content for paying subscribers only.
Serve up your best stuff and ditch all the ads and sales talk completely for a premium feel. You can write and record premium content on a private YouTube channel, a locked blog, or through a different email list.
Even small fees from five to twenty dollars can add up to a lot of extra income long-term.
Pro Tip: To increase conversion rates, offer the first month for a heavily discounted rate.
9. Affiliate Marketing
There are so many brands and companies that will happily pay you five to fifty percent for helping them sell their products.
Welcome to affiliate marketing.
You won’t have to create and sell your own products or services, but instead, sell someone else’s that is a good match for your audience and brand.
Affiliate marketing is a fairly simple process. You usually just need to sign up on the Brand’s platform or request a unique link to get started. Pro Tip: Affiliate marketing is good short-term money, but you don’t control the email list and the list is what pays the bills.
10. Selling Ad Space
If you’re able to grow your email list to 2,500 subscribers (or greater) you can find advertisers to pay you for your efforts. All you have to do is add a couple of lines reviewing a brand’s product or service with a link to their page.
The downside of ad space sales is it usually doesn’t really pay until you grow your email list too much larger proportions – think 10,000+ subscribers. For two reasons, one: The hassle factor.
Most advertisers won’t bother with a small email list because it’s not worth their time to organize an ad with proper tracking for a handful of sales. And number two: Cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Most email advertisers will use Effective CPM to decide how much they’ll pay for an ad.
What is Effective CPM?
It’s the amount of people who ACTUALLY open the email.
11. Sell/Rent Your List
Renting or selling the emails you acquire is NOT the best option for monetizing your email list, but it can help you make a little quick cash.
Many businesses are always on the lookout for an email list with legitimate subscribers to purchase. Renting can be a good fit for you if you have a valuable audience and a high-quality partner that pays you well.
Beware: Renting or selling your list can lead to tons of complaints and people unsubscribing at wild rates. Before you even start thinking about it, you should read about the legal side of renting or selling your email list.
Conclusion
If you utilize all the techniques we talked about today, there’s no reason why you can’t start making money from your email list. No matter how big or small it is.
Continue to search the web to learn more about improving your marketing campaigns and putting cash in your pocket.
