Monetization

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


People don’t care about “value”

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At least not your ideal customers.

For one, everything useful can be found online for free. There’s no arguing about that. Even more. All of the most useful pieces of information are already known by your customers, your readers, and almost everyone else in the market.

So people aren’t buying value.

They’re buying adventure, cool tips and tricks, exciting so-called “secrets”(which are nothing more than gimmicks that only make up 1%–2% of the final outcome—and which won’t help anyone who doesn’t already have the foundation down), and most importantly, they buy a new perspective, or in other words, new insights.

This is what those “give everything away for free” people are missing (what’s free isn’t being valued, let alone used and implement) as well as the people who swear you need to hard teach, educate, and share as much “value” as you possible can.

Spoiler, you don’t.

Just take a look at my emails (or anyone else running a successful business you admire for that matter). I’m not teaching you how to do stuff (at least not for free).

I’m sharing tips with you every single day, yes.

But not about how to do something.

I’m sharing tips about what to think about, how to look at the things going on in your market, new ways you might consider approaching opportunities you have, or other insightful realizations that lead you towards better knowing what to focus on (as opposed to a step-by-step plan on how to do something).

Speaking about how-to content.

If, by any chance (no idea why that would happen), made the realization, or gotten the insights, that, perhaps, building a list and writing daily emails to better build a relationship with your ideal customer, write better, more targeted content, and sell more high-quality products, and getting thanked for it by your customer, if you realized that might be a good way to go about things…

Then do check out Email Valhalla where I do indeed teach more about the exact steps you can take to do exactly that.

Tickles your fancy?

Then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


How I make more money the more inadequate I feel

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Thanks to the type of business I run, I regularly wake up to notifications telling me someone bought a product of mine.

Less regularly, but not THAT irregularly, comes along a feeling of inadequacy or imposter syndrome where I doubt if my products are actually worth what I’m charging.

It’s a funny feeling that.

And it happens to everyone in this business. I’ve never spoken with someone who hasn’t, at one point (most of the time at many points) in their career, felt the same way.

See, almost every single person with every single product will launch it at a certain price, more often than not severely UNDERvaluing the product.

Then through repeated additions, refinements, and customer feedback, it becomes clear that the product has significantly improvement in quality and a price increase is justified (if not necessary).

Yet after a few of those the question arises: “Is my product actually worth this much?”.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Case in point: it’s helping more people than it was before, more people are buying it, and most, if not all, people who bought your product continue buying other products of yours (showing they were at least satisfied enough with your product, more likely completely ecstatic about it, to continue trusting you and wanting, even needing, more of your good stuff).

So why do I (and many others) get this feeling?

Well, for one, we clearly remember where we came from and how we started.

That $500 offer? I once sold it for $50. In fact, at one point long ago, people could get it for free (only then nobody seemed to want it, much less get the same amount of results from it—big lesson here).

Another point.

Everything inside my own products is obvious to me. I already know all that stuff. There’s nothing new to me. Nothing I need repeated either because I do it all the time. I created it. It’s based on my experience.

You wouldn’t pay someone $1,000 to tell you what your name is, where you live, how old you are, and what kind of work you do or to have them help you solve a math problem you solved 10 minutes ago.

My point is.

It takes a lot of experience, wisdom, and time to understand/see the value in the information you can offer people (As Dan Koe, who probably got it from someone else, often says, every single person has a $1,000,000 idea in their head right now, they just don’t see it).

But there’s a benefit to all of this as well.

Everytime I get this feeling, I can’t just sit around and do nothing until it passes. No I have to do something. I have to justify it to myself again and again and again that these products are in fact worth the price, if not many times more.

I just can’t help it.

And so I add new content, improve upon my old content, I add bonuses, share more value, write better stories, or even create new additional offers (more often than not entirely for free or at a large discount for existing customers) just to improve the product even more.

So I’m not sure if I’ll ever have a 100% completed product I’ll stop tampering with.

But then again, I’m not sure if I’d want to. After all, stagnation is a fate worse than death.

Anyway.

If you want to learn how to sell your own products so you can get a similar feeling of inadequacy so that you’ll in turn get the undying motivation to create more and better products, only to later increase the price and keep the cycle going (beware, it’s addictive).

Then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I dissapointed a reader of mine

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Yesterday I wrote an email covering 25 reasons why people aren’t growing and earning more.

It got a lot of responses and praise, as well as some other comical answers.

One of those was an email by Carlo who wrote in to tell me he was disappointed because I hadn’t mentioned the most important 26th reason: “You’re not eating enough bananas.”

And credits to him.

He’s absolutely right.

But that also made me wonder how many other reasons I left out for the simple sake of keeping it to 25 reasons.

Soon after I thought of a whole bunch more. But no worries. I won’t send the exact type of email again (not so soon at least).

There was, however, one reason in particular that I found so important and so valuable that I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Want to know what it was?

Another reason (let’s call it the 27th) that you might not be growing or earning more than you are right now is that you’re being limited by your time.

I see so many people—especially coaches and freelancers—who are capped by the amount of clients they can take on and don’t have any other income source. Yet there’s a whole untapped market of people who are eager to hand you their hard-earned money if you would just give them something.

Now, that something doesn’t have to be your time. And frankly, it shouldn’t. You should protect your time at all costs. It’s way too valuable to just hand it out to everyone just like that.

No, I’m talking about higher-leverage offers.

More specifically, digital products.

You build them once, you get paid forever. No extra costs, no extra time investment.

You get paid for doing nothing at all, so you’re happy.

And people can get relatively inexpensive (as compared to your main offer) help and assistance from you(r product), so they’re happy.

Everyone’s happy.

Now, if that tickles your fancy and you don’t yet have a product that’s selling consistently, then check out Product Creation Made Easy where I’ll teach you step-by-step my entire process for ideating, creating, and even launching profitable products (in 21 days or less).

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme