How to Make Money with Content Marketing

They found their most viral stories since 2007 were so popular because of cluster sharing. This means that the biggest hits were all shared lots of time among small clusters of friends instead of a few people broadcasting it to a large network.o figure this out.

Where is the best place to take advantage of cluster sharing? Studies confirm that email is still the most widely used medium for sharing information between small groups.

So how do you make more money with it?

1. Treat Your Emails Like Landing Pages

Each email should have a clear theme with a strong call to action.

• Do you want to sell more of something?
• Get more likes on your Facebook or Twitter?
• Advertise a product?
• Get a donation?

Whatever it is, you need to walk your users hand-in-hand to the finish line. Make it extremely obvious what you want your audience to do. Here is an example:

This streamlines the process and produces higher conversion rates.

2. Sell Your Own Services & Products

If you have a product or service that can be purchased online, email is the best way to advertise because there are no distractions and you have total control over the conversation. If you’re a blogger with a big subscriber list, create a membership plan where those who pay get ‘the good stuff’ and your public content is just for lead generation and getting the word out.

If your goal is more about gaining exposure than making money, consider a social payment option. This gives you the ability to ‘sell’ a product or service in exchange for a user sending out a tweet or Facebook update that promotes your brand which is great for getting the word out.

3. Sell Other People’s Stuff

If you have an reliable audience, you should be using ads in your emails. There are a few options here but one of the most interesting is LaunchBit, which directly connects advertisers to a network of email newsletter publishers.

Another route is affiliate sales. A couple of the more popular options are ClickBank and Commission Junction which both allow you to receive a commission for selling products for their vendors.

Final Thought

With any content campaign, the key is delivering value to your readers. Routinely providing useful and engaging material is the best way to keep your readers happy and get them to share your stuff with friends.

Email is one of the most under-utilized selling channels out there for content marketers.

It’s easy and if done correctly, a great way to increase your bottom line.

Guest Author: Patrick Carver is the Director of Marketing  for FlashIssue. Their tool makes it easy for marketers to get more out of their content campaigns, try it for FREE. Twitter @FlashIssue

More Reading

• 5 Lessons from Coca Cola’s New Content Marketing Strategy
• 10 Reasons Why “Liquid” Content Should be Included in Your Social Media Marketing
• What are 10 Addictive Types of Content?
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google+, Facebook or Twitter
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by o_corgan