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8 Ways To Grow and Monetize Your Newsletter With Instagram
Strategies and Examples From Successful Creators and Influencers
Jacob Bear
September 20th, 2024
You’re about to learn 8 proven strategies to grow your newsletter.
But before we begin, let’s look at the math.
The math will show you why having a newsletter is indispensable.
If you have 100,000 Instagram followers and, on average, you generate a dollar in revenue per follower, you can expect to make $100,000 a year.
That’s probably enough to pay your bills, but you can do even better.
Success leaves clues, so let’s look at the overall strategy that almost every high-earning influencer uses.
Table of Contents
How Top Instagram Influencers Monetize Their Followers
The most successful influencers take things to another level by seizing ownership of their list. Here are a few examples.
Zach Pogrob, who has 1.4 million followers on Instagram, has a LinkTree in his profile that leads directly to his newsletter, Ten Bullets.
P. J. Milani of Milani Creative repeatedly shows his 139,000 Instagram followers a link to his Visual I.D.E.A.s newsletter.
And let’s consider film star, bodybuilding champion, serial entrepreneur, and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If you look at Schwarzenegger’s profile, with more than 26 million Instagram followers, the first link is a free ebook in exchange for your email. Requesting the book automatically subscribes you to his newsletter, Arnold’s Pump Club.
Do you see a pattern here?
The secret is to leverage Instagram by enticing followers to sign up for a newsletter and receive additional content from you. This concentrates your most loyal following and reduces your dependence on an ever-changing algorithm.
The Sign of a Loyal Follower
Rather than waiting around for your next reel to show up in their feed, your most loyal followers want to become subscribers.
So when a follower converts to a subscriber, it means two things:
They have self-selected as being interested in receiving more content from you.
They have given you a direct route to deliver this content.
These two facts make a newsletter one of the best ways to monetize your audience.
How To Build Multiple Streams of Income From Your Subscribers
Followers who actively request more content from you have a greater chance of buying your products and supporting you in other ways. This makes newsletters a stronger base than Instagram for any revenue stream.
And as you can see in the chart below, newsletters provide additional revenue streams that you can’t build from Instagram alone.
Once you have a newsletter with a substantial list of subscribers, you can place ads in your newsletter to quickly generate revenue.
Boosts are a more tightly-focused form of advertising, where you get paid for recommending other newsletters that complement yours.
A premium subscription model takes more effort because you have to create additional content that your readers (who are already getting your stuff for free) are willing to pay for, but it’s well worth it. Just 2,000 subscribers paying $5/month could replace a corporate salary and enable you to pursue your dreams full-time.
For many newsletter operators, acquisition is the holy grail of newsletter monetization. In some cases, it can happen in less than a year.
Your success and comfort level with different income strategies will determine the value of your email subscribers, and it can vary widely.
But given all the options to monetize, very few newsletter creators are surprised by Statista’s findings that email marketing generates an average of $38 for every dollar spent, or an ROI of 3,800%. Use our Creator Calculator to find out how much revenue a newsletter could generate for you.
And now that you’ve seen the numbers, let's look at how you can leverage Instagram to gain more subscribers.
Why Trust Us? All beehiiv writers are carefully vetted for their knowledge and experience. Jacob Bear has been writing email campaigns for nearly a decade, serving clients in e-commerce, IT, and real estate. He has twice been named a “Top Copywriting Voice” by LinkedIn. |
Think of Instagram as a vast ocean where you cast your net and catch as many fish as you can.
A Word About Paid Ads
After some deliberation, we decided not to include paid Meta ads as one of the growth strategies.
Many newsletter operators, such as Martin Crowley of AI Tool Report, have successfully grown their following with paid ads. However, ads work best when you know your audience and you have some of the strategies below in place already.
That said, here are 8 strategies to grow newsletter subscribers with Instagram.
This tactic is older than the internet. Offer something valuable in exchange for contact information, and people who want the premium will voluntarily join your list.
What are some of the incentives you could offer?
An exclusive Zoom call or webinar
A bonus video or other content that’s not publicly available
A lead magnet (more on this under Strategy #2)
A mini-course (this could be a series of emails or access to a web page with a video)
Templates
Spreadsheets
Data or other information you’ve compiled yourself
A list of useful tools/websites/resources
It’s easy to provide a link in your Instagram profile or occasionally drop an Instagram story with a link. If you want to grow more quickly, promote your offer with paid ads.
If you want to really power-up your list, reward readers who do more than just subscribe, using giveaways and a referral program.
Build a system to track users who share your newsletter with their friends, family, and colleagues. When a user brings in a certain number of subscribers in this way, give them a more substantial reward.
Example:
Despite its name, Cheapskate London offers weekly giveaways to readers who provide the most referrals. These incentives have included concert tickets, limited-edition artist prints, and even bottles of gin.
A lead magnet is a special type of incentive that solves a specific problem of one of your followers.
The idea is that once you’ve provided a solution, the reader will gladly read more of your content and eventually pay you for additional solutions.
Lead magnets often solve a problem that might be an objection to buying your product. For example, if you run a fitness-related business, your lead magnet might be a guide to finding time for exercise with a busy schedule.
Example:
Brendon Burchard targets people who are overwhelmed and feel that they don’t have enough time (problem). He offers a free PDF on how to get 3x as much done each week (solution). When you download the PDF, you’re added to his email list.
Brendon is a “high performance coach.” Readers who download his PDF have time management issues, making them potential clients for Brendon’s other products.
Example:
Laura Belgray offers a free guide to writing better subject lines. When you request the guide, you’re added to her email list.
Anyone interested in writing better subject lines is probably using email marketing. Once their emails get opened (because of the improved subject lines), they are going to want better email copy, making them potential clients for Belgray’s other products and programs.
Place your opt-in forms wherever followers see you – your profile, ads, your email signature, and your posts, when appropriate.
A customizable opt-in form will let you stay on-brand so that followers recognize you even if they see you on a new platform. A customizable form also allows you to add additional fields.
An email is the only information you really need to collect in your opt-in form; and if you ask for too much information, you may discourage followers from signing up.
However, once a reader enters their email and clicks the Subscribe button, you may consider directing them to a new page that asks for more information such as:
Are you a startup or an established company?
How much time/money do you spend on _____?
When do you plan on buying/selling your home? (or a question relevant to your business/industry)
Make sure that your opt-in form is simple and clear. Start using it even before you think you're ready.
Example:
Jennifer Chou used a “coming soon” CTA on her Instagram bio even before she started her newsletter, Vegan Tech Nomad. By the time she was ready to launch, she already had subscribers lined up.
If a follower is already logged into Instagram through their Gmail or other email account, a magic link can use this information to sign them up in a single click.
Magic links reduce friction because your subscriber doesn’t have to fill out a form.
You can leverage magic links on Instagram by including them in your posts and on your profile. When you post an Instagram story, you can include a link in the reel or image itself. This is one of the few times that Instagram lets you do this.
Magic links are especially useful in blogs and other content because they don’t force the reader to stop reading in order to subscribe.
Example:
Creator Spotlight recently posted a story behind the newsletter Level Up, which includes a Subscribe magic link. If you are already logged into Creator Spotlight, the link will not open an opt-in form. It will open a page that congratulates you on subscribing.
(Please note that this is not the same as using beehiiv Boosts for your email newsletter, a tactic we mentioned above and will discuss below.)
If you don’t have an advertising budget, you can buy more visibility for just a few dollars a week by boosting a post or a reel.
When viewing your own content, you will see a blue button in the bottom right that says “Boost post” or “Boost reel.”
Clicking this button will allow you to pay a small dollar amount to have your post appear more frequently. You’ll show up for people who aren’t following you but who follow content similar to yours.
Instagram frequently changes the way this Boost works, but typically you can choose the criteria to determine who will see your post.
Depending on your goals, you could boost your most popular and engaging posts in order to gain followers, or you could boost a post with a Call to Action (CTA), such as a link to your newsletter opt-in page.
Boosting is particularly effective when you’re targeting a specific niche.
Example:
Chris Jacobson of Vallejo Historic Homes makes frequent use of boosted posts, and it’s a textbook example of when they are the most effective:
A clearly defined audience (in this case, it’s a specific geographic location)
A tight niche (unique private homes that fit a classic architectural style)
Quality content (stunning photos featuring interesting houses and gardens)
You don’t have to be a real estate agent to use this tactic. Sports teams, fishing, golf, AI, crypto, and many other areas of interest could be the basis for a successful boost campaign.
Interviews, contests, or asking your followers provocative questions are all good ways to get users more involved.
Here are a few ideas for User Generated Content:
Ask followers to share a photo of the place where they do yoga, cook, or do some other activity related to your subject.
Hold a contest for the best picture of followers using your product and offer a good prize, so there’s more incentive to participate.
Put out a call for personal stories about a relevant event. (Example: “What’s the best hike you’ve ever taken?”)
Ask 10 random people an interesting question, post the videos, and invite your readers to ask friends and family the same question and post their results.
Post 5 pictures and ask your readers to choose one that represents their experience with your topic. (Example: “Which of these best describes your dog’s mood/your last date/your ad campaign/today’s workout?”
Tactics like this will create engaging content for you, and some users will subscribe just to see themselves.
Example:
Jason Levin frequently interviews random people on the street in order to get engaging content.
Come up with a series of posts that are meant to be interconnected or revolve around a recurring theme. This creates the possibility of inside jokes and the chance for followers to feel like they’re a part of your life or part of a community.
Here are a few ways to design a content series:
Demonstrate your product or service in a different setting, a different application, or for a different purpose each day for 2 weeks.
“I did XYZ for a month, and these were the results.”
Share a big, audacious goal and document your efforts to achieve it.
Take your followers step-by-step through an important process over the course of several posts.
Post a different story, joke, reel, or meme on the same topic each day.
Followers will look forward to seeing the next installment, and they may subscribe just to avoid missing one.
Example:
Airplane Facts With Max features an airplane mechanic who starts each post by showing a part of an airplane and explaining its function. However, he inevitably segues to a deep dive into Lord of the Rings or other works by Tolkien.
We’ve already shown you some of the beehiiv tools for monetization, but beehiiv really shines the most when it comes to growth.
Our recommendation network is available on every plan. When you find a non-competing newsletter that you think your readers will enjoy, you can recommend it.
This recommendation offers value to your readers; but more importantly, the operator of the other newsletter will be notified that you did it, and they can reciprocate with a single click.
You can also reward your readers for sharing your newsletter. Our referral program tracks the referrals your readers send out, and you can automate the delivery of bonus content or other incentives as your readers bring you new subscribers.
Finally, you can put your growth in high gear using boosts to pay an exact dollar amount for each new subscriber. You only pay when you get new subscribers, and you get to choose the price.
Our Launch plan is free and allows you to have up to 2,500 subscribers. With the right monetization strategies in place, that could be enough to enable you to quit your day job.
So what are you waiting for? Leverage your Instagram followers and start a beehiiv newsletter today.
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