How to Micro-Profit with a Newsletter and Blog

Would you like to micro-profit from your newsletter and blog?

Micro-profiting means earning smaller amounts of money or profit for your brand or business that typically is significantly lower than the profit margin you plan for.

Micro-profiting isn’t for everyone. But if you are just starting out, a little bit of money can go a long way in helping you continue to build your business or brand.

In this guide, I will show you how to use your newsletter and blog to micro-profit using the simple and free service, Buy Me a Coffee! Full Disclaimer: I’ll earn affiliate earnings if you sign up with my link.

Micro-Profit with Buy Me a Coffee

The Buy Me a Coffee service lets you post a link where viewers can give you a monetary tip.

The tips range from $5, $15, and $25, but viewers can also enter a custom amount if they wish to. You have two payout options. You can connect your bank account to the service, and every time you get up to $20, you get paid, or you can connect your Stripe account and get paid immediately without a minimum payout requirement.

Buy Me a Coffee is free for you to use. The service takes 5% of the transaction fee, and you keep 95%. That’s a real deal if you ask me!

You get a link to share. It’s a standard link that is SEO-friendly. You choose the username to add to the link during the registration process. I suggest using your brand or company name.

Simply share the link to start encouraging people to “buy you a coffee” so that you can begin to micro-profit from it.

Keep reading as we understand where you should put these links in your newsletter, blogs, and other content mediums. I’ll also touch base on copywriting so that you can arrange the text and the link in a way to encourage more payments to be made.

Use Buy Me a Coffee with Your Newsletter

You can use this service with your newsletter to earn money with each issue you send.

The trick is to use good copy and the best placement for the link.

As for the copy, think about what you make you want to “buy someone a coffee” or give someone a tip for their content. What words would they need to use? I’ll cover copywriting more extensively later in the article, but I at least want to summarize it here. You need to use words that entice a reader to want to give you a donation. The standard “Please donate here” typically isn’t enough.

For the placement of the link, I would recommend you do it after some awesome content. So, in a section of your newsletter that shows an article, media, or some really good content that will excite the reader – this is the area you should post your link around. After they’ve become happy or excited with your content, they’ll see a link and some text asking for a tip. In many cases, they’ll be enticed to give you money at this point in their psyche.

So, you’re focusing on two different psychological aspects of getting this micro-profit strategy to work.

You’re focusing on the copy, which typically contains language encouraging someone to act using psychology.

Then you’re placing the link in an area that will most likely be seen when the reader’s emotions are at their peak.

Sales and copywriting have always been dependent on psychology. It’s a great tool. You should use it to earn money with your newsletter.

Finally, concerning your newsletter, you should include your Buy Me a Coffee link in every newsletter issue you send. It’s basically asking for a tip for every piece of content you’re giving away. There isn’t anything wrong with that, either.

Micro-Profit with Your Blog Posts

You can also use the Buy Me a Coffee link to micro-profit on your blog content.

There are a few ways to implement your link to ask for a tip on your articles.

I would focus on three particular methods: Content Break, CTA, and About Author.

The Content Break method is where you stop your article’s content to inform the reader that you welcome them to donate to you through your link. You can put it in the middle of a paragraph or at the end before starting a new one. I wouldn’t put it at the beginning, though. I would let the reader invest a little bit into your content and then put it out there.

The CTA is simply a Call-to-Action block or section between content that engages the reader to act. In this case, the action will be to buy you a coffee and leave you a tip. Most CTAs use colors and graphics that catch the reader’s attention. Keep it minimal and not annoying but inviting by using good copy.

The About Author method is putting the link before or within the About the Author section of the article. These sections are typically found at the bottom of the article after the content. This method is likely the least favored because many people don’t read that section after consuming the content. One way to encourage more attention is to use a CTA block before the About Author section.

Ensure you’re not using all three of these methods in every article you write. Switch them up by using one method at a time in each new article you publish.

At the end of the day, the real trick will be the copy you use to encourage viewers to send you money.

Using Buy Me a Coffee on Other Mediums

Using the Buy Me a Coffee link on your newsletter and blog posts is probably the best way to do it. However, some other mediums would be appropriate to use, too.

I use it on social media and YouTube, for example.

On social media, I might use it on my “Connect with me” page, a custom page on my website that mimics the features of Link Tree. Link Tree is a nice service, but I can do everything they offer with my website, so I chose to use it instead. I made a simple mobile-first page with a list of social media pages, a CTA to join my newsletter, and some other neat links. That page would be a good place to put the link to give me a tip. I add that as the website for any social media pages I run.

You could also share the link occasionally, but I wouldn’t make it a habit. Sharing the link on social every day or multiple times a day seems like you’re begging for money. But occasionally, I think sharing it with a few words of copy added to it is fine.

My main outdoor recreation brand is on YouTube. That’s where I started. I have a lot of subscribers and people who watch and don’t subscribe. I’ve made it obvious to my audience that the video description on YouTube includes information about the hike and maps and guides for the area. The rate at which video viewers read my description is fairly high. After the two to three-sentence description of the video, I throw in my link for Buy Me a Coffee with a line of copy encouraging viewers to leave me a tip.

If you have other mediums you use, you could add the link to them. As I said, it will be about your copy to encourage donations.

Micro-profit is a great way to earn money, but you must ensure you don’t overdo it and look like you’re begging for money. Always be professional about it.

Micro-Profit Copywriting Strategies

Now for the “meat” of good micro-profit strategies…the copy!

Copy is short for copywriting. Copywriting can be quickly defined as content created in a way that taps into human emotion to encourage actions to be taken by the viewer of the content.

It’s often used in sales. It’s been used in sales forever. You can find it in old newspapers, billboards, the internet, and radio and TV commercials. Copywriting isn’t always just text; in our lines of business, it mainly consists of text.

There are many different kinds of formulas for copywriting techniques. My favorites are PAS and AIDA.

PAS stands for Problem, Agitate, and Solve. You first present a problem that your target audience likely has in association with the action you want them to take. This engages emotion and sometimes panics or even angers the viewer. Then you agitate it by continuing to press on their emotions. When people are emotional about something, they tend to act to improve it. That’s when you provide the solution, which is an action you want them to perform. That’s usually buying something, subscribing, or, in this case, leaving you a tip.

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. You get the viewer’s attention, create interest, instill a desire to do something about what they’re interested in, and then you finish with the Call-to-Action. AIDA is a lot like PAS, but it doesn’t focus so much on the agitation level of someone’s emotions.

Copywriting is how you make sales, get tips, gain subscribers, or do anything you wish your business or brand to achieve from a consumer or stakeholder.

It’s a good thing to learn and get good at.

And that sum’s up my quick guide on how to micro-profit using the Buy Me a Coffee service on your newsletter, blog, and other digital mediums. I hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, be sure to follow me on Twitter for more daily tips.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers that follow this blog. Shawn also offers a variety of services for extra help in the area of content creation, blogging, forums, and digital marketing. Learn more about Shawn Gossman by clicking here.