Yesterday, I wrote about Sparkloop. It’s a way to monetize your newsletter by promoting other newsletters.
I am using Sparkloop to make some money in the early days of my own health newsletter. I make a few shekels right at signup time (thanks to the coregistration screen that pops up right after somebody opts in). I make a few more shekels with in-line newsletter recommendations each week when I send out a new issue.
I could make more money if I emailed more often. But the weekly schedule already costs me a lot of time, plus I already have this daily marketing newsletter you are reading now. Who’s got time for more daily emails?
I wanna tell you my plan, which you are free to use yourself.
I got it from marketer Josh Spector. Once upon a time, Josh started out by sending a typical “creator economy” newsletter. You know — once a week, a bunch of curated links, some how-to advice.
But then Josh did something really unique. I don’t know if it was his idea originally, but it was certainly the first time I’d seen it.
Josh started a daily newsletter. But instead of aggregating dozens of links or writing hundreds of words of personal content, Josh’s newsletter was typically just two sentences.
One sentence had a bit of intriguing content. The second sentence had an offer. Kind of like this:
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SUBJECT: The opportunity of the two-sentence newsletter [<== intriguing, bullet-like subject line]
I’ve written up the entire business plan here. [<== minimal content that typically links out to another blog, podcast, newsletter]
***
Today’s email is brought to you by a daily newsletter that embodies the idea above. [<== The promo. That’s a link to Josh’s newsletter by the way]
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Josh monetizes this daily newsletter by 1) selling that ad spot for $350 or 2) by promoting offers of his own choosing, including other newsletters via Sparkloop.
The nice thing is that creating this kind of content is as close as you can get to effortless, particularly if you are writing a newsletter in a niche that interest you.
But even if you go into an entirely foreign niche, you should be able to gather dozens of interesting tips and write dozens of these two-line emails in a couple hours’ time.
Does it really work? I can tell you that I bought one of Josh’s $350 ads. I got hundreds of clicks to my own (marketing) newsletter, close to a hundred signups, and I actually made sales to some of those new readers in the first 30 days, to the point where I almost paid for the entire ad.
In other words, people read these quick and simple emails, and they act based on them.
So here’s a business plan that pulls all this together:
1. Pick a niche. For reasons that I will tell you in a second, I can suggest “parenting” or “business opportunities” as niches.
2. Run ads either on Facebook or Twitter to get subscribers to your newsletter. You should be able to get new subscribers for at most $2-$3.
3. Monetize right away with Sparkloop’s Upscribe to recoup some (or all) of your ad cost on day zero.
4. Send 2-sentence daily emails with 1) a tip to give people something interesting and 2) a newsletter recommendation.
This is why I recommended parenting or business opportunities above. They are big markets, with lots of interest in general. Plus, based on my research into which newsletters are available to promote on Sparkloop, you will have endless, high-quality, relevant options to promote, each paying you $2-$3 per new subscriber.
5. And that’s it. Keep repeating, keep growing, and you will soon be able to, in the words of David Mamet, “BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.”
I myself am planning to complement my own weekly health newsletter with such a quick daily email newsletter, and do just what I’ve told you above.
There’s no reason why you can’t do it as well, even if you have few resources right now beyond the device — laptop or phone — that are reading this post on.
Of course, a crucial part is Sparkloop, which gives you something easy and attractive to promote, even when you have zero other offers.
If you’d like to sign up to Sparkloop, for free, and start putting the business plan above into action right now, here’s where to go: