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How to make serious money from your email list
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Hi Reader, Have you ever felt like your email list is just… sitting there? You’re sending emails, showing up for your audience, doing all the “right” things – but it doesn’t actually make you any money… It feels frustrating. And honestly? It’s one of the biggest reasons people don’t really prioritize email marketing – it feels like a huge time suck, with very little reward. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In fact, when I recently surveyed this list about your biggest email marketing struggles and frustrations, the second most common response was: “My email list doesn’t earn me any money.” (Last week, we tackled the #1 frustration. If you missed that one, you can catch up here) But here’s the good news: your email list has the potential to be one of the most profitable parts of your business. In fact, a solid benchmark is $1 per subscriber per month. Imagine if every subscriber on your email list represented $1 in your pocket every single month?
It’s not a fantasy – it’s a very realistic goal. But that $1 per subscriber per month rule only works if:
And that’s what today’s newsletter is all about…
How to make serious money from your email listWant to make $1 per subscriber per month? Here’s how… #1: Keep Your List Clean Obviously, if you have a lot of people on your list who aren’t opening – or even seeing – your emails, there’s no way you’ll ever make anything close to $1 per month per subscriber. Worse still, keeping “dead wood” on your list drags down your deliverability… meaning even your biggest fans might not see your emails. READ MORE: Why you should clean your email list (and how to do it!) READ MORE: 22 ways to improve your email deliverability #2: Sell Something That $1 per subscriber figure? It only works if you sell something. You don’t make money by collecting subscribers. And email marketing will never send enough traffic to your website to make ads or affiliates truly profitable. The big money comes from selling directly to your list. The good news? Once you do have something to sell, the whole game changes. And that $1 per subscriber per month is very much achievable. In fact, if you get your strategy right, it's possible to make a whole lot more than that $1 benchmark. READ MORE: Why every blogger should diversify into digital products NOW – before it’s too late! #3: Nail Your Email Marketing Strategy But here’s the thing… Just creating a product doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly, magically start making money from your email list. Nor will casually mentioning your product occasionally in your emails. Nor will spamming your list with “BUY MY PRODUCT NOW” emails. Nor will random, sporadic promotions. And relying solely on your website or social media for sales? Not a chance! In fact, if you get your email marketing strategy right, it is likely that over 90% of your sales will come from your email list. Of course, there's a lot that goes into a full blown email marketing strategy. But at the core, there are two essential parts:
The simplest way to do this is with a promotional calendar. The Power Of A Promotional Calendar Think of this as your 12-month roadmap for email marketing. A good promotional calendar blends nurture content with intentional, planned promotions – so you’re not just winging it or spamming your list with random sales emails. The rhythm looks like this: Nurture → Sell → Nurture → Sell Those “sell” periods could be flash sales, launches or seasonal sales. But whatever type of promotion you choose, it should be a full blown sales event with a clear deadline, a compelling offer, and a strong reason to act now. ACTION STEP: If you already have a clean list and a product to sell, you are more than halfway there. Plan a promotional event 4-6 weeks from now. Then spend the next 4-6 weeks carefully nurturing your subscribers. By the time your promotion rolls around, your audience will already be primed and ready to buy! SEO & Blogging NewsGoogle AI Mode To Become Default For Google Search Soon Logan Kilpatrick, product manager for AI products at Google, said Google AI Mode will be the default for Google Search "soon". Though later, Google said not to look into this message too much, implying that maybe it won’t be very soon. Either way, we know that Google has said that AI Mode is the future of Google Search – so it will likely happen some time in the near future. And when it does, it’s likely to have a pretty devastating impact on traffic. (Already, Google’s AI Overviews have reduced organic traffic by 30-70% for many businesses.) Yet another reason to pivot your business away from being so dependent on Google. SEO in the age of AI: Becoming the trusted answer This is yet another article saying the same thing on repeat: In the age of AI, the focus of SEO (or GEO, if you prefer) is shifting away from simply driving “traffic” to becoming the “trusted answer”. In other words, you need to educate AI engines and build algorithmic trust, so your website becomes the brand they consistently recommend. This article then goes on to explains how to do that. (But of course this only works if you actually sell something! Being the “trusted answer” is not much use if your website depends on high levels of traffic, monetized via ads.) GEO and SEO: Convergence, divergence or something in between On the subject of GEO, this article discusses the hot topic of the moment: As AI reshapes search, will GEO become an entirely separate discipline, remain part of SEO, or something in the middle? The conclusion is one I don't think I've seen before, but one I think is actually quite likely. The State Of SEO 2026: How To Survive While everyone keeps debating how best to optimize for AI, this article is a reminder that old-school SEO is still the best way to drive traffic to a website (for now!) In it, Search Engine Journal shares insights from 371 industry professionals about what’s working in SEO today and where the industry is headed. Interestingly, the activities which currently have the greatest impact on success are all SEO classics: content creation, updating old content, technical SEO improvements, keyword optimization and internal linking. So, while it’s worth keeping an eye on where GEO/AEO is heading, for now it’s still worth continuing with traditional SEO best practice (while converting as much of the traffic you are getting now into email subscribers, to futureproof your traffic and income!) The Problem With SEO: Why You Need Sprints, Not Checklists I love this article because it covers two of my favourite things: productivity and SEO! Essentially it talks about how, rather than working on everything at once, you should work on the highest-impact SEO priorities in “sprints”. SEO sprints are time-bound, focused efforts with specific high-impact goals. For example:
This is something I’ve long advocated for – particularly when it comes to new content creation. Short, highly focused “sprints” will usually be far more productive and yield far better results than a long, unfocused to-do list of "all the things". And, with only limited time available, it makes sense to focus almost exclusively on your highest impact activities, rather than trying to do a bit of everything. (It's also why the DPSA is broken up into short, highly focused "challenges" based on achieving specific high-impact goals 🙃) Over to you…I’m currently working on a brand-new resource that gives you a strategic system to GROW, NURTURE & MONETIZE your email list. But I need your help! Of all the things I’ve covered in today’s newsletter, what would you most like help with? Hit REPLY and let me know! (Your answers will help me shape this new resource so it’s as useful as possible.) Happy list-monetizing! Eb 😊 P.S. I'd love to hear from you... What part of this week’s newsletter do you most need help with? Hit REPLY and let me know! |
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