Although the main purpose of a newsletter is to give your subscribers useful content, it is also a way to subtly promote your own online business. When your subscriber list reaches a good few thousand subscribers it can then be to your advantage to feature products from other people's businesses in your email newsletter and you can earn an extra income from doing this.
Here are a few methods that you can use to monetize your email list:
1. One way to feature other peoples products in your newsletter is by joining their affiliate programs and then reviewing them of offering them in your letter. Try the products yourself and then write a review on them listing both the good and the bad points so that it is well balanced, and don't try to sell products that you do not like yourself.
2. You could sell a part of the space on your newsletter for either banner or classified ads, just keep in mind that banner ads will only work on an html formatted newsletter.
3. If you have any old stock that you would like to clear out, start off by offering it to your own subscribers first. Make an exciting offer and sell the goods at fire sale prices.
4. Another idea is to find someone with a similar quality newsletter to yours and who also has a reasonable amount of subscribers on their email list and set up an article exchange, send out one of their articles to your list in exchange for them returning the compliment and sending out one of your articles to their list. Do this with somebody who is also in the internet based home business niche.
5. Send out news alerts to your email subscribers especially about new product releases at special prices ahead of releasing them so that they can benefit from being on your list. This is a good way to make them feel special, and will also encourage them to remain on your list.
6. By setting up special "thank you" pages in your auto-responder for your newsletter customers, which will be sent out to them whenever they purchase a product from you, you can offer them an extra special discount offer on the backend.
7. If you offer a range of online business products, look at ways to bundle them up into packages that you can offer at a discount price to your list or a bonus of some sort that will add value to their purchase.
8. Become an affiliate of a company such as Amazon.Join an affiliate company such as Amazon and write reviews on books that are being sold connected to your niche, recommend these to your opt-in subscribers. When they buy you earn a commission.
These are just some of the possibilities of maximizing your opt-in list of subscribers and your legitimate online opportunities business will grow, but remember that at the other end of this list of subscribers are real people, so always treat them with respect and build a relationship with them so that they finish up as friends as well as customers.
Michelle Jayes writes articles with tips and advice to help you succeed in your legitimate home based business. For more ideas and opportunities visit her website http://www.online-income-Business.com