If you own a business, a blog can be the gift that keeps on giving. This post is about how to monetize your blog and make more money online from the comfort of your home. Providing informative content makes readers feel as if they have gotten something for nothing. That kind of generosity builds goodwill, if nothing else.
But when that content helps your readers solve the kinds of problems that keep them up at night, it positions you as an authority in your field. That makes blogging – content marketing – a great way to build awareness of your business and what it can do for its customers.
Blogging: A Great Investment in Your Business
As Content Marketing Institute’s Julia McCoy points out, content marketing yields three times the leads for every dollar you spend. It also generates more than three times the leads as outbound marketing, such as ads, flyers, and telemarketing.
In addition, content marketing – blogging – has six times the conversion rate of any other marketing strategy. That’s no wonder, considering that 61 percent of Americans purchase something after they read a recommendation on a blog post.
Content marketing also costs less to get started.
The Challenge: Enough Room in Your Budget for Blogging
“But I’m just a small business,” you may say. “I don’t have even that kind of money.”
You throw your hands up in desperation. “Where in the world can I get enough money to keep my blog afloat?” you protest.
That’s where blog monetization comes in the picture. It’s a bit of a genius move on your part, should you give it a try.
“How to Monetize My Blog?” You’ll Ask
Glad you asked. There are a variety of ways that you can monetize your blog.
When you invest just a little time, you can bring in several more streams of income besides that you’ll earn from the new leads that will flow in.
While there are arguably dozens of ways to monetize your blog, there are three easy methods that will help you earn a healthy income from your efforts:
1. Affiliate marketing
The favorite of many new bloggers, affiliate marketing allows you to feature products within your content. Companies that sell these products will send you a small commission for every reader who clicks the link on one of those products and makes a purchase. The trick here is to feature products that align with your own without competing with them.
To be successful, you need to blend in your mention of the product in a natural way – as something that will help your reader solve a problem. Here’s an example from the vintage renovation blog, Retro Renovation.
To monetize her blog – which features vintage home décor in a variety of settings – the blog’s creator regularly features products for which she receives a small commission. For instance, since replacing vintage light fixtures with authentic ones or quality reproductions takes a lot of time and research, the blogger penned a post about a huge stash of “new old stock” fixtures she discovered.
Using anchor text, she linked to the seller’s collection. When one of her readers clicks on the link and bought a piece from the seller, the blogger receives a commission.
It’s all about helping your readers solve problems.
Note: Always, as the Retro Renovation publisher has done in this article, include a note that indicates that the link is an affiliate one. That’s the law in the U.S. and possibly in other nations as well.
2. Sell courses and e-books
If you have expertise in something your target customers might want to learn about or if you have books or other products to sell in addition to your main offerings, create online courses, write e-books, or offer auxiliary products to your readers.
For instance, this online guitar lessons website offers sheet music in addition to its main offering, guitar lessons. Even if a prospective student doesn’t sign up for lessons, they might end up buying a piece of music.
Leveraging your talents in several directions with an assortment of related products can bring in extra income for your business.
3. Email marketing with newsletters
In your newsletter, provide your readers with a deeper dive into the material you provide in your blog posts. The more information you provide, the more likely they will either purchase your products or request an in-person or webcam consultation to learn more about how you can help them conquer tough challenges, either in business or in life.
Offer subscribers something in return for becoming a subscriber. An e-book, a white paper, or a discount on your products will often be enough to convince them to subscribe.
Your email subscription list is marketing gold. Not only does it position you as an authority in your field – and a generous one at that – it also allows you to reap an incredible return on your investment in creating all that content.
In fact, according to a recent OptInMonster article, email marketing has an amazing 4400 percent return on whatever money you pour into it. For every dollar you invest in email content creation, you’re likely to rake in $44 in return.
Take your email marketing ROI up another notch with email monetization
Not only does email marketing give you the potential to achieve incredible returns by subscribers becoming customers, but you can also give your ROI an additional boost through email monetization.
Here’s the deal. With today’s technology, you can insert native ads into the body of your newsletter.
Every time a customer clicks on those ads, you receive a payment. With the power of artificial intelligence (AI), an email monetization platform can choose ads that interest your readers yet are not competitive with your products and services.
For example, if you’re the vintage lighting seller in our previous example, your newsletter might display ads for vintage wallpaper, reproduction vintage countertops, or antique furniture. The online guitar academy’s newsletter might display ads for guitar makers, online piano lessons, or digital guitar tuners.
The great thing about these ads is that they are native, meaning that they appear like related articles rather than ads – with compelling titles that sound more like articles than ads. When your subscribers click on them, they’ll learn about products and services that they probably need.
Build trust with every newsletter you publish
Native ads in the body of your newsletter are a sure way to build your trust factor even more with your subscriber list. They’re unobtrusive and won’t interrupt your subscribers’ reading flow unless the title appeals to their current needs.
When that email monetization platform is inboxAds, newsletter publishers won’t pay a dime for placing those ads in their newsletters. Whatever you make on the ads will be over and above the return on your newsletter content proper.
Compatible with a wide range of WordPress newsletter plugins, the inboxAds WordPress plugin gives you a way to further monetize newsletters for no hassle and no extra financial investment. With top-quality content that solves the problems that keep your target customers up all night, you’ll soon see multiple streams of income from a single newsletter.
To learn more about how to monetize your newsletter to rake in multiple streams of income, get in touch with the inboxAds team today.
