Making money from email forwards

It seems like a virus, those PowerPoint files that have “nice” messages and “thoughtful” wishes, yes you know them, you have received at least one of them as a forward from someone else. I still can’t understand how people spend lots of time creating those files just to send them to friends and coworkers.

However there’s a way to have some profits by sending and forwarding such emails.

What you’ll need…

1. A catchy domain or subdomain (you can get a subdomain for free with several free hosting providers, however your own domain would work better).

2. A hosting account (paid or free, a paid one would work better than a free one).

3. Affiliate accounts with at least 10 providers.

Now let’s get to work…

Step 1.

Create some basic HTML (you can use some software to assist you, like Dreamweaver or even Word) describing the products of each provider, don’t copy-paste from their websites, instead try to provide your own point of view about each product and why you would recommend it. Insert the links to the providers’ websites including your affiliate code at the end of each description. Try to keep it simple, don’t create a professional looking website as you will be using this website as your “personal recommendations” website.

Step 2.

Upload your HTML to your hosting account. Some free hosting providers won’t allow you to upload files directly, but will give you some kind of built in HTML editor (also called wysiwyg editor) where you can copy-paste your code.

Step 3.

Set up a signature in your e-mail address, most free email providers (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) will allow you to do so. In your signature include a small text at the end with a line similar to: “My list of recommended providers” or something that will lead your friends and coworkers to visit your website.

Step 4.

Whenever you receive an email that you think is nice or will provide something good to your contacts, forward it. Your contacts will receive a nice email plus will see your link. But it doesn’t stop there, there’s a good chance they will also forward the email to their contacts and most people are just too lazy to remove the quoted text, so their contacts will also see your link and it keeps going and going. Sooner or later, some of the people getting the email will access your website and purchase/sign up with one of your providers, which will give you some profits.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

This article is intended to help you monetize your regular forwards, not to promote mass emailing. Please keep in mind that even though email is free to you, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an associated cost with each email that travels through the Internet, so please keep your emails as ethical as possible.