How I Earn $48,000 A Year From Ads In A Newsletter With 18,000 Subscribers

I never thought I’d offer ads in my For The Interested newsletter because I assumed they’d annoy my readers.

But a couple years ago, I realized if the ads were done in the right way they could provide value to my audience, my sponsors, and my business.

That’s exactly what’s happened and they’ve grown to become a $48,000 per year revenue stream for me that requires no sales outreach and minimal time to manage.

The guys at the Copyblogger Podcast recently discovered what I was doing, asked me some questions about it, and recorded an episode of their podcast in which they do a case study about my approach to ad sales.

You can watch it in the video below – they spend the first 45 minutes breaking down how I launched the ads, how I sell them, and why it works.

A few things to clarify that they didn’t get quite right or didn’t mention:

1. The daily emails are not autoresponders.

I write each issue of the newsletter as I go and send it to all my subscribers at the same time. I do however schedule each issue a couple weeks in advance so I don’t have the pressure to write something every day.

2. I have some help with the logistics.

While the system is largely automated, I do have someone who works for me get the ad copy and links from my sponsors and she then gives me a list of the sponsors for each week so I can basically just cut and paste them into my newsletter.

3. I don’t do any sales outreach.

My ad buyers all come from people who read my newsletter and/or word of mouth. I don’t do any active sales outreach to recruit sponsors and there’s no deals to negotiate – they buy an ad, send their copy, and that’s it.

(By the way, check out my Newsletter Booster to learn how to get subscribers in 5 minutes a day.)

One more thing:

If you’d like to buy an ad to promote your product or service to the 18,000 creative entrepreneurs who read my newsletter, you can reserve an ad here.

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