4 Things You Must Do BEFORE You Monetize Your Blog & Make It Rain! (1003 hits)
Before you monetize your business blog, there are some very important “do this first” foundational things that you need to have in place, before you “make it rain”! I am trained as a Chef and in that world it’s called Mise En Place, which means everything in its place. You should have everything that you will need to create the dish ready and in place before you start making it! Makes sense right? It keeps you from running around all over the kitchen like a chicken with your head cut off, makes you look more professional and more like the expert that you are! That concept carries over to just about everything including your online business. You want to look like the authority of the information that you’re sharing from the very beginning, even before you start monetizing your site.
1. The first thing you need to have is an email subscriber base. Yes, I know you’ve heard it 1000 times, the money is in your list. Your email list is the one thing that you own online, that and your blog. Treat your customers like the gold that they really are! Set up a way to capture email addresses from the start so that you don’t have to anguish later over how many you let get away because you didn’t have anything in place! Stay in touch with your subscribers on a consistent and regular basis! The secret here is to develop a relationship with your list. Notice that I didn’t say to try to pitch them and sell them something every time you reach out to them! In fact, far from it! You want to really get to know your list and allow them to get to know you. People buy from people they know, like and trust. You have to find a way to allow your list to get to know, like and trust you! I have seen people generate six-figure revenue from hundreds of email subscribers. I’ve also seen people with thousands of subscribers struggle because they didn’t have a great strategy and a relationship with their list. You get your subscribers by giving away value. More about that another time.
Take Away: Make sure you have an email subscriber base in place first.
2. It’s important to have a brand in place. When I say brand, I’m talking about your brand! Who you are and who you are telling the world that you are by your online presence. As I’ve said before, your blog and/or web site is your piece of the internet rock. It’s your online real estate and the only thing that’s yours other than your email list. Your brand is not just a logo or the site you’ve set up with your content, colors and photos. It’s not just a tag line or motto or online courses, videos or podcasts. Your brand is all of those things. Your brand is what makes you, you! It’s what makes your site and your online business unique, legitimate and trustworthy. When people visit your site, it shows them that you’re serious. Your brand is who you are, what you believe and what you stand for. It is a direct reflection of you!
Take Away: Have your brand in place and make it recognizably & uniquely you. 3. No matter what niche you are in or what service you are offering, the people who are interested enough to subscribe to your email list do so because they want to know more! The best way to keep your “tribe” in the loop is to stay in touch on a regular basis! Developing a schedule is the best way to do this because it will in turn become part of a routine. Daily, weekly, a couple of times a week, it’s up to you but whatever you decide, do it consistently. People are creatures of habit and if your followers know you post new content 3 days a week, they will look for it on the days you post. If you post randomly at best, you will lose your followers because they don’t know when or if they’ll hear from you! You know yourself that when you make a new friend, the amount of interaction between you and them is what determines how close of friends that you eventually become. If you only talk to someone once in a blue moon, say on your birthdays and holidays, you simply don’t get a chance to know that person “up close and personal” like you do the friend that you talk to on a regular basis, hang out with and share some personal stuff with! Think of your list as a bunch of new friends that you intend to take the time and effort to get to know as well as you can! You’ll be surprised how far that will take you in building that oh so important relationship with you list – and – becoming someone who they know, like and trust! Take Away: Communicate with your tribe CONSISTENTLY!
4. Figure out something that you do or that you know, that is unique to you and determine a way to monetize it! For instance, say you’ve lost 60 pounds or taught five other people how to lose weight recently. Or maybe you’re a handy man or woman who loves power tools and builds your own furniture! Maybe your talent is to make some adorable handmade item/s that always get requests from friends & family to give as gifts! Do you enjoy helping others and know a special way to help people that relieves a specific problem? Once you discover what you want to monetize based on what you do or know and have everything else that we discussed in place, all you need to figure out is how you want to “deliver” the information. We’ll talk more about that in another post. Just know this, you know something right now that you could market online and make money doing it! You job is to figure out what that is and run with it! Take Away: What is it that you already know how to do and enjoy doing? Of course monetizing your blog consists of other things that we will discuss in upcoming posts but the foundation are the 4 things that we went over above. After you have your foundation tools in place, we can move on to all the different ways available to you to monetize your blog and make it rain! Be sure to join my newsletter so that you don’t miss any new tools, tips and techniques on how to monetize your blog! Regards, Coach Char imCoachChar.com