Finding the right email monetization strategy is as much an art as it is a science. These email monetization strategies can help you create better content, retain subscribers, and increase newsletter sales.

Quality copy drives better engagement. But how can you stand out and avoid the dreaded “spam” label? By creating content your subscribers actually want to receive and interact with. The key is creating content that people look forward to. But creating great content can be hard, and email is even harder.

Luckily, by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll know the secrets to creating more compelling content and learning the basics of email monetization.

From text to subject lines, images, fonts, CTAs, design, to the text and design of the ads you include in your newsletter, we’ve found that content plays a key role in email monetization.

This article is a great quick guide on how to use content to engage your email newsletter subscribers and optimize your sending strategy to increase sales. Each section highlights a goal (what you’re trying to accomplish) and the tactics you’ll use to achieve it.

Let’s get started.

• Why Engagement Matters in Email Monetization
• You don’t send newsletters for them to sit in an inbox – you send them to be opened, read, and clicked on.
• Email engagement is defined by three email quality metrics: open rate, click-through rate (CTR), and unsubscribe rate.

Engagement is the key to creating quality content that gets results through an email monetization strategy. Here’s why:

• Email has an average ROI of $42 for each $1 spent. That’s a 4,200% return.
• 90% of content marketers say email engagement is the top metric they track to measure content performance.
• 70% of people want to learn about products through content rather than through traditional advertising.

It’s easy: If you have an enthusiastic list, its value will grow over time. And creating quality content for these more engaged audiences means better opportunities for email monetization.

How to create the right content to engage email subscribers and increase sales

Follow these tactics to create a healthy and engaging list that will actually make you more money.

start with the subject

the purpose: Create better subject lines that increase open rates and engagement.

Tactics:

• Personalize your emails – you can increase your open rate by over 22% by simply customizing your subject line with the recipient’s name, job title, or other relevant info.
• A/B test your subject line – experiment with different versions of your subject line. Try asking a question, creating a sense of urgency, keeping subject lines short, and using lower case. Then, segment lists with different types of subject lines to see which one performs better in terms of open rate and CTR.

Diversification of content

the purpose: Create relevant emails for your recipients with a focus on providing value, such as entertaining, enlightening, or providing information to your readers.

tactics:

Experiment with Different Types of Content – Delight your subscribers with different formats of content such as audio, video or even his PDF. Just insert a video into your email and get a 300% increase in CTR.

Use social proof – give your readers a reason to trust you. Add customer testimonials, celebrity endorsements, and relevant numbers and stats. Reuse the best performing content. Think of blog posts, social media posts, and customer testimonials that performed well and use them in your newsletter.

Invite industry thought leaders as guests and invest in quality, profitable content.

Offer Protected Content – Make fun of content behind a paywall. Offer infographics, e-books, or similar incentives to readers for a fee or subscription.

Ask for Feedback – Establish a line of communication with your readers. Even if they don’t respond, they’re 45% more likely to be interested in what you send next.

Let’s talk about design elements

the purpose: Give your subscribers the gift of comfort. Make your email newsletter easy to read and fun to interact with. Even small gestures can make a big difference.

Tactics:

Make your emails responsive – make sure your email can be viewed in different browsers and on various platforms like mobile phones, tablets, and desktop computers.

Work on readability – highlight the crucial parts of the text and include a summary or a cheat sheet of your latest piece of content in the email.

Optimize your images – choose images that work on high pixel density displays and compress them to improve loading time. You can also use templates, for consistency.

Focus on the fonts – use web safe fonts and always test them before clicking the ‘Send’ button.

Include social sharing – emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate. Even if your readers are not interested, they might forward the newsletter to a friend or colleague.

Bring attention to your CTA

Objective: Include a clear and focused CTA that subscribers will find almost impossible to resist, to stir and inspire action.

Tactics:

Start with a clear goal in mind – why are you sending an email or newsletter? Stick to one goal per newsletter – you want your customers to buy, download, read, join, sign up, book or hire you for something, or any other conversion goal you have.

Remove distractions – write email copy around the goal and include a call-out box, such as outlined or high-contrast buttons and eye-catching images.

Keep it relevant – use calls to action that lead to more content that’s appropriate and engaging.

Sell advertising space into your newsletters

Objective: maximize revenue from your email newsletters.

Tactics:

Try sponsored emails – include sending promotional messages on behalf of third-party sponsors that appear alongside your regular newsletter content. In sponsorship emails, brands pay you to include their logo and copy in your newsletter. They’ll get access to a highly engaged list of subscribers, while you increase revenue and benefit from social proof.

Offer dedicated emails – rent out your valuable newsletter distribution list to promote a specific company’s service or product. Unlike sponsored emails, dedicated emails contain information about just one offer and are entirely devoted to an advertiser message. Make sure you only partner with brands that can make relevant offers to your audience.

Use programmatic native ads – unlike sponsored or dedicated emails, programmatic native ads include links to related articles or products/services based on your audience preferences and their online behavior. These ads match the form, feel, and function of the newsletter on which they appear. Users are more than 2X as likely to click on a native ad vs. a traditional banner.

If you want to really boost your revenue, use programmatic buying to make your native ads even more relevant and clickable.

While native ads appear like headlines leading to related stories without disrupting the user experience, programmatic ads target the audience through algorithms that sift through data, such as demographics or interests.

Native ads are a great opportunity to increase revenue through newsletter content.

Here’s why:

They drive up email engagement– native ads that are programmatically bought and placed are tailored to the user, which leads to more engagement and better ad performance. These ads leverage machine learning and contextual signals to provide your subscribers with a better, more seamless, and intuitive experience.

They’re low in cost, yet high in returns – with zero costs for email publishers and up to 35% more revenue, programmatic native ads beat the cost of seeking out individual advertisers, negotiating contracts, and manually managing your ad process.