How To Monetize A Newsletter
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Tim Stoddard offers a detailed breakdown of his latest newsletter, 'The Census,' aimed at professionals in the behavioral health industry. He shares the newsletter's purpose, inspired by bhs.com, and outlines five monetization strategies: sponsoring his own content, hosting events, securing sponsorships, selling a digital marketing course, and leveraging the platform to build valuable business relationships. Tim emphasizes the long-term value of a newsletter beyond direct revenue, highlighting its power as a relationship-building tool and an asset for indirect revenue generation.
Takeaways
- 📰 Tim Stoddard introduces his latest newsletter called 'The Census', aimed at professionals in the Behavioral Health field.
- 🚀 The inspiration for 'The Census' came from BHS.com, a media company that proved there's a market for specialized content in this industry.
- 💼 Tim's initial monetization strategy is self-sponsorship, using the newsletter to generate clients for his own digital marketing business.
- 🔗 He has already generated solid leads through the newsletter by directing traffic to his website and utilizing various call-to-action (CTA) strategies.
- 🎟️ Tim plans to monetize through events, both in-person and online, similar to the successful models of BH business and Dreamscape.
- 💰 He intends to sell sponsorships once the newsletter reaches a substantial subscriber base, capitalizing on the high CPM in the industry.
- 📚 A digital marketing course for the addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare industry exists, which Tim plans to promote and sell.
- 🤝 The most important monetization strategy is leveraging the newsletter to build valuable B2B relationships and network within the industry.
- 💼 Tim emphasizes the indirect revenue potential of a newsletter, such as gaining equity in companies and creating a referral network.
- 🌟 He believes that even without direct monetization, a newsletter can be an invaluable asset for relationship building and business opportunities.
- 🚀 Tim encourages viewing newsletters as long-term investments with multiple revenue streams, rather than just direct sponsorship sales.
Q & A
What is the name of Tim Stoddard's latest newsletter?
-The name of Tim Stoddard's latest newsletter is 'The Census'.
What was the initial hesitation Tim had about creating a media company for Behavioral Health professionals?
-Tim initially hesitated to create a media company for Behavioral Health professionals because he didn't believe there would be a demand for the kind of content he wanted to produce, which was business-oriented and focused on topics like insurance and treatment modalities rather than inspirational content.
What company inspired Tim to create 'The Census'?
-The company that inspired Tim to create 'The Census' is bhs.com, which showed him that there is an audience for the type of content he wanted to produce.
How does Tim plan to monetize 'The Census' initially?
-Tim plans to initially monetize 'The Census' by sponsoring his own newsletter, using it to generate clients for his own business, Stazy Internet Marketing.
What is the second stage of Tim's monetization plan for 'The Census'?
-The second stage of Tim's monetization plan involves creating and selling events, both in-person and online, similar to the model used by bhs.com and stateofaddictiontreatment.com.
How does Tim view the potential of sponsorships for 'The Census'?
-Tim views sponsorships as a potential monetization method for 'The Census' once the newsletter has a larger subscriber base. He notes that the industry's high CPM (cost per mille) makes sponsorships particularly lucrative.
What is the course Tim created related to digital marketing?
-Tim created an online course on digital marketing specifically for the addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare industry.
How does Tim currently use the course he created for digital marketing?
-Currently, Tim uses the course as email bait, giving it away for free to those who sign up for the 'The Census' email list, and collecting leads through a call to action.
What is the fifth and most important way Tim plans to monetize 'The Census'?
-The fifth and most important way Tim plans to monetize 'The Census' is by leveraging the newsletter to build business relationships and create a network of businesses that can refer clients to him.
What philosophy does Tim emphasize as crucial for monetizing a newsletter?
-Tim emphasizes the importance of building relationships and doing favors for people within the industry as a way to generate long-term value and indirect revenue through a newsletter.
What is Tim's advice on looking at newsletters beyond direct monetization?
-Tim advises to look at newsletters with a broader scope, focusing on the potential for indirect revenue and the power that an email list can provide for creating opportunities in various ways.
Outlines
📰 Introducing the 'Census' Newsletter and Monetization Strategy
Tim Stoddard introduces his latest newsletter called 'The Census', aimed at professionals in the behavioral health industry. He shares his initial hesitation about creating content for this niche due to its business-oriented and less inspirational nature compared to his work on Sober Nation. However, inspired by bhs.com, he decided to proceed. Tim outlines his five-stage monetization plan for the newsletter, starting with sponsoring his own newsletter to generate clients for his business, Stazy Internet Marketing. He subtly promotes his services within the newsletter, which has generated solid leads but no closed deals yet. The strategy involves using the newsletter to create awareness and attention for his business, with the long-term goal of closing deals that will outweigh the costs of generating leads.
🎟️ Leveraging Events and Sponsorships for Revenue Generation
Tim discusses the second stage of his monetization plan, which involves using the newsletter to create and sell events. He admires bhs.com's successful event business model and plans to replicate it, though not to the same depth. He aims to host both online and in-person events, similar to 'stateofaddictiontreatment.com', leveraging his media creation and email list building skills. The third monetization method is through sponsorships. Currently, Tim collects leads through a single link on the ACT website and has sold one sponsorship. He plans to take this route seriously once the subscriber base grows to 15,000-20,000. The high CPM in the industry makes sponsorships a lucrative option. The fourth method involves selling an online course on digital marketing for the addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare industry, which Tim has created but not yet promoted.
💼 Building Relationships and Monetizing Through Course Sales
The fourth monetization strategy revolves around selling an online course that Tim has developed, which compiles a decade of his expertise in digital marketing. He currently offers the course for free as an email bait but plans to create an autoresponder to sell it at a higher price, estimating significant revenue even with modest daily sales. The final and most crucial monetization method is leveraging the newsletter to build business relationships. Tim emphasizes the importance of networking and how it has been instrumental in generating clients for his company, Stazy. He plans to use the newsletter as a tool to extend goodwill and foster B2B relationships, which can lead to referrals and business opportunities.
🚀 Reflecting on the Power of Newsletters and Future Opportunities
In the concluding paragraph, Tim reflects on his experience with newsletters, stating that they have always been a long-term investment, gaining power and influence over time. He encourages viewers to consider newsletters as a means to generate opportunities beyond direct sales and sponsorships. Tim invites questions in the comments and thanks viewers for watching, expressing hope that his insights on growing 'The Census' have inspired them to apply similar strategies to their own newsletters.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Newsletter
💡Monetization
💡Behavioral Health
💡Self-Sponsorship
💡Events
💡Sponsorship
💡Course
💡Lead Generation
💡B2B Relationships
💡Equity
Highlights
Tim Stoddard introduces his latest newsletter called 'The Census' aimed at professionals in the behavioral health field.
The Census was inspired by the success of bhs.com, a media company that proved there is a demand for professional content in the industry.
Tim discusses his five-stage monetization plan for the newsletter, starting with sponsoring his own newsletter to generate clients for his business.
He shares his experience with using a newsletter to generate leads through website interactions and CTAs within blog posts.
Tim's second monetization strategy involves creating and selling events, inspired by the success of bhs.com's event model.
He plans to host both online and in-person events, leveraging his media and email list building skills.
Tim's third monetization approach is selling sponsorships, which he aims to do once his subscriber base reaches 15,000 to 20,000.
He highlights the high CPM in the industry as a reason for the potential profitability of sponsorships.
The fourth monetization method is through a digital marketing course for the addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare industry.
Tim has created a comprehensive course and plans to sell it at a high price point, leveraging the growing subscriber base of The Census.
The fifth and most important monetization strategy is building relationships through the newsletter, which Tim considers invaluable.
Tim emphasizes the importance of indirect revenue and the power of a well-established newsletter for creating opportunities.
He shares his philosophy of giving away sponsorships for free to build business relationships and gain equity in companies.
Tim provides examples of how he has used newsletters in the past to generate revenue and build valuable assets.
He encourages viewers to think of newsletters as more than just a direct revenue source, but as a tool for building a powerful network.
Tim concludes by sharing his insights on growing The Census and inspiring viewers to apply similar strategies to their own newsletters.
Transcripts
hey everyone my name is Tim Stoddard and
in this week's video I am going to give
you a behind the scenes breakdown of my
latest newsletter Biz I'm going to show
you the newsletter itself I'm going to
explain to you the industry and most
importantly I'm going to break down the
five potential ways I'm going to try to
monetize this newsletter and turn it
into a real cash generating machine so
let's get
[Music]
started
hey first and foremost let's take a look
at the newsletter the newsletter is
called the census you can check it out
on the
census. I've mentioned it a couple times
in my videos and in uh my weekly blog
post but I've never done a real
breakdown on it and explain to you what
what the purpose of it is so the entire
reason why I created the sensus is a
little bit of a backstory here when I
first started sober Nation I had the
idea to also create a media company for
the other side of Behavioral Health not
necessarily the people that needed the
help but the professionals that work in
the field and for really like eight
years I talked myself out of it because
I didn't personally believe that there
would be a demand for this kind of
content this isn't the same
inspirational kind of content that I
write on sober Nation this is like dry
this is business oriented this is
talking about insurance and like
treatment modalities and so I didn't
think there would be a market for for it
and last year I discovered this company
right here bhs.com and this company just
completely rocked my world they showed
me they reminded me a lesson that I
already knew which is if you make good
there's going to be people that
appreciate it and want to follow along
and so I'll be referencing this website
a few times bhs.com this is uh really
the
inspiration and I'm I'm stealing a a lot
of their model um I'm not going to go
quite Into the Depths that they go to
with their particular business model but
you'll see there's definitely a lot of
places where um I'm I'm outright
stealing it okay so then how exactly am
I going to monetize this business well
I'm going to do so in five different
stages the first stage is what I do with
every newsletter that I start I I
sponsor my own newsletter this is really
something that I I talk about a lot
especially over at copy blogger Academy
where I have a newsletter and I'm
building an audience so instead of
trying to sell sponsorships why don't I
just use the attention to generate
clients for my own business and that's
what I'm doing in the newsletter itself
you'll see brought to you by stazy
internet marketing I put the logo of my
company in the very front and then I
give a little bit of an introduction and
then once again I I put in a sponsored
link and after that I go with the
newsletter so it's subtle the newsletter
itself is isn't completely riddled with
ads I'm not necessarily out here
generating clicks and trying to sell
click-through rates to sponsors I'm just
making the best newsletter that I
possibly can and in the process I'm
generating attention and awareness to my
own services so we've been at this for
like three months so far I haven't
closed any deals from it yet but I've
generated four really solid leads um
because you know as you click over
brings you to my website and so I get
leads through the chat widget I get
leads through this hire us button um as
people you know browse around and maybe
check out some of the blog posts every
one of these blog posts has ctas in the
top and in the sidebar and and ctas
within the text where a a a popup form
and a lead form comes through so I've
generated some really good leads I
haven't closed any yet but it's it's
going to be worth it like even if I
close two deals a year from this the
amount of money that pay in order to
generate the leads is still pretty
minimal in compared to the amount of
money that I make from the actual
clients and not to mention let's say I
let's say worst case scenario I break
even on it well cool now I've broken
even on the costs of generating another
asset which has like a significant email
subscriber base and and all of these
email subscribers it's got a high open
rate as well so the worst case scenario
is I basically get this online asset for
free now don't get me wrong I want to
close deals um it's happening this is
just something that I've done a bunch of
times and actually I have another
example of
it so here's another example this email
was sent out four years ago this was in
the beginning stages of of when I bought
copy blogger and I didn't have any
sponsors for the newsletter and so I did
the same exact thing every time I would
send a newsletter I would pitch my own
services so in the case of copy blogger
we would pitch our SEO agency that's
aligned with copy blogger which is
digital Commerce partners um and so I've
every time I start a newsletter I always
start with this particular um strategy I
don't want to waste time trying to get
sponsors I don't want to waste time like
trying to sell products or anything like
that I can generate Revenue the fastest
by using my newsletter by sponsoring my
own newsletter and promoting my own
services on my newsletter the second
stage is going to be events I want to
use this newsletter to create events and
sell events and I'll give you some
examples of what I'm looking at so I
already mentioned bhs.com well this
entire Media company is really an events
company um they do six seven they do a
lot of events every year I'm not exactly
sure how many um so the next event that
they have is in Chicago it's the autism
and addiction treatment form event um
they sell out these events every single
time it's a really important industry
that they work in and and there's a lot
of like excitement around the new
treatment modalities that are happening
in this particular modality and um yeah
they they do events around autism they
do events around addiction treatment
they do events around um like the
different funding mechanisms that are
happening like there's a lot of private
Equity coming in and so these events are
crucial but not only do they make a ton
of money by selling tickets to the
events they make a ton of money by
selling sponsorships in the events
themselves and this was really the thing
that that blew my mind when I learned
about it I just recently sponsored an
event I bought the lowest tier
sponsorship it was
$5,000 that was the lowest tier
sponsorship and there's like five or 600
attendees to this event um my guess is
they probably do like $4 to 500,000 in
Revenue every single time they have an
event and they only have well not only
it's a lot but they have about 500
attendees per every event in addition I
want to do online events so this is
another company that's kind of come up
stateof addiction treatment.com and
these guys are doing online events um I
I think this is really reasonable and
great and there's no reason why I can't
do this same thing these events are run
by a company called Dreamscape uh
Dreamscape is a great company however I
just I know that my ability to create
media and to build an email list is like
significantly beyond what Dreamscape can
do and so I'm excited about this I'm
going to wait it's going to take me some
time to to get there there but there's
no doubt I'm going to take the same
exact model that BH business is using
and the same exact model that Dreamscape
is using with state of addiction
treatment and I'm going to start hosting
online events and then hopefully maybe
one day I'll be able to do in-person
events and so that's something I'm
really excited about as well okay the
third way I plan on monetizing this
newsletter is of course through
sponsorships so I don't have an outbound
sales team for sponsorships as of right
now I'm just collecting leads through
this one link on the ACT website I've
sold one sponsorship so far um this in
order to make this really worth it I
have to have a lot of subscribers so
it's not until I get to 15,000 20,000
subscribers that I'm going to start
taking these sponsorships seriously but
the reason why I like it is because the
average CPM in this industry is so much
higher than typical so for for a copy
blogger you know in in this in this
email list I I have well I pruned it a
lot but I I have about 30,000
subscribers and I can make like 10 to 12
Grand a month from that well I can make
probably 20 grand a month once I build
this email list to like 20,000
subscribers just because the the
industry itself has a lot more like high
dollar high value attention attached to
it so I'm not there yet and this is
definitely in the future but I I do plan
on creating an outbound sales team or
are probably working with the convert
kit sponsorship Network as well um and
giving them a list of leads so they can
pitch and I can I can build sponsorships
through the newsletter as well fourth
way I plan on monetizing this newsletter
is through a course so believe it or not
I've created an entire online course on
digital marketing for the addiction
treatment and the behavioral healthcare
industry um I've never promoted this
course I've hardly even told people
about it as of right now I actually give
the course away for free as part of like
an email bait um in stazzi so if if you
go to the actual stazzi website and you
click on the sidebar right so if you
were to sign up for this email list you
get redirected to to this course so
right now I just have it as some email
bait and then when people get here um I
have the CTA for them to learn more and
I collect leads with it I I have closed
a deal through this so there are times
when I think maybe the best thing to do
is to just to leave this for free
however with the rate at which the
census is growing you know if I have 50
to 60 people signing up a day and I
create a really good autoresponder to
sell this course which I know this
course will sell I mean this is really
really valuable information this is 10
years of my life that I put together in
this course it's it's no joke this thing
is really serious if I sell this thing
for 500 bucks a pop I plan on selling it
for like a th000 bucks a pop you know if
I sell one of these a day well that's
great that's a ton of revenue for not a
lot of work I fully intend on turning
this course into a product again I'm
just not there yet my my biggest
priority as of right now is just to
continue building the list and continue
promoting my own Services sponsoring my
own newsletter as I like to call it
however there's no doubt that this
course is going to be a potential
Revenue stream for the newsletter and
the fifth and most important way I'm
going to monetize this newsletter is by
leveraging the ention to build
relationships now this is so freaking
important and so many people don't
appreciate how valuable this is but this
is what I just told you is actually the
entire business model behind my tims.com
website so every single Tuesday I write
an article and I publish the article on
my newsletter and I I do sell
sponsorships sometimes but really I
don't what I do is I give sponsorships
away
for free so so this is the article in
the actual email that I send out is
where you see the sponsorships but I've
I've given away a ton of sponsorships
for free and in exchange I either like
trade the sponsorships for equity and
business or I use it as a way to I don't
want to say do favors because it's not
like there's ever like a quid pro Crow
or however you say that attached to it
but but yeah I mean I help people out I
use it as a way to help other people
promote their products promote their
ideas promote their services and by
being the first one to do favors and the
first one to help people out it's it's
generated so much value in my life I've
got equity in companies um I'm not going
to really go through it because I don't
think that would be fair but there's a
lot of the companies in my portfolio
that you're looking at now that I was
able to gain equity in or just
completely absorb by giving away
promotions and and giving away attention
in my newsletter and so with the census
what we're going to do is we're we use
this to build businesso business
relationships so in the addiction
treatment industry right like I am in
the lead generation side I do digital
marketing but there's a whole ecosystem
around here there's SAS companies in the
addiction treatment industry there's
billing companies There's real estate
people there's private Equity firms um
there's medical equipment firms and
these relationship are really really
valuable because if you can build B2B
relationships those you can create a
network of other businesses that are
adjacent to that refer you business and
a lot of the way I've able been able to
generate so many clients for stdy is by
building great relationships with other
adjacent businesses who refer clients to
me but when you have a newsletter when
you have like an olive branch to extend
to these other businesses wow it is it
is a real game changer and so this is a
philosophy that has probably generated
the most Revenue in all of my companies
in my whole life um it's also not
something that is easily
quantifiable I can't necessarily say
I've generated this much like I don't
have a stripe account that can tell me
exactly how many sales I've made by
doing right by people and by doing
favors for people and just using the
industry um the awareness that I've I've
created
but even if you don't make a dime from
your newsletter which by the way I don't
right like I I do sell some sponsorships
here and there on my newsletter but for
the most part this is all completely
free I do all of this work on timid.com
I don't get paid anything for it it's
all just a way for me to make
relationships even if I don't make a
dime with the newsletter this newsletter
itself is still going to be the most
valuable asset that the company has I
highly recommend you look at newsletters
with a broader scope than just how can I
sell sponsorships once you have the
email list you have infinite ways maybe
not infinite but you have like a
multitude of ways that you can generate
revenue and most of the time it's
indirect Revenue but there's no question
once you have it you you you have all of
the Power you have all of the resources
at your disposal and you can do anything
you want with
it thank you so much for watching this
week's video I hope that my behind the
scenes insights on growing the census
has given you some inspiration for your
own newsletter I hope that you take this
information and that you apply it I've
never started a newsletter and instantly
generated revenue from it it's always
been something that I worked on for
months and years and years until
eventually it turned into something that
just had so much so much power and so
much influence that I could leverage it
to create opportunities for myself in
many different ways if you have any
questions please leave it in the
comments um smash that subscribe button
I appreciate everybody and thank you so
much I will talk to you next week peace
out
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