This post is another Questions & Answers post, with similar questions by two bloggers. Both Brian and Birney are struggling to monetize their blogs, which are both related to saving money.
If you feel your niche is hard for making money (which one might consider to be an unprofitable niche), you have to think outside the box in order to find a way to give your readers what they want, which might be saving money, free stuff, entertainment, etc. - while making money yourself. Easy? No. Doable? I think so...
Question: How to Monetize a Blog (when you feel like you can't)?
Brian told me that he has a site called Daily Fuel Economy Tip which actually gets a lot of traffic. He also has decent amount of people on his newsletter email list, too. Unfortunately, he is having the hardest time coming up with ways to monetize the site and email list. So Brian asked: "I was wondering if you might be able to give me some good suggestions on things I might be able to do (in order to monetize my blog and list). Any help would be GREATLY appreciated."
Birney had similar problem as Brian. He also "suffers" from the business model of saving money. Folks who visit his site, Energy Boomer, come there to cut their spending NOT to spend. He makes some money through advertising and affiliate programs, but not much. E-Book sales are poor. Birney hasn't been able to monetize her newsletter, after trying couple of affiliate programs, so he asked to hear about other ideas.
I gathered my answers, thoughts and ideas to this post, and I welcome you to continue the discussion on the comments.
When Your Readers Are Not Buyers
First of all, if you are blogging about a topic that feels hard to monetize, don't give up! If you are passionate about the topic, keep going, it's just a matter of finding the way. But you do have to think outside the box.
In niches and blogs sharing ways to save money, or getting stuff for free, you have to look into other means than selling (if your readers are not buyers, why bother trying to sell them anything?). I would personally keep growing the blog and mailing list through free content, giving out valuable tips as you have so far. And start thinking outside the traditional ways to earn money.
If other bloggers are selling eBooks or other products, that doesn't mean you have to. If you have the readers, but they are not buyers, you have to find something else. Advertising is one possibility. Don't be afraid to think beyond AdSense. Advertising can make you money, especially if you have plenty of traffic.
If traditional advertising doesn't work, or you just want to diversify your income, contact advertisers and potential companies directly to ask if they would be interested in doing business with you and possibly give your readers discounts or other special deals.
Give Your Readers What They Want
If your readers are looking to save money, you have to give them exactly that (and collect the money elsewhere).
If you have a blog in a niche which is "hard to monetize", people are used to free stuff or are looking to save money - do your readers a favor and... help them save money! Find products and services your readers are paying anyway AND find a way to offer that to them for cheaper price, while getting paid by the seller yourself.
For example, you blog about "saving money", you share tips on how to save energy, drive economically to save fuel, etc. What if you could offer your readers discounts on their energy or fuel bills? And get paid to help them?
Find Ways for Your Readers to Save Money
I would contact potential advertisers and businesses on your niche, and suggest if they could offer discounts to your readers. In addition to selling advertising on your blog, work on to get special deals between you and the advertiser, for example discounts or free samples for your readers.
- advertiser pays you,
- you tell the people on your list about them (giving them a discount),
- your readers get discount (save money),
- the advertiser gets a targeted guest (and make profit).
The hard part is finding products and services that suit your blog and list, and then negotiating the deals. If you're working on a relatively local niche, e.g. city, contacting the local businesses is good place to start, and if you work on it, I'm sure you'll be able to find potential advertisers.
Then start working on working the details with those advertisers. Consider offering to distribute their discount codes for free to see how things go (for both you and the advertiser).
Look for Affiliate Programs that Offer Discounts
If suitable products and companies already have an affiliate program, contact the affiliate manager and ask for coupon codes and discounts to give to your readers, if the affiliate system doesn't offer such by default.
Or alternatively, you can try to work on custom affiliate agreement with any company, e.g. they pay you (or you invoice them) when someone comes in and uses the special discount code you're distributing through your list.
- Instead of selling to your readers (who are there to save money),
- give them what they want, like stuff that saves them money,
- including discounts from businesses who pay you to advertise them.
The companies who work with you like this, might even get better results through special deals for your readers than they would through normal advertising.
For example, this is what Mike CJ and his wife have done on their travel blog - they are offering discounts to their subscribers and readers, all through DIY affiliate program with a local car rental service. You should also check the full case study (free) by Mike, sharing the whole story behind taking a Lanzarote travel blog from zero to a full time income in one year (inspiring story of how hard work pays off in the end. anyway, moving on...).
Whether you find discounts through available affiliate programs or set a deal yourself
- Write an overview,
- a review or
- do an interview about the product or the service, and
- publish it to the blog.
On the post, offer discount or special deal for the product (which you agreed with the advertiser). You can also offer a larger discount to those who subscribe to your email list, which can be huge incentive for people to join your list.
If you gather plenty of advertisers, or otherwise find a way to get a lot of different (and regular) discounts, with that alone you could turn your mailing list into premium service, or even a full membership site, and ask for a small monthly payment from the subscribers.
Can You Monetize Any Niche?
I can't speak from personal experience, since I only have experience from handful of niches, but I think you can monetize any niche - it's just a matter of finding the way. Yes, some markets will be a lot tougher to monetize than others, and might require a lot more traffic than others for example.
This is especially true for the markets where people expect content to be free, "funny" sites and humor is often referred as such (people expect to get entertained for free online). But there are people making money with funny cat pics, so anything is possible, right?
If making money online feels like running to a wall, you either find an opening or go through it. I hope this advice and answer helped you on that...
What are your thoughts on monetizing a blog in a seemingly unprofitable niche? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences! (e.g. What would you do if you were Brian or Birnie?)
p.s. If you have questions about niche blogging, making money online, SEO or anything else - send your questions to me through the contact form and I'll answer you via email as soon as I can - and I might write a post like this, linking back to your site (if you want) as my thank you for your great question.
One link to this post.
16 comments.
Great advice, it's always interesting to hear about other people's challenges and ways of overcoming them. I often think this is a major consideration when it comes to choosing your niche too, while it's not all about the money, if you have equal interests and expertise then I would take the one that makes things easier in the long run.
Wow man, you continue to give a ton of great info away. This is one of the more detailed and well written posts on the topic I've seen in some time.
Well said. This was really good for me to hear. My niche isn't necessarily hard to monetize but your post really helped me gain a better understanding of the affiliate/blogger relationship. It also gave me some ideas for the blog my wife will be doing down the road. Thanks!
Fine post, Antti.
This really places a lot of things in perspective. I believe, as you, that you really can monetize any niche. The problem is that too many entrepreneurs are trying to follow the same business model that others have succeeded in when those parameters don't apply.
There are certain commonalities in business for sure, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will lead everyone to success. This is where some creativity has to to be applied to the situation.
Great post, man.
This is something very close to my heart and a topic that I mull over in whatever quiet periods I get and it is a difficult one. I think people who come to my blog want information not to be sold product and the site is primarily a resource, which I am cool with. So I am using the current site as a learning tool and planning another venture which I am confident will make some money for me.
Another great post Antti. And thanks for the kind mentions as well.
I think you can monetize pretty much any niche. It's basically about understanding what your readers are buying anyway, and then offering it to them. Maybe start by surveying them to find out.
I took a look at the daily fuel economy blog, and I was originally going to suggest he broadens the scope, but actually, I can see he's already done that. Direct monetization may be hard, but indirectly he could benefit from free cars and free fuel by offering to test both for the manufacturers?
Thanks Mike for the comment. And I own much of this info to you (applied the ideas you shared on the case study and the “DIY affiliate” post really), so naturally I wanted to link to you :)
And surveying is great idea, and might work nicely, especially with the mailing list, to find out what kind of people are on the list, what they are looking for, etc.
Thanks Joel – I like to read about the challenges and achievements of people too. It feels more real, when it's not just your own experiences, but there is something concrete on it as well. This is one of the reasons I enjoy writing (and reading) “Q&A” posts to begin with.
Thanks for the feedback Carlos. And so nice to hear you have a blogger family thing going on there :)
Thanks. I think she'll be really good at it. She is learning photography and photoshop and plans to blog as part of her business. She took my profile photo and designed the Conscious Me banners for the pre-writing challenge as well as some graphics for a couple other new bloggers.
No baby blogger yet though. I look forward to us both working from home, or wherever we want to. She is learning photography and photoshop and plans to build a blog as part of her business.
Oh yeah, that banner looks awesome (as does the profile pic), so in that regard I'm sure she'll do great.
Well said. All it really takes is hard work and looking at the monetization strategy from a different angle to see what will work best with you and your audience. :)
Yes, I think any blog can be monetised. Some are harder than others. But the point is hardwork time and patiences. The point about strategy and planning as well as finding the right method is key I think. These will not happen over night. So we need to realise and understand that we are in it for the long haul.
Thanks for the mention in a great article.
gREAT POST! Very helpful! LOL. and now would you excuse me, I have a blog to monetize. LOL