If there’s one thing Mequoda is strict about, it’s aligning your free content with paid products — making sure that for every free topic you write about, there’s a paid product on the same topic. Or vice versa. On the web, we refer to this as Consistent Channel Conversion architecture, or 3C Conversion Architecture.
In email, the medium changes, but the same rules apply. If you’re sending out a free email newsletter about how to pick the best apples, you better have a book about apple pie recipes readers can buy, and there ought to be a friendly ad for it somewhere in your email.
Think about this right now: When you send out an email newsletter, what is your goal?
Of course you want to delight and satisfy your readers, but you don’t pay a few cents per email delivered with the goal of simply enlighting subscribers with your vast knowledge. Every deployed email newsletter or promotion includes some kind of call to action; Even if your newsletter is editorial in nature.
As mentioned earlier, at Mequoda we merge the goal of satisfying your subscribers with great content, and the goal of profitability by creating alignment. Every newsletter sent includes a product that aligns with the content.
Want to see this in action?
How Mequoda Members Execute Email Calls to Action
In this example, the Remonsy ETF Monitor, a daily newsletter you can subscribe to here, offers a free article to susbcribers, showing them how to find the best high dividend ETF funds. The content is free in the newsletter and on the blog. However, they have the call to action for their related premium product, their ETF Dividend Income Report, marked as “for the serious dividend ETF investor,” three times within the free newsletter, packed with all that free advice on the same topic.
Email Call to Action Examples from Nutrition Action
Now let’s look at Nutrition Action’s free e-newsletter, which has three main calls to action, although you’ll notice they have calls to action for a paid product and a free product.
Why would a publisher promote a free product in their email newsletter? Well, even though the free downloads in a Mequoda System are meant to build email circulation, we encourage promoting them to your list not only because to help engagement and retention but because emails are often forwarded and shared. Nutrition Action uses a text ad below their free article snippet to promote the free report.
On the right hand side of Nutrition Action’s e-newsletter, you’ll notice this space is dedicated to a related paid product. Since the article is about sausage food safety tips, the premium product, From Supermarket to Leftovers is an entire guide to food safety. You’ll notice the free product was also about food safety – specifically in the kitchen.
There’s a graduation of products here. The free article about sausage safety, the free report about kitchen food safety, and then the premium product about food safety in every part of your life.
Email Call to Action Examples from Black Belt
Black Belt also has an email newsletter that’s highly disciplined. In their daily email newsletter, they always use the right-hand side of the email to promote related products from their huge inventory of martial arts media products. In this example, a self-defense article about Kelly McCann promotes a series of books and DVDs from Kelly McCann and a book on self-defense techniques. Like Nutrition Action, they also promote a free related product.
Because Black Belt has a huge product inventory and uses up a lot of ad real estate in the email, they also include a large list of free downloads that reminds subscribers, every day, that they’re part of a VIP club that gets access to tons of free reports. Not an email goes by that doesn’t give away several reports for free.
Your turn. How are you aligning free email content with your paid product inventory?
