Freelance marketing and copywriting becomes a completely different game when you intend to make a living from your work. And I don’t mean an, “I eat spaghetti every night” living.
I mean a salary that replaces or comes close to your market value in the real world – so you can do big girl things like pay bills, make investments, and splurge on a $25 pedicure now and then.
A colleague is considering a transition into copywriting a personal blog as a revenue stream. These are a few of her options (most blogging revenue requires you to combine a few income streams):
1. Advertising / Ads on the Site
Ok, so this one is a, “Duh,” so I won’t dig in beyond an honorable mention. Basically, companies pay you to put their ads on your site.
How do they earn blogging revenue? From what I understand, the amount of traffic that visits a site is what allows bloggers to set rates for their advertisements.
2. Copywriting a Book
For many travel bloggers, they roll all their hard work into a book. Exclusive content like behind the scenes photos or parables shoot book sales through the roof.
How do they earn blogging revenue? Pre-promotion to your following is key to boosting book sales. You’ll want to drop hints for months to garner interest before the book is sold. Research Amazon techniques; a day or two of free downloads can blow up your website traffic.
3. Affiliate Marketing Links
Remember when Google cracked down on guest blogging? Affiliate links were part of the issue. Links in a blog need to be relevant to the blog content.
So, if you are a life coach, linking to a book about suicide prevention is fine. Linking to a website for women’s clothing using the words suicide prevention is not.
How do they earn blogging revenue? Every time a link is clicked and/or a purchase is made, bloggers get a little kickback for the service.
Hint: having relevant (i.e. cooks recommend pots, knives, etc.) affiliates awards you more passive income since more people will buy from you. Second hint: don’t cross promote unrelated items (i.e. cooks promoting coffee mugs) – it will confuse your buyer.
4. Membership Sites
Why not offer your advice for a small fee? You can aim for a few different pricing tiers, too, by offering extra bonuses and add-ons. Coaches love this for promoting their programs at different levels.
How do they earn blogging revenue? Exclusive content is key here. If too much is initially free, your tribe will have no motivation to pay you for more. Have a strategy to separate out what you feel is worthy of members (i.e. videos, how tos with photos, etc.) and more generalized content.
5. Network Marketing
Also known as MLMs (multi-level marketing), copywriting with a product in mind can help you build up a successful online business. Internet marketing is quite competitive, so it might be best to build a tribe first and then add on a product to sell.
How do they earn blogging revenue? Let’s say that I’m a relationship coach. For months you read my advice. And then I start selling self-help books. Will you buy them? Yes, because you know and trust me.
In theory, others will then see my success and how I have helped their marriages and also want to sell these self-help books, too, allowing me to build a successful passive income strategy. (Usually, though, the products are more geared towards make-up, candles, and protein shakes.)
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6. Paid Product Reviews
To be paid for your reviews, you should, ethically, always tell readers that you are being paid for a review. Nonetheless, you often get stuff to play with for free.
How do they earn blogging revenue? This is basically paid promotion from a company to a high-profile blogger; here’s a “thing,” tell your people it’s great and we’ll pay you.
7. Speaking Engagements
As a successful high-traffic blogger with a loyal following, any number of coaches and/or copywriting experts propel themselves into the limelight by accepting speaking engagements on their blog topic.
How do they earn blogging revenue? Everyone wants to see a star. These bloggers simply accept payment for appearances. Not too shabby, eh?
8. Joint Ventures
Simply, you join forces with someone so that you both share lists. Commonly, a JV involves a webinar, product launch, and/or telesummit.
How do they earn blogging revenue? JVs work in many different ways. For one, you may simply be selling something during the webinar. You could charge for the event itself, too.
Otherwise, they are mostly designed to build your list of followers so you can market products to them at a later time.
9. Magazine Launch
This is a little outside of the typical box, but I wanted to suggest it anyway. Many of us send newsletters. What if we turned our following on to a magazine subscription instead?
How do they earn blogging revenue? Just like a membership site, expect you’ll sell a version of your hottest content, exclusive headlines, and other such nonsense for a monthly fee – just like, you know, a magazine.
10. Direct Marketing to Agencies
If you need to drum up additional dollars, put yourself out there in a big way. Find companies or agencies that may want publicity for their clients. Offer via direct message to work with them and promote them to your blogging tribe.
How do they earn blogging revenue? This is actually quite simple; send messages and then follow up. Repeat six times.
Be sure you can clearly show the value to the folks you’re targeting (i.e. a nutritionist would need to show a health food store they have 10,000 health coach contacts.)
Elspeth Misiaszek uses her writing and online marketing skills to help vegan businesses, coaches and entrepreneurs increase sales on their websites and blogs. Is it SEO? Get our FREE blogging resource today.