How To Make Money From Your Blog – Part 4

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How to make money from your blog is such a big topic that we’re now onto part 4. You can see part one, part two and part three here.

In part one we looked at how to get your blog ready and when you should start thinking about monetising it. In part two we took a look at the first way you can monetise a blog by using advertising. In part three we looked at the digital products you can provide to your readers to monetise your blog and…

…in part four we’re going to look at how you can use real world physical products to generate revenue from your blog.

Monetising Your Blog With Physical Products

A physical product takes us away from the online world into products that have to be sent to your customers.

It’s an area that a lot of internet marketers don’t want to get into because they associate it, incorrectly, with being complicated and expensive.

However in some niches this can easily be the most profitable way to monetise your blog, so it’s definitely something you should consider further.

Broadly speaking there are three types of physical products, and we’re going to start with…

Books

And I don’t mean ebooks, but the kind of books that have paper pages. A book is a great way to both generate revenue and bring authority to your blog.

Of course ebooks can also do the same, but nothing brings authority quite like a real book. Of course, self-publishing is one route to take but you can also go through a traditional publisher. Traditional publishers now recognise the value of a blog so much that it isn’t unknown for them to reject a book because the author doesn’t have any kind of online following.

Which is something you’re not going to have to worry about.

Publishing a book doesn’t have to be difficult, particularly if you’re self-publishing. If you are self-publishing then I would recommend that you use CreateSpace. It is surprisingly easy to create and publish books using their site and you can have your book available for order in Amazon with no upfront cost.

But where do you find the content?

Well, the chances are you already have the content. Do you have any old email sequences that are no longer being used or blog posts you wrote a long time ago which have had very little views?

Take those, choose one topic and then re-write that content into a book.

Using content you’ve already created as a basis is the fastest way to generate the content for your book.

Seminars and Workshops

These come under the category of physical products because you have to physically deliver something to your clients.

However, web based seminars and workshops would come under the digital category we looked at last week.

Running seminars and workshops can generate huge amounts of revenue. They’re very common in the internet marketing space and cost anything from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars.

The quality can also range from very poor to very good. Generally the cheaper seminars and workshops usually have a primary focus of selling you something more expensive.

It can make a lot of money, but personally that doesn’t sit very well with me.

To really pack out and build a name for your seminars and workshops you want to have very high quality content and keep any up-selling to a minimum.

There’s no doubt that you’re going to need to put in a lot of work to make one of these successful, but the rewards can be worth it.

To decide what you should focus your content on, see what others in your market are doing and take the most popular subjects. When you’re starting out I would recommend that you choose one topic and make it a one day workshop so that you don’t overload yourself.

It’s obvious that you can monetise these events by charging an entrance fee, but if you’re in the right niche you may also be able to get sponsorship for monetisation and give entrance to the event for free.

Products

There are a huge range of products out there which you can sell through your blog and emails. They range from products which you drop-ship to products that you make yourself.

Look at your niche and consider what your readership would be most interested in. If you’re in the gardening niche then it would be most sensible to work as an affiliate selling recommended products through Amazon or specialist sites.

This will allow you to write posts about how to do things and then link to the tools used as well as simply doing an email promotion.

If you are in a market such as crafting, then you would want to be making your own products and selling them through sites such as Etsy. Not only are you then showing people how to make things on your blog, you can then also provide them with the materials and/or the finished products as well.

Of course, if you’ve come up with an idea for something that isn’t currently being made by anybody else then you can start manufacturing your own product. However be warned that there are usually a lot of costs and paperwork associated with manufacturing your own products, particularly if you’re planning on doing it in the Far East.

In Summary…

Physical products can work in almost any niche, even those (such as internet marketing) which have traditionally been the reserve of digital products.

Creating a physical product can not only add revenue but also generates a level of trust and confidence in your buyers and audience that a digital product simply cannot do.

However, there is also usually more cost and risk associated with them.

Think carefully about whether a physical product will work for your market, and if it does then begin by testing it out in small quantities to see how the conversion performs.

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