The word “newsletters” comes from hardcopy letters that were sent through post offices. These newsletters worked similarly to how they work online today.

Newsletters were sent out from specific groups to their select members. There were also other groups that sent out letters to every house they could as a means of advertising.

Then the Internet came out and surprised everyone. You didn’t have to wait around for the postman anymore. You could get your letters delivered straight to your computer. A few years ago, everyone was excited when they received an email on their computer. It was the way of the future!

Nowadays, it’s impossible to avoid the daily deluge of emails that drown our phones. Most email services have created an automatic spam filter for online users. This makes it much easier to focus on the emails you actually want to see.

The difficulty for publishers now is becoming a part of those important emails. A.K.A., they want to get out of the “spam” zone. Keep reading to find out how newsletters help publishers grow revenue!

What are Newsletters?

While newsletters might have referred to something you got in the mail, it no longer has the same meaning.

When someone mentions newsletters, people immediately think of email notifications.

Most newsletters come directly from a website.

A smaller percentage occurs within a workplace, from employer to employees.

Half of the publishers admit to only sending out between 1-5 newsletters a month. Only 14% of publishers actually send out more than 15 newsletters a month.

This is usually caused by a fear of rejection or losing out on viewers.

The only newsletters that get rejected are ones that are poorly created! If you use newsletters properly, your viewers will be waiting for the next email.

In fact, you could easily send one a day with no issue at all.

Newsletters are one of the best tools for publishers to increase engagement. When you put effort into your newsletters, you receive the following benefits:

  • Plays on users’ subconscious;
  • Turns readers into buyers;
  • Informs viewers of offers and discounts;
  • Grows digital engagement.

 
Did you know that only 1% to 10% of content viewed by users is actually acted upon?

Let’s say ten thousand users saw the newsletter you sent out. Only 100-1000 viewers will actually click on a call-to-action.

While you might think you’re getting no movement, there are more people that you reach subconsciously.

Ways to Monetize Newsletters

If you’re reading this article, you want to know, “What do top publishers use to increase revenue?” Newsletters help publishers grow audience engagement, but that doesn’t lead to income. At least, not immediately!

In fact, 48% of publishers don’t monetize their newsletters at all. It’s a great way to get started with newsletter subscriptions without monetizing them. Especially in the case of paid memberships.

However, once you’ve built up trust with users, you can start monetizing your newsletters.

The best ways to make money with newsletters include the following monetization tricks:

  • Include subscription and membership links;
  • Promote products in your content;
  • Recommend affiliate services;
  • Provide extra paid newsletter content;
  • Use links that land on paywalled articles.

 
Whatever you do to monetize your newsletters, keep the users engaged.

You can easily do this by showing exactly what they’d gain by following a particular link.

Plus, think of what they’d miss out on if they didn’t take the chance!

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money with newsletters.

When you’re a publisher, you need products and content to promote. Especially those that can ensure your monthly survival.

That’s why millions of publishers have flocked to the affiliate marketing world.

Affiliate marketing provides links, products, and ads to fill your newsletters with.

Users need the incentive to continue reading your newsletters. They need even more of an incentive if you want them to buy something.

Luckily, partner networks like Admitad will provide you with two types of links you can use to generate income.

The first type of link is a standard link. These accumulate generic income as they only send users to the affiliate home page.

Deeplinks, on the other hand, send users straight to the money-making pages.

If you’re tired of waiting around for advertisers to send you links, you should try out Admitad.

The Admitad Partner Network lets you organize all your advertisers in the same place. You have the ability to generate any affiliate link from any partner on your own!

How to Use Newsletters in Affiliate Marketing

At this point, you might be asking: What do top publishers use to increase revenue further? How can you use these newsletters to make as large an income as possible?

While we’ll get into the logistics now, the biggest thing you can do to increase your revenue is this:

Focus on customer satisfaction over your own monetary gain. A little bit of decency can go a long way in your marketing career!

While some publishers might enjoy being dishonest, they lose out on loyal customers. Especially the users who support them even if they don’t necessarily need those products.

They become invested in your journey just as much as their own.

If you can get this mindset into place, you can try out some of the following ways to use your newsletters.

Build Loyalty and Trust

Newsletters allow for personalized content by including users’ names, birthdays, and interests. That’s part of how newsletters help publishers grow earnings, engagement and traffic.

The other parts include work on the publisher’s side.

If you want to develop loyal customers and a sense of trust through your newsletters, make sure to:

  • Be honest wherever you can;
  • Provide in-depth and valid information;
  • Recommend worthy products;
  • Answer all user responses;
  • Consider any feedback you receive;
  • Ask viewers what they want.

 
If you can show your customers that you care for them, they will run back to you. Maybe they will take their time in the beginning, window-shopping for other potentials. But once they see the comfort you offer, they won’t be able to resist!

Loyalty is developed through honest work. You can’t expect to lie about product quality and still have your viewers’ respect.

The publishers who make money recommend products that people will actually buy. If your products are of low quality, find another advertiser immediately.

The best way to gain your viewers’ trust is by asking for and listening to their opinions. When you ask users what they want and follow through on it, they feel seen. Most users can’t even get that validation in real life.

Grow Your Audience Reach

Newsletters help publishers grow engagement, but by how much… Well, that’s up to the publishers.

If you really want to grow your audience, you need to use all the tools available to you. Your biggest goal should be convincing users to sign up for your newsletter.

Try some of the following tips to get users to sign up for email notifications and newsletters:

  • Promote sign-up links on social media;
  • Post a contest or giveaway;
  • Advertise outside your target audience;
  • Mass email marketing.

 
If you decide to market through social media, make sure to monetize all your accounts. This can easily be done through ConvertSocial, if you haven’t signed up already!

In a contest or giveaway, you can ask users to sign up for newsletters if they want to win. They might try to unsubscribe after they’ve won.

It’s your job to make sure they want to keep receiving affiliate content from you.

Don’t limit yourself by only advertising to the people you think will like your content. You never know who might really love a product that you promote.

You can expand your audience quickly by finding an open-source email listing.

Promote Affiliate Products and Content

When you create newsletters, you open up another platform for affiliate marketing. Publishers can subtly place affiliate links in a list of suggested online services. Or even put a dazzling call-to-action that links to an irresistible product.

There are two ways to go about adding affiliate content to newsletters:

  • Active affiliate marketing;
  • Passive affiliate marketing.

 
Active marketing refers to a newsletter that is dedicated to your partner(s). It can be a review article explaining who they are. It can also be a simple call-to-action that grabs people’s attention.

Passive affiliate marketing is a little bit different when it comes to newsletters.

Passive marketing involves having a niche, starting an online store, or providing services. Beyond the payments you receive from these, you also advertise brands.

Affiliate links go in between the above main content. They are subtle and shouldn’t detract from the main focus of the newsletters.

If you’ve signed up with the Admitad Partner Network, you can make use of their tools and solutions.

These help you track and record your affiliate link traffic.

That way, you can see exactly how many users are clicking on the links you’ve placed in newsletters!

Membership and Subscription Newsletters

While newsletters can be sent to any subscriber, it’s great to include perks just for premium users.

When a user buys a subscription or membership, they will receive unique newsletters.

These newsletters could contain any of the following information:

  • Special membership offers and discounts;
  • Monthly payment notification;
  • Membership is on hold (if payments haven’t been processed that month);
  • Newsletters on their birthdays;
  • Holiday-themed newsletters (Christmas or Valentine’s Day);
  • Referral programs.

 
Newsletters help grow publishers’ earnings by ensuring that memberships aren’t canceled.

While someone may be excited about their membership at first, they can easily get bored of it. Especially if publishers aren’t providing them with enough new content.

A great way to subtly send out newsletters is on important public holidays.

Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Black Friday are all times when people spend more money.

They’re also much more generous and giving during important holidays.

Newsletters can also be used as a key factor for incentives.

You can provide your members with the chance to gain rare benefits if they refer new users.

The more people your members can get to sign up, the more free offers are available. You’ll quickly see your newsletter subscriber number rise!

Mistakes Publishers Make in Their Newsletters

While newsletters help publishers grow in many ways, publishers still make newsletter mistakes.

When it comes to newsletters, the most common mistakes include:

  • Pushing too hard for sales;
  • Ignoring customer feedback;
  • Using AI-assisted or generated writing;
  • No user personalization;
  • No monetization is included.

 
When you’re too focused on making a sale, you’ll easily scare off potential customers. Anyone can see through a fake persona, even through an email.

If you struggle with honesty, there’s always time to fix it. As long as you work on being as open as you can, you will eventually gain your users’ trust.

In affiliate marketing, customers will tell you exactly what they are looking for.

Always include the suggestions and feedback you receive from users.

You might not agree with it, but you’re not the one who has to use the content every day. Your users know what’s best for them!

Write all your content from scratch and make sure it’s 100% unique. Plagiarism is not something you want to be caught doing.

While there are some amazing AIs out there, none sound truly authentic. The best content comes straight from our minds. Only humans can say things in a way that other humans will understand them.

Conclusion

While some people might have over 10,000 unread emails, it’s still better than 10,000 real letters. Imagine how full your house would be right now if all your emails were hardcopies. People would need an entire room just to organize their emails into groups.

Luckily, the Internet has made our lives so much easier without us even noticing. We all take our emails for granted.

Which of you can honestly say you sort through your spam folder? The only time we go into that folder is to check for an email that shouldn’t be there. We never give any of those emails the time of day.

When you’re a publisher trying to put yourself out there through emails, you work hard at it. The least you can do in your off time is reward other publishers for their hard work. Take the time to look through some spam emails. Most of them are probably trash, but you never know what got through the cracks.

If you want online users to take a chance on you, give others that same chance!