How to grow a newsletter and make money from it

It’s really strange how blogging has different ‘moments’ or trends. One thing that is 100% is having a moment right now is the rise of the newsletter. It actually makes me really happy that, for a change, something that involves the written word rather than images is growing in popularity. I know lots of bloggers are talking about making money from TikTok (I shudder as a 35-year-old) and Instagram but for me, newsletters are where it’s at right now.

Why newsletters?

A newsletter isn’t the answer for everyone. A general ‘here’s my latest blog posts’ won’t necessarily cut it anymore. But the rise of information-packed newsletters that almost read as a blog in themselves is more fascinating. I am hoping you subscribe to my blogging and freelance newsletter, It’s only recently that I’ve worked hard and consistently at it, but there’s so many more: Cheapskate London is a great newsletter about free London events, I pay for the monthly ‘stuff in my head’ newsletter from Doing it for The Kids and I’ve talked before about the great freelance newsletters such as: Anna Codrea-Rado, Journo Resources and Sian Meades.

Unlike blog content, you’re not fighting for traffic, rankings or algorithms. If the person signed up, there’s almost 100% chance it will land in their inbox; compared to Instagram where only 10% of your audience will see it. That’s not to say open rates for a newsletter are 100%-The Bloglancer usually hovers at around 50%-but when was the last time fifty percent of your Instagram followers saw your posts or 50% of your Facebook followers engaged with you? Probably around ten years ago!

Not only therefore can you guarantee you have a capative audience but it’s one you control: an email address is probably the most valuable piece of endorsement you can have from someone.

How can I grow a newsletter?

Firstly, let’s talk about newsletter platforms. I want to mention Substack first. Substack is a free newsletter platform for people who want to just write newsletters and don’t want to faff around with images and multi-colored fonts. Substack is really easy to use and to monetise (more on that in a second) and you have an information-heavy newsletter, I’d recommend it.Lydia’s newsletter is a great example of a newsletter on there. As is the single supplement for single women (proof that a niche for a newsletter is key!) One of the great things about this platform is you can also share it with people who aren’t subscribed, so it almost becomes a platform in itself.

If it’s more image led, I’d recommend (ad-affiliate link) Flodesk. It’s $19 a month so it’s not cheap but the opt-in forms and whole design is just beautiful. There are a few glitches though (let me know if you’d like a whole review on it?): it’s relatively new so there are things they haven’t thought of: it’s not ideal if you have different newsletters for different sites like me and sometimes the ‘test’ email I send myself before publishing takes a while to get to me.

However, my newsletter following has grown by about 300 since I switched to them so I think the opt-ins really do work. They also have a Facebook group where they’re very active and I feel like it can only get better!

One thing I would say is changing newsletter providers is a real pain. Chances are you’ve linked to it everywhere on your site and when I recently transferred this over from Mailchimp to Flodesk I still found people signing up to Mailchimp via old links. So find a newsletter provider and stick with it if you can!

The next step is to consider how to attract people to your newsletter so go read my ‘how to create your first email freebie in under an hour.’ Create a freebie for your newsletter and be consistent as possible: make it clear what people can expect and when they’ll get it.

How can I make money from my newsletter?

There’s a few different ways to make money from your newsletter. Firstly, lots of platforms support a paid for option (note Mailchimp doesn’t like money-making newsletters and can delete them). Substack is by far the easiest for this-they have this guide to offering a paid-newsletter option and if you find them on Twitter, they’re also offering grants and awards right now to support people who potentially want to start a paid newsletter (definitely go and have a look!). You could also use something like Patreon or Kofi to do the same.

For this to work, you, of course, need something that people will pay for and I’ve found information guides, useful roundups and advice type newsletters seem to work better as a paid option.

Another way to do this is to secure sponsorship for newsletters you send out to cover your time or your fees for using the platform. This feels like a really organic way to work with brands and small businesses at the moment and I’ve seen a lot of newsletters offer this (in fact, my newsletter had a sponsored mention last week!).

These are great because a sponsored mention can only be a small section of a newsletter, so it is less time-intensive than a whole blog post and because of this it can be an affordable option for brands wanting to work with you. I also find people are becoming used to and receptive to newsletter ads; although I always talk about sponsored blog posts still being valuable; it’s true that some people still see ‘AD’ at the start of a blog and switch off.

However, with a newsletter, the sponsored section is only part of it and the reader is still getting lots of other useful content, therefore you may find engagement rates are higher.

Therefore, when working with brands, don’t rule out offering newsletter sponsorship as an option. Or if you’re planning a brand new newsletter, work out your costs and consider reaching out to a relevant brand and ask if they’d cover it.

Finally, you can also make money by offering a paid product to your newsletter. It’s important to not turn your newsletter into a sales fest (although some American bloggers do this with ease I find it a bit uncomfortable) but if you have someone interested in what you do and have given you their email, there’s definitely a possibility they’ll be interested in purchasing from you. I always include a mention of my freelance writing toolkit and pitching to brands toolkit at the bottom of my newsletter.

If there’s one bit of advice I can give you it’s to create some kind of paid product. I talk about this in how to create your first email freebie and how to create a paid product. It’s a lot easier than you might think

I hope this guide was useful: let me know your favourite newsletters or your plans for your own in the comments!