Last year I officially quit my job to pursue my dream of blogging full time. As a single parent household with two young children, I must admit, it was pretty scary but I had a plan that I just knew would work. Thankfully, I executed my plan beautifully and within 15 months I was bringing in over 6 digits in profit! In this post, I am sharing some of the secrets that were launched in my latest course, “The Business of Blogging.” There is enough business to go around in this industry and I want help my fellow boss babes realize their full potential and cease the opportunity to live their best life.
Yes, this happened to me. My story was featured in the New York Times a few months back. With the onset of Covid and so many losing their jobs, I have had many men and women picking my brain on how serious money can be made from the comfort of your own home. That’s when I got the bright idea to launch a course, which was picked up by the NY Times! Below I will share a few tidbits from that course. So, here we go!
After really taking the time to observe the industry and plan my strategy as a blogger, I realized that there is a natural progression with blogging. From launching a blog and all of the checkmarks you have to fulfill in the beginning stages to cultivate a successful business, to pitching your brand for profit. There are proper actionables and goals that must be completed in an orderly fashion to take the fast track to success.
This Actionables and Goals list, in order, is the exact roadmap that I imagined for success when planning my blogging business, and needless to say, it worked!
Actionables | Goals
- Build Your Brand | Use Affiliates for Profits
- Build Your Voice | Audience Growth & Acquiring Trades
- Build Your Bank Account | Continuous Growth Strategy
Now, I know these three steps are pretty broad so let me share my strategy further.
STEP 1: Build Your Brand
When you start off as a blogger, it is super important to build your personal brand. There are so many things you must consider here. From the name, logo, fonts, and color scheme, to the sensory strategy of brand development, website, social, and omnichannel design this first step is essential for future success. Believe me, I know from experience. My blog name and url used to be something completely different, a name that I just threw together without strategy. Once I realized that my brand name did not match my voice or target audience at all, I made an executive decision to do a brand redesign, which proved to be very costly. I not only lost all the time and money that I had put into my original blog, but I lost and SEO clout that I had built with Google.
STEP 2: Build Your Voice
A blog isn’t just about writing and sharing, your personality has to shine through your content, and we call that, your voice. Your audience follows you because they find you interesting. They are entertained by your story and lifestyle. You MUST stay true to this always. It is part of your brand.
In the second phase of actionable and goals, while you are further solidifying your voice, you need to practice win-win growth strategies to build your repertoire with the brand and your audience at the same time. At this point, you are going to start working with brands. Many bloggers do not take the time to build relationships. They just take the brand’s proposal at face value, complete the collaboration, and move on. In order to build a full time business out of blogging, you have to think long term. You can’t have only your own business interests at heart. You must take the best interests of the brand into consideration as well. Brands will appreciate this and continue to work with you on a long term basis. I make my bread and butter from the brands which I have long term contracts in place. Brand relationships are key to continuous cash flow.
Build Your Bank Account
This is the part that excites everyone, the MOO-LAH! But making the money isn’t as simple as just creating content. You need a media kit and a pitch. You need a competitive offering that benefits your bank account and boosts the brands value in your audience’s eyes. You will need to understand how to conduct reporting, benchmarking, and insight review to set achievable goals for yourself year over year. There are also so many ways to make money in this industry. Will you make money on posting, ads, commissions, modeling, or appearances? There are so many ways to build that bank account and devising a strategy to do so will put you on the fast track to success.
Now I know what I covered in this post may have your head spinning with excitement but with major confusion or just the feeling of being overwhelmed. That is TOTALLY NORMAL. In my newest course, The Business Of Blogging, I share over 11 detailed lectures, tons of printable worksheets, a brand building guide, links to dozens of helpful websites and softwares, hours and hours of learning, and so much more! Learn more about my course here.
My course has been valued at over $3000 but my retail price is only $299. Tonight, you can enter to get win this course for FREE!
Click here to enter to win and GOOD LUCK ON YOUR JOURNEY! If you have any questions for me, feel free to comment below. -xo
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