How to Monetize Your Blog

09.06.2017 |

Episode #10 of the course How to create a profitable blog by Jessica Festa

 

Today, we’ll focus on two very worthwhile avenues for monetizing your blog: products/services that solve problems for readers, and advertising/sponsorships, where brands make money through placement in front of your audience.

 

Sponsorship

This doesn’t necessarily have to be placing banner ads on your homepage. For example, one campaign I did with Hostelworld involved me writing about staying at one of their hostels and sharing about it on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Notice the organic approach—as in, I’m not saying “Hostelworld is the best!”—and how every share is marked as sponsored?

To get found for sponsorships, you’ll want to create a media kit. This can be a snazzy PDF created in Canva or a landing page. For example, I made my media kit using InstaPage. What’s important is that it tells the potential partner what the blog is about, what makes it unique, who the audience is, what kind of traffic you get on the blog and social media, and why they should partner with you. I’ve found it helpful to also add examples of past campaigns and testimonials, as well as packages and rates.

If your blog is new and doesn’t have a following yet, wait until your numbers grow. Brands don’t typically partner with blogs that are less than a year old. Additionally, if you’ve never done a campaign, get some testimonials about your work ethic or character. Place this media kit in your blog’s menu.

It’s also helpful to list yourself on media networks, which act as directories for potential partners to search. Some suggestions:

TapInfluence

BlogHer Publishing Network

Clever Girls Collective

Webfluential

One2One Network

IZEA

Keep in mind that you don’t need 100,000 visitors per month to be seen as a worthy partner. Having a brand with a mission that aligns with someone else’s is just as important. Additionally, special talents, like photography and video or a willingness to have additional offers in your package, help. Consider how you can make your package as enticing as possible for the partner, while still honoring your time and efforts.

 

Creating Products and Services

The other way to make money through blogging is creating a product/service that helps your audience solve the problem your blog set out to solve. Educational products like classes and memberships work well. You can create these on platforms like Highbrow or Thinkific, which allow you to launch your courses for free. It’s smart to offer multiple packages, so you can encourage upgrades, or a membership course with a free trial, so each month, you have an idea of how much money you’re making.

Encourage purchases by showing off your expertise through your channels. Answer people’s questions in forums, create a rich content series that helps your readers, host free webinars and Facebook Live workshops pertaining to your topic, and give four times as much as you ask. Don’t hold back: give away your best stuff so people think, “Wow! If this is what they are offering for free, I can’t wait to see what the paid stuff looks like.”

This is also where the Content Upgrade you created yesterday comes in. Again, it should solve a problem quickly and relate to your product/service to entice the right audience to opt in. Once someone signs up for your email list, they should then be added to an automated email funnel that takes them on a journey.

There are many ways to do an Automation Series, and each will vary depending on your main objective, but the flow is typically similar:

• Welcome them to the community.

• Help them overcome an objection relating to your product/service.

• Provide social proof that your product/service improves lives.

• Make it clear that if they want to change their lives, they need to make a change (aka buy your product/service).

Your Turn: This workbook will take you through the steps of growing and optimizing your own email list.

It’s been great working with you to create a profitable blog! Please subscribe to my blog, Jessie on a Journey, to access my free blogging resource library, and visit my regularly updated Blogging section.

Make sure to also take the course quiz to test your knowledge!

 

Recommended book

How To Make Money Blogging: How I Replaced My Day Job With My Blog by Bob Lotich

 

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