Probably the most obvious way to make money through email marketing is by using them to promote your products and services.

You can link your emails to low-cost products and services, such as books:

Or events:

Or courses:

Or you can use your emails to promote your higher-priced products.

You don’t have to include the links in the main body of the email like I have above. You can pop them in a P.S. at the bottom of your emails, add links to your footer, or ask people to message you for more information.

And you don’t have to promote products or services in every email. You can mix up your content so that some is purely value, some is purely promotional, and some is a combination - it’s entirely up to you.

Another way to monetise your emails is by creating paid subscriptions. And there are loads of different ways for doing this.

You can offer a paid subscription alongside a free subscription, where paying subscribers get extra content not available to free subs or they get access to new content earlier than free subs.

Or you can share part of your content for free and then put the rest behind a paywall (lots of newspapers do this - they let you read part of a story or one article before you have to pay).

Or you can ditch the free stuff and only offer paid content (it will have to be good content though).

And paid subscriptions don’t have to be solely about getting more content. Your paying subscribers might get access to webinars or networking or communities or events or training - pretty much whatever you want to offer.

For example, my paid subscription gives you access to monthly co-working sessions, monthly lunch and learns, and member-only emails and content.

Paid subscriptions are easy to set up and there are loads of platforms that let you do this including, Beehiiv, Ghost and Substack.

If you don’t feel comfortable asking people to commit to a paid subscription or you don’t want the added pressure of having to come up with exclusive content for paying subscribers on top of your regular emails, you can ask for tips or donations.

It means people who like what you do can support you without having to make an ongoing financial commitment.

Again, there are loads of platforms that allow you to do this within the platform (including Beehiiv, Ghost and Substack as well as Patreon). Or you can use a dedicated platform such as Buy Me A Coffee, Ko-Fi, Coindrop or Tipeee (plus many more).

I set up a Buy Me A Coffee page in February, but I changed it to Buy Me A Beer. Of course, you aren’t buying an actual coffee or beer - it’s just a way to show support or appreciation (although I probably would use it for beer).

Another way to make money is by sharing affiliate links or working with referral partners. Beehiiv offers a Boost feature where you essentially earn money by referring other email newsletters. I wrote about Boosts a few weeks ago. I haven’t been using them much, but I imagine if you attract a high number of new subs each month, it’s an easy way to make a few pennies.

Substack has a recommendations feature and you can offer incentives for people who refer new subscribers. In return, you can look for creators offering incentives for referrals.

But referral payments and affiliates aren’t limited to what’s offered within the platforms. Lots of companies offer referral or affiliate incentives. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend anything if I wasn’t confident it was good value or good quality, which is why I don’t share hundreds of affiliate links in my emails.

However, I do have an affiliate link for Beehiiv, so if you think they are a good fit for what you need, please use my link and we’ll both benefit. I get a commission, and you get a 30-day trial plus 20% OFF for 3 months.

If you have big subscriber numbers, you can offer sponsorship opportunities to companies that share a similar audience.

Sponsorship can involve different things. It could be having a banner ad at the top of your email or it could be that you do a review of their product in your email. It could be that you share a video or image or it could involve sharing a special discount code with your readers.

And you don’t necessarily have to approach sponsors or wait for them to approach you. There are sites that will connect you with sponsors (such as Paved).

Beehiiv has a very good ad feature that makes it super easy to put paid ads in your newsletters. These ads work by paying out a small fee each time one of your readers clicks on the ad.

I wrote about this in a previous post, and I’ve been sharing ads in my emails for the last few weeks.

All events are included in my monthly membership for £20 per month, but if you’d prefer not to commit, you can book any event on an ad-hoc basis at £15 per event. Here’s a reminder of what I’ve got coming up.

That’s about it from me for now. As always, thanks for reading and do let me know if you have any questions, comments or feedback.

P.S If you like my content and would like to show your support, you can buy me a beer here.