How to effectively monetize an email list—the right way

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It only takes you one Google Search to be bombarded with dozens of articles, blogs, videos, courses, podcasts, interviews, or social media posts telling you how to monetize an email list.

More.

90% of those (if not more) will tell you to get as many people as you can onto your list (or newsletter as they’re most likely referring to), disregarding the quality of the readers you’re inviting to be on your list and then to continuously run ads or accept sponsorships.

And while this isn’t a bad business model per se—especially not for people who just like to write long articles and not have to worry about anything else—it’s far from the most effective, reliable, or even the simplest method there is.

Again, I’m not saying that type of model is bad.

It’s just not for me.

I would much rather build a small but extremely focused and high-quality (quality over quantity here) email list filled with readers eager to read what I write and buy what I offer them.

The only downside to this type of business model?

You need something of your own to sell your readers. But seeing as you’re on my list, chances are you’ve got that covered already (or will have soon enough).

In this case, many of the so-called “list-building hacks” other people can’t shut up about don’t actually work for us. Running paid ads to your (free) email opt-in won’t do you any good. Neither will social media giveaways where you ask for people’s email addresses in exchange for some random freebie they’ll receive—most, if not all, of the social media game will actively work against you since that’s very much a quantity over quality type of medium.

You might have noticed that all the above methods I mentioned share one common theme.

They all focus on getting people on your list by promising them FREE (!) stuff.

Unfortunately, the people you’ll attract this way are the same type of people who’ll get angry at you for trying to sell them something—even if it’s a $5 product that might literally change their lives forever.

These types of people won’t help you run a business—which is what you’re trying to do after all.

A better way is to pre-qualify and pre-sell people as soon as they enter your world through one of the many portals you’ve scattered around the internet (I’ll dive deeper into this specific topic of “building your world and opening portals” in other emails—as well as in an upcoming course all about business worldbuilding).

That means, to immediately let them know you plan on selling them something.

Don’t hide this fact. It’s not only stupid, crooked, and absolutely visible to everyone with half an eye sticking out their ass. It’s also the smartest thing you could do. Doing so sets the stage for the future and it repels any and all cheapskates who won’t ever buy anything from you anyway.

This doesn’t mean you HAVE to sell them something straight away… but a simple tripwire (before or after joining your list) or one-time offer when they subscribe to your list (even if they choose not to buy) goes a long way.

I’ll go deeper into how to grow an email list in my flagship course, Email Valhalla, which teaches you everything you need to know to run your own email-centered business as a creative, including how to write simple and effective daily emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day.

Click here for more information about Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Why do I write daily emails?

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The short answer: I enjoy it

The longer answer: I enjoy it and it makes me more money.

Jokes aside, I could go over all the reasons why I write daily emails—aside from helping me make more money, being top of mind, having a better connection with you, my reader, and getting better at writing infinitely faster than someone writing monthly, weekly, or semi-daily emails.

But I won’t go into that today.

Another reason is that I find it motivating as well.

First of all, I get more responses. More people reply sharing how they liked my emails. It helps me stay accountable making it so I can’t take a single day off. I have to show up every single day, even when don’t feel like it—especially when I don’t feel like it.

I simply have to write something, come up with ideas, write a (hopefully) engaging story, and share the lesson in a way that hits just right, so it’ll be impactful to you as a reader, ensuring you’re getting a benefit from it and continue reading my emails the following day as well.

That’s far from an exhaustive list of why I write daily emails.

But it should be more than good enough to get you started.

So if you’d like to learn the craft of writing emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day, then check out Email Valhalla right here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


What’s the hardest thing about self-publishing?

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So read a recent question asked to hundreds of (aspiring) self-published authors.

The most common answer (it’s not even close compared to the second)? To quote one of the users, using the exact words they used:

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“Marketing is such a pain in the arse.”

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Which honestly saddens me.

Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming either. In fact, if done right, it can almost be a “set and forget” type of deal.

Sure, it might take a short while to get everything up and running. But once you do, you’re done… forever if you’d like.

Even if you publish new books, create new offers, venture out into new territory, everything you did the first time can be re-used, re-purposed, and re-peated to save you a bunch of time (and a lot of headaches).

So, if marketing can truly be that simple… then why are so many people finding it a “pain in the arse”?

My best guess?

Because there’s too much noise out there; too many so-called “experts” who truly have no idea what they’re doing, and haven’t achieved anything worthwhile themselves (or maybe they have but it was purely by accident and they have no idea how to reliably do it again, let alone for someone else in another market).

I dare you to look around, really look at who’s doing the talking, who people are following, what they’re doing, and what everyone has accomplished.

It’s truly the blind leading the blind out there.

Which brings me to the good news of the day…

Because of this exact reason I’ve decided to create a paid ads course, backed up by years and years of old-school direct response marketing (the type that brings immediate results, measured in $$$) specifically focused on independent creatives in the art & entertainment industry, with a very (and I mean VERY) big emphasis on self-published fiction authors—arguably one of the most difficult markets to do advertising in because there’s no real talk of “benefits” or “big ideas” many guru fanboys like to brainlessly yap about all the time, so if it works for them, you’ll be sure as hell it’ll work for anyone in the entertainment industry.

A fair word of warning.

The course won’t be sexy, nor will it contain a buttload of new trendy tactics. No exciting stuff at all. Just pure principles, simplicity, and effectiveness.

The bad news?

The course isn’t here yet (but it’s close!).

You’ll just have to sit down your sweet patooty and wait a bit longer.

Until then, consider checking out Email Valhalla to help you master my way of doing email marketing, which will act as an extremely profitable “supplement” to my way of doing advertising, making it so it’s virtually impossible not to succeed.

For more information about Email Valhalla, click the following link: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Boil’em, mash’em, stick’em in a stew

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I enjoy eating potatoes (also known as taters or, more cultured, Po-Tay-Toes).

But I can’t remember the last time I ever ate a lone potato, without anything else—I won’t eat a lone one anytime soon either.

That’s the thing with preparing a good meal.

Sure, part of it is about your selection of ingredients and how you decide to prepare them. But more important is how you choose to combine those ingredients.

I’d eat fries with some salad and a steak all day, any day. But you’ll have to drug me before you ever get me to eat fries stuffed in a lemon & chocolate cake decorated with hot sauce.

See, I’m not one to make generalizations, however, I do believe I’m quite safe saying the above statement holds true for most people (don’t bother replying to this email about how you’re different because you’re vegan or whatever—I do not care and you’re smart enough to understand the point I’m making).

Chances are, I’ve told you nothing you didn’t already know.

So why, whenever I look around at the market, do I see tons of people valuing individual, mostly hot, exotic, and trending ingredients over the big-picture meal they’re preparing? It’s all “Try out this new guarantee to skyrocket your sales” or “Check out this new subject line hack to double, triple, or even quadruple your open rate!!” Yet when you ask these people about their big-picture business plan, they’ll tell you a story with more holes than a fishing net.

The sad part?

Such a business plan doesn’t have to be more than 4 simple questions:

  1. Who are you helping?

  2. How are you reaching them?

  3. What are you selling them first?

  4. What are you selling them next?

Answer those four questions for yourself and you’ll already have yourself a better-functioning and more effective business than 90% of posers and wannabes you’ll see crying about on social media.

Anyway.

If you don’t want to be stuck eating lone potatoes all your life, I’d highly suggest you check out Email Valhalla which will not only show you how to write emails that get you paid while keeping your readers reading day after day, but it’ll also show you how to build yourself an actual (extremely simple, yet outrageously effective) business without so much as a single hole in sight.

Check out the following link to learn more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Late-night drinks turns into a motivational speech

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Last night I went to get some drinks with a few friends.

One of those friends had already previously expressed her long-time interest in writing her own novels at one point in time. We’d often chat about the act of writing a book and what type of genre/direction she’d want to go in.

So much so she even considered pursuing some form of creative writing education in the UK (don’t remember all the details—this was quite a while ago).

That said.

Like most people’s dreams, that’s all that happened; talking about the dream, never making any real steps towards accomplishing, or even starting, that dream.

Well. until now at least.

Apparently she started taking notes, creating outlines, doing research, brainstorming about ideas, learning about the trade, and picking up both writing and marketing tips and tricks from people she looks up to (or at least that’s who I’m assuming she got it from), even getting set up with useful writing tools and software to make her life easier.

Now, I’m still unsure how much writing has been accomplished already—if any.

But at least she’s actually fired up and making considerable progress towards her final goal—all of which is to be applauded and supported—I sincerely hope she goes through with it until the end, I really do.

All of this, however, reminded me of an important lesson.

Something I learned quite some years ago from (in)famous psychologist, author, speaker, deep thinker, and celebrity with an extremely engaged and almost cult-like following, Jordan B. Peterson. Love or hate the guy, I don’t care and that’s not what really matters here anyway. If you’re not wise and intelligent enough to realize you don’t have to like, or even agree with, someone in order to learn from, get inspired by, and broaden your perspective on how you view the world, then you’ve got much bigger issues to focus on in your life.

I’m not even sure if this is something I should attribute to Peterson, but it’s who I heard it from first and who comes up first in my mind whenever I think about this.

And that specific valuable lesson in the following:

You have no idea how little encouragement people need to drastically improve every single aspect of their lives. Yet most people still aren’t getting any encouragement at all.

Imagine how much better the world would be. How many more creative masterpieces, technological breakthroughs, or truly revolutionary thinkers we’d have if more people simply got told “I believe in you" or “Go give it everything you’ve got” at least once?

Truly a shame.

Anyway.

Let this be your reminder to believe in yourself and go give it everything you’ve got. You’ve only got one life. Nobody else is going to write that book you’ve been dreaming about, direct the movie you once envisioned, record the song you keep humming to yourself, build that life-changing product you once thought about when you couldn’t sleep, but never did anything about it because you weren’t sure if you were up to the task.

Well, I’m here telling you that you are.

Even more.

It’s almost laughably easy to produce and create anything you put your mind to in today’s digital age where you can reason billions of people all across the globe from the luxury of your home just by pressing a few buttons on your computer.

In fact, using today’s advertising technology it’s truly never been easier to reach anyone you want (you have no idea how specific and niche your target audience can be).

And I’ll show you exactly how to make that dream of yours a reality in my paid advertising course… once it’s finished, which will be sooner than you might think, so keep your eyes open.

In the meantime, consider learning how to write daily emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day by getting my flagship course Email Valhalla today:

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla 


I don’t trust people who have nothing to sell

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Neither do I trust people who act like they’re not selling anything.

Both cases are big red flags.

If you don’t have anything to sell then I (and many other people) will simply perceive you as not having anything worth to offer.

So why should I listen, much less trust you?

Whether that’s actually true or not doesn’t matter.

It’s the same as people who claim to be “experts” but then complain about posting content daily. If you don’t have something to say every single day—while there are other people out there who do—how do you expect people to believe your claims of being an expert?

In case people act like they’re not selling anything (but they are).

There simply has to be something wrong, bad, or shady about what they’re doing.

If you’ve got a good product. Something that can change people’s lives for the better. You’re confident in your abilities, and you know what you’re selling to people is worth every single penny.

Then why are you hiding it?

If anything, you should be shouting it off rooftops all the time. Making sure everyone knows about it and you get it into as many hands as humanly possible.

That’s the right thing to do.

So again.

I don’t trust people who have nothing to sell or act like they don’t have anything to sell—and probably neither should you.

And on that note.

Maybe you don’t actually have something to sell right now. In that case I’d highly recommend you to check out Product Creation Made Easy where I’ll show you how to ideate, create, and launch a profitable digital product in 21 days or less.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/product


With great responsibility comes great productivity

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Here’s an interesting fact I’ve found out to be true:

The more tasks, projects, and responsibilities you take on, the more productive you become.

Coincidentally, becoming more productive also allows you to enjoy whatever it is you’re doing a lot more.

Do with this information what you want.

But if you’re interested in learning how to not just enjoy but absolutely adore and love the writing process, then you might want to check out the book I wrote about it.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/loving


The loving torture room

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Back in early 2021, a couple of buddies and I went on a city trip.

Nothing fancy, just discovering a “medieval” style city in-country which was close by and easily accessible by train.

I still have a bunch of pictures from that specific trip.

Pictures of the old cathedral, the food we ate, some funny street names, ducks, and a particular weird monument or art piece that I still, to this day, have no idea what it’s supposed to resemble.

But none of those pictures compare to a particular picture I took of a simple shop we happened to stroll past.

More specifically.

It’s a picture of a Valentine’s store all dressed up in pink, decorated with hearts, teddy bears, swans, and glitter everywhere. But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.

See, right next to our lovey-dovey pink little store was the entrance to the torture museum, all in black, decorated with human skulls, spider webs, and some other wooden contraptions which I don’t wish anyone to be trapped in.

Either of these storefronts might catch the attention of the occasional passer-by.

But put both of those together? And, well, I doubt anyone could resist the urge to see what’s going on, or at least to do a double take to check whether their eyes weren’t deceiving themselves.

This, truly, was one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of how the power of contrast can be used to its full potential when it comes to catching attention and building interest.

It wasn’t until just recently that I got reminded of this example when I learned about how extremely powerful contrast can be when used correctly. Just think of all the possibilities when it comes to writing, advertising, or even the names of popular books, TV shows, or video games for that matter (I very much doubt the classic hit video game Little Big Planet would’ve become as popular as it did if it wasn’t for it’s extremely obvious and effective use of contrast).

So with this, I challenge you.

The next time you sit down to create something, regardless of what it is, focus on adding more contrast to it than you would otherwise. See what the results are.

I’ve got an entire module dedicated to the usage of contrast in my upcoming course about running profitable paid ads to consistently and reliably grow your email list—including real-life examples of the tremendous results it has gotten me—and for a good reason.

In the meantime, you might want to check out Email Valhalla where I also show you some tips and tricks of how to add more contrast to your writing to make it demand instant attention and actually help you get paid.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The Great Paid Ads Revolution

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These past few days I occasionally mentioned the new paid ads course I’m working on.

While doing so I’ve gotten a good amount of replies from people.

Some were eager to know when they could expect the course to be finished, others wanted to share their experiences running paid ads and ask for my advice about what I would do in their situation.

Either way, it seems quite some people are enthusiastic about running paid ads (now or in the future).

This got me wondering.

What are your thoughts about using paid traffic to consistently and predictably grow your email list, build a stable income stream, and free up more time which you can spend writing, drawing, fishing, raiding along the shores of Madagascar, or doing whatever your heart desires?

Are you currently running paid ads by any chance? Have you experimented with them in the past but couldn’t make it work? Or are simply planning on playing around with paid traffic in the future but haven’t gotten around to it yet?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, then I’d love to hear more about you and your situation.

What you like about it, what you struggle with, what you’re afraid of, and especially what you’re hoping to accomplish with your paid ads endeavors.

Simply hit reply and let me know.


Don’t fall into this trap

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“Working for free” is a coping mechanism for not daring to get rejected.

Many people will work for free or for testimonials before they feel comfortable getting out there and charging for their offer. Even though the only thing they have to do is to get the right offer in front of the right person and they’ll say yes.

And sure.

You might get 5 people who say ‘no’.

You might even get 10, 20, or even 50 people who reject your offer.

But why should that get in the way of you making more offers and getting closer to your next yes—your next client?

I’ve worked with many people who didn’t see any proof of work of mine. No testimonials. No prior results or projects. Some of them didn’t even read my emails to see whether I actually walked the talk.

At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game.

Learn the fundamentals of creating a great offer, getting leads, qualifying prospects, and ultimately landing clients. Do this and you’ll be golden.

And on that note.

Arguably, the best and most effective way to communicate your value, build trust with potential clients, and get them to want to work with you and you alone is by getting them on an email list and mailing them every single day.

For more information on how to best to just that, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla