The Top Three Ways To Monetize Your Newsletter

In this deep dive we're going to be talking about the top three ways to monetize your newsletter.

Which means you should already know your newsletter type, business model, and the growth tactics.

If not, don't worry, you can still catch up.

Here are three deep dives you can read before you start learning more about newsletter monetization:

1. The Ultimate Guide To Newsletter Types And Formats
2. The Ultimate Guide To Newsletter Business Models
3. The Top Three Ways To Grow Your Newsletter

If you have gone through these, you are already pretty aware of how you can make money with your newsletter.

But in this deep dive I will be showing you specific examples of how you can can monetize each type of Newsletter Business Model and layer we have discussed.

Here are The Top 3 Ways To Monetize Your Newsletter:

1. Digital Products
2. Sponsorships
3. Affiliates

These are THE three ways to monetize, but I will be giving you examples of different ways people place their sponsorships and affiliates within their newsletters and the different digital products creators are selling (and how).

Here are some digital product examples we'll take a look at:

1. Courses, Cohorts, Community, etc.
2. Consulting and Coaching
3. Paid Newsletter

When I say "courses, cohorts, community" I'm really talk about all digital products besides coaching/consulting and client work, but I'm also separating paid newsletters because this can have a completely different business model.

We could make an entire site devoted to swipe files and funnel hacking launches, but for the sake of this deep dive I really just want to show you guys some ongoing tactics you can add to your newsletter to monetize consistently.

We will take a look at the best launch techniques in a separate deep dive.

📬#1 - Digital Products

As a Solo Writer-Creator THE best way to make money with your newsletter is by selling digital products.

When we did our breakdown of newsletter business models and our deep dive on Justin Welsh to explain our Solo Writer-Creator Newsletter Business Model we saw that in 2022 his income was 91% digital product sales.

We have also seen people like Marketing Max (who makes over 7 figures with his Media-Brand Newsletter Growth Daily) share that he thinks Justin Welsh's model is THE way to go for creators, and, one of the ways he would choose to niche and structure his newsletter if he was to start all over.

When I say digital products I'm referring to:

• eBook
• Courses
• Software
• Templates
• Cheat Sheets
• Coaching 
• Consulting
• Memberships
• Communities
• Cohorts

And so many other variations of these things.

For example, Justin Welsh earned 75% from courses, 8% through digital product template subscriptions, and 8% through coaching.

Note: I also discussed that Justin's list has grew tremendously and he has also cut back even more on coaching, and his sponsorship has grown a bit for 2023.

Note 2: We also looked at Katelyn Bourgoin, which I called a Hybrid Newsletter Business Model who originally made most of her income from sponsorship and then went to more of a 60/40 split for digital products and sponsorships when she rolled out her cohort Un-Ignorable. 

Keep these things in mind as we make our way through different ways of monetizing, because ALL of them are relevant to our Solo Writer-Creator Newsletter Model, and even though I could show you some examples of Media-Brand ad placement for motivation, this deep dive is geared towards helping you as a solo creator.

📬#1.25 - Courses, Community, Cohort, etc.

To start us off I want to jump into the most obvious things to sell: courses, PDFs, eBooks, community [memberships] and cohorts.

This is what you will likely see the most from creators you get emails from, and as a Solo Writer-Creator Newsletter Operator I definitely recommend saving the best creators launches to folders or even taking screenshots and making swipe files of them for when it comes time for you to pull inspiration for your own launches!

That said, if you forgot and now you're scrambling, don't worry. I didn't. I will be sharing plenty of launch tips and tricks in future deep dives.

For now though, I want to help you "sell" in every single email.

THE most popular way to continue telling people about your digital products within every single email is at the end of your email.

This can be done either as a PS, in place of the PS section, or just below.

This is not only because it's popular, but also a copywriting cheat as well.

According to Ray Jutkins, a copywriter specializing in direct mail, 79% of donors and prospects who open direct mail tend to read the PS section FIRST.

In the two images about we have:

1. Ben Meer - System Sunday: Ben uses the "2 Ways I Can Help You" below his PS section in his email. (This is something Justin Welsh uses extremely well that now Ben Meer, Justin Moore and many other creators use as well).
2. Jay Clouse - Creator Science: In this one Jay uses his footer section of his emails to give us all the goods. He shares his Lab (Community), Courses and Workshops, and even a link for Clarity Calls.

Start remembering to take a look towards the footer section of your favorite creators newsletters so you can start pulling inspiration.

I like using the "When you're ready, here at X ways I can help you:" like Justin Welsh because it's a very non-salesy way to continuously remind your audience about your products.

BONUS: I am going to feature a few sections of Jay Clouses' to show you multiple variations of monetization, including a sponsorship slot in his newsletter when we get to it.

He uses the sponsorship slot not only for sponsor income, but also to sell his own products, leaving that slot open instead of using it for advertisers, and then placing his own Lab or course in a much more prominent slot.

📬#1.5 - Consulting (Client Work / Coaching)

Technically you saw how Jay Clouse adds his coaching links to his footer section, but I also want to talk about how you can drive a ton of coaching, consulting and client work from your newsletter in other fun ways.

In the image above I am sharing screenshots from The Ad Professor's newsletter where he shares a compilation of the best ads he collected each week, and then within the email he actively asks you to apply to work with his ad agency.

I did a full breakdown of this in a LinkedIn Carousel here, but I'll also tell you a bit more about it now.

One of the unique things that The Ad Professor (George Mack) does is his "I created this ad on my break".

He does this both for his social feeds and then also within his newsletter.

He shares an ad that he made and says "I made this Nike ad on my lunch break." or even "I made this Adidas ad on my coffee break." essentially showing you just how good he is at crafting ads.

From there, he opens the door to the perfect time to do a soft pitch and remind people they can apply to work with his agency if they want ads as good as the one(s) he is creating in his content.

Provide Value -> Add CTA.

📬#1.75 - Paid Newsletter

Being that we touched on the Paid Newsletter Model a bit in our newsletter business models, I wanted to make sure I touched on it quickly here as well.

And, considering we used Heather Cox Richardson as one of the creators in that section of the deep dive, I want to show you how simply the CTAs are for selling the paid portion of her newsletter.

She sends out a daily email called "Letters from an American" and when you first sign up she tells you about the paid version, stating:

"Thank you for signing up for free updates from Letters from an American. (If this wasn’t you, click here to unsubscribe.)

Letters from an American will always be free, but we also have a community behind a paywall to expand on the ideas in the Letters without the help of trolls. If you’d like to join us for discussion and more thoughts from me, you’re most welcome. It’s $5 a month.

The only pitch Heather has in her emails from that point on is WAY down in the PS section towards the footer section, after a slew of sources that she shares links to.

You should see a trend here with the PS and Footer section so far.

📬#2 - Sponsorships

The second way we're going to discuss monetizing your newsletter is with sponsorships.

Sponsorships are the MAIN revenue of Media-Brand Newsletters, but they are also a big portion of Hybrid Newsletters and a great way to diversify your income even as a Solo Writer-Creator model.

You have probably seen sponsorship slots in your favorite creators newsletters, and the great part is: they are generally relevant, and they don't really bother us all that much or take away from the content.

That said, I wanted to highlight three creator examples above:

1. Chenell Basilio - Growth In Reverse: Chenell uses a space right towards the top of her newsletter like Justin Welsh, and uses up a moderate size of her newsletter.
2. Justin Welsh - Saturday Solopreneur: In this example I'm showing you the smaller model Justin has used, but he also has a very large one he switches in and out that I have been seeing more recently in his emails. As large, if not larger, than the one we see from Chenell.
3. Jay Clouse - Creator Science: This is the one I made mention to above, with Jay actually promoting his own Lab in his sponsorship section. Jay typically does have the largest sponsorship section among the newsletters I see, but he still does it effectively, and I love the way he uses it to self promote as well.

You don't have to overthink this one. 

When the time comes you can play around with different methods and formats that will work best for your readers and your sponsors.

📬#3 - Affiliates

Last but not least we have affiliates.

As Solo Writer-Creators running our newsletters, affiliates are likely not a main source of income for us, but they can definitely be a great way to diversify our income.

Note: Our goal is NOT to be affiliate marketers, it's to diversify our income a bit more, like we are doing with sponsorships.

In this example above we have:

1. Sahil Bloom - Curiosity Chronicle: On the left we see Sahil sharing affiliate links for Athletic Greens. He actually has an entire section of his newsletter devoted to "Sahil's Recommendation Zone", which is essentially just a way to share affiliate links and "exclusive deals" with his subscribers.
2. Jay Clouse - Creator Science: On the right we have Jay Clouse again, and I love this example because we have now seen Jay do some creative things with his newsletter, but also really utilize his footer section a lot. In this case he says "This email was sent with ConvertKit and designed with Palladio." Each of those links are affiliate links that Jay will get a kickback from.

I personally prefer Jay's variation as it seems a bit less in your face (it could feel like you're only promoting things each week to make money if you use Sahil's methodology), but you can also randomly push affiliates a bit harder at times as well.

Here are two ways I like doing this:

1. Sponsorship Placement: The same way we saw Jay Clouse use his sponsorship slot for his own product, you can also use this slot for an affiliate offer. If there's a week you don't have a sponsor booked, or you don't have enough subscribers to do sponsorships just yet, but want to start testing that placement, an affiliate offer could be smart!
2. Recommendations Page: Another great way to do this is by sharing your favorite tools and recommended software that you use to build your business. You can even add this to your footer section. For example, a lot of people ask me which ESP (email service provider) I use, so I add ConvertKit and some other tools that help me run my newsletter. It's a win win!

As I mentioned, affiliates more than likely will not (and should not) be your main source of income, but they are another way for Solo Writer-Creators to diversify, and definitely something you should be taking advantage of.

Note: This should be obvious, but one thing to always remember is Brand > Everything. You should not be promoting products that you don't actually believe in to try to earn a quick buck. Your audience will know. It will only hurt your brand and trust in the future.

📬 What Should You Start With NOW!?

Digital products and affiliates are going to be the best place for Solo Writer-Creators to get started.

It can be hard to know what to roll out for digital products if you're brand new to creating, in which case I would recommend waiting a bit before you develop a course or cohort style program - but you can start by working with people hands on (coaching/consulting) and then work your way to more.

Sponsorships likely won't be viable until you have 10,000+ subscribers.

I have seen some newsletters start doing it earlier, but I truly don't think the extra $20-50 per week is worth adding that section to your newsletter when you could be building more trust with your audience (and/or promoting your own products).

Your ultimate goal should be to use ALL of these monetization strategies: 

1. Digital Products
2. Sponsorships
3. Affiliates

But the specific digital products you choose to offer are going to be contingent on your specific style and niche.

That said: one of your main goals should be uncovering THE best digital product to begin rolling out to your audience.

As you can see in the image above, we featured a few different ways Jay Clouse does this, including multiple ways he has tested his footer section.

The Takeaway: ALWAYS test. Test your footer section. Test your sponsorship section. Test affiliate placements. Always test.