DEEP DIVE
If you have an email list of 1,000+ subscribers and something to sell (your offer or a proven affiliate offer), this is the fastest way to drive more sales.
Before I break it down:
This is inspired by Matt Paulson and the strategy he calls the “beehiiv money button”. I've taken the strategy and expanded on it to make it accessible.
This is not sponsored by beehiiv. I recommend beehiiv, but you don't have to use their platform to make this strategy work for you.
Here’s how it works
There are people on your list who are ready to buy right now.
You just have to target them correctly and ask.
Unfortunately, most people do email marketing wrong.
They blast out emails to everyone. Or they never send marketing emails at all.
You NEED marketing emails to sell. BUT, every email you send to an unengaged subscriber makes it harder for your engaged ones to see you.
This strategy works because:
It shows your best stuff to your best subscribers WHEN they are most engaged
You get great deliverability because it only sends emails to highly engaged subscribers
If you already have marketing emails, it takes about 10 minutes to set up (if you don't have marketing emails, I'll show you how to write them)
And it’s automated!
That’s not hype.
This strategy was coined by Matt Paulson, founder of MarketBeat who has 6M+ email subscribers and did $50M in sales last year largely from his list. (BTW, Matt is speaking at New Media Summit 2027).
Here's how to make your money button in 4 steps
First, there are a few things you need in place.
A) A beehiiv account or ESP
Get 14 days FREE and 20% off your subscription here. Or use code MATT20 when you upgrade if you already have an account.
B) 1,000+ email subscribers
That's the minimum. This works just as well with millions of subscribers.
At <1,000 subscribers, it's better just to send marketing emails to your entire list. So if you have a smaller list, only some parts of this will apply to you.
C) You send newsletters or value emails
You send some type of editorial newsletter or value-focused email on a weekly basis or more often. If you exclusively send marketing emails, this won't work as well.
Share value first.
D) You need something to sell
That could be…
Your product / service
Affiliate marketing — another business's product or service
That’s it.
Here's how to set up your money button…
Step 1: Make a segment of your most active subscribers
For me, this segment is about 2,000 people out of my 50,000 active subscribers.
These are people who are most engaged with my emails in the past 2 weeks.
This segment is dynamic. That means that every time a new subscriber meets this criteria, they will be added to the segment.
If you want to be more aggressive with your email marketing, and send to more people, broaden the segment so anyone who has clicked within the past year is added. Like this:
For me, this segment is about 10,000 out of 50,000 total subscribers.
This segment is bigger, but less engaged.
Yet, they're highly engaged within the past 7 days.
Step 2: Make an automation with your best 3-5 (or more) marketing emails
The automation should be a sequence of emails like this:
Send Email #1
Wait 1 day
Send Email #2
Wait 1 day
Send Email #3
Wait 2 days
Send Email #4
Wait 2 days
Send Email #5
What are these emails about?
They’re marketing emails that sell:
Your product / service
Your best affiliate offer(s) — the more proven offers you have the better
You don't need to write emails from scratch!
Look at the marketing emails you sent 60+ days ago
Find the emails that drove the most sales and had the highest CTR
Reuse those emails in this sequence
If you're promoting affiliate offers…
Ask the affiliate manager! Ask for email examples and swipe files that have converted for other marketers
And the best working internal emails from that brand
If you've got nothing… You've never sent a marketing email before, then start now. It's well worth investing your time into this.
I’ll share email examples you can swipe below!
Step 3: Add your “money button” segment to this automation
Go back to your segment and open it.
Click the "Quick Export" button
Choose "add to automations"
This will put your most active users in the email marketing automation you just created.
Then, publish your segment! Your best subscribers will start receiving the emails in this automation right away.
Step 4: Watch the money roll in
Your best users will receive your best money making emails.
Then as more people meet your "best subscriber" criteria, they'll get the emails too.
Money button email examples (to swipe)
If you're not sure what emails to send, I got you covered.
Here are 10+ emails you should swipe that work great for a money button sequence.
These emails work best for:
Selling a service
Selling a product (digital or educational)
Selling your time (1on1 coaching or consulting)
Selling a subscription or membership
That’s it!
Apply this and you’ll have an automated system to get more sales by targeting your best subscribers with your best marketing emails.
Here are more resources that will help you:
Need your first 1,000+ subscribers? Read my best newsletter growth guides here.
Need an offer to promote? This is the best digital product to start with.
Want the best software for newsletters, email marketing, automation, your website, landing pages, and more? Try beehiiv for free and get 20% off.