Email lists might feel outdated, but they’re still one of your most powerful online selling tools in 2024. How can you turn your email list into a more valuable source of income?
Here are 7 ways you can sell through your email list that actually work.
Affiliate Marketing
If you’ve got an email list of people interested in a certain topic, you may be able to make money through affiliate marketing by including affiliate links directly in your emails.
Affiliate marketing links can be added directly to emails, making it so your readers don’t even need to open your website to take advantage of a deal. The fewer clicks they have to make, the more likely they are to go through with the CTA.
The biggest rule with affiliate marketing through email is to make sure you’re not sending out spammy emails. Don’t shove a bunch of links and products into an email without context and valuable content to show why the products are a good deal for your readers.
When you demonstrate the value of what you’re linking to, you’re more likely to attract people to check it out for themselves.
Sponsored Content
With an engaged enough email list, you may be able to attract sponsors who are interested in reaching out to that list as well.
Sponsored content doesn’t mean handing over the keys to your email list. Instead, a sponsor will pay you to include their message in your own email. You still get control over the headline and the email content.
For sponsored content to work, you need to be able to show the value of your email list. Sponsors are more interested in the engagement and buying power of your list rather than just the size. You should be prepared to show your email open rate and how people respond to your CTAs. The more engaged your list is, the more appealing it will be to sponsors trying to reach the same audience.
Introduce Courses

Emails can act like miniature blog posts, introducing your readers to a different product you intend to sell them. Use your emails as a way to introduce people to your courses and get them hooked on the value you’re offering in a free, low-risk way.
You can do this in 2 ways.
First, you can create a series of emails on a topic that you have a course. Obviously, you don’t give away all the information in the course for free, but you can provide a great introduction to the topic and draw people in with a few juicy nuggets. Once you’ve provided some value to people for free and made them interested in what you have to say, they’re more likely to pay for your course to learn more.
The other way to do it is to continue your normal emails and mix in some recommendations for courses to learn more about a specific topic. Instead of introducing a topic in a string of emails, you can simply include a blurb about a course related to what you happen to already be talking about in the email.
Sell Digital Products
Courses aren’t the only digital products you can sell through an email list. A lot of digital products do well in this context, especially since they’re easy to purchase immediately after reading through an email. Your audience can quickly interact with your CTA and get the value you’ve promised them right away.
What digital products can you sell to your email list?
Sell products that are directly related to what you already send to your email list. Don’t recommend or sell any unrelated products, or you could lose the trust of your readers!
Besides courses, some of the most popular digital products to sell through email are:
- Ebooks
- PLR products
- Audio or music
- Digital art
- Video games
- Apps or other software products
- POD products
How you sell products through your emails is up to you. Just be sure you continue providing the same value people subscribed for, only adding products as an additional source of value, not a replacement.
Set Up a Tripwire

As malicious as it sounds, a tripwire is nothing to be wary of. Tripwire is a marketing term for an immediate offer that draws in new customers to buy something from you quickly. What you’re doing is sending an immediate offer to new sign-ups, usually costing somewhere between $7-$12.
This number is important. It’s low enough that most people can afford it immediately without thinking too deeply about it, but it’s also not so low that it feels unbelievable.
Tripwires are important because they turn new email list subscribers into customers immediately. Once someone has become a customer and purchased something from you at least once, they’re more likely to buy again in the future. This rings true in every industry, and it works with your email list as well, no matter what niche you’re working in.
Set up a tripwire email offer for new sign-ups to your list. While this won’t help you sell to your existing list, it will set up your email list to be more valuable in the future as you get new sign-ups.
Email-Exclusive Deals
What can you do to make people more excited about buying from you? Offer them an exclusive deal they can’t get anywhere else!
Deals sent out only to your email list will make those email list subscribers feel like they’re getting an offer they can’t refuse. Email-exclusive deals also ensure you’re sending out your best promotions directly to the people who are most likely to purchase from you. After all, they’ve bought from you before and they understand your value.
The good thing about email-exclusive deals is that they can be highly targeted. You already have an idea about who’s on your list, how engaged they are, and how they respond to different CTAs from your previous emails. You can make a highly targeted deal that appeals to a large portion of your email list.
Webinar Invites
Just like courses, webinars are a great product to sell through your emails. Since your email list has already shown a higher level of interest in what you’re offering by subscribing, they’re the perfect audience to invite to your webinars.
Even if your list is on the small side, it’s still a great place to start for a webinar. Send your first registration announcements to your email list. You can still advertise the webinar through other sources, such as a landing page on your website or your social media, but you should prioritize your email list.
This is especially true when your webinar is a paid product, or if you’re using it as an infomercial for something else you’re selling. The best place to start your advertising is your email list of dedicated subscribers.
What will you do to make your email list more valuable in 2024? How do you plan to turn a great list into a source of income?