Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Are Bloggers Just Crappy Business People?

November 17, 2009 | Blogging, Making Money

The question had to be asked. In fact, a few of us were even discussing this very question when I was in Vegas for BlogWorld Expo.

Most bloggers wonder how to make money with a blog. The default answer seems to be to write a lot, build traffic, then sell ads. That blogger thinks he’s building his “business” by writing even more. Problem is, it oftens leads to this….

failure_laptop

So, the plan is that you’ll start a blog, write a lot, write some more, get famous and then sell a few ads on the blog. Attract sponsors and cash in, right?

With so much competing noise out there, this kind of expectation would be like waiting for a blogger fairy to come out and sprinkle some problogger fairy dust on top of your head. I’m not saying it isn’t possible, but that it is an uphill fight for a new blogger who doesn’t really engage in marketing.

I think this mentality might stem from the days of the old media. In the old media, this is how they sustain themselves. Build an audience, scare the crap out of them so they’ll keep watching, and turn around and sell the eyeballs to companies who want more customers.

However, there’s a reason why the newspaper industry is failing. If you enter the blogosphere with this same mentality, you’re not going to make any money.

On the other hand, look at almost any business that you know of. What do they do? They sell something. They sell a product or a service. They engage in marketing so as to sell those products or services.

So, why do so many bloggers fail to connect the dots?

Is it because bloggers look at themselves as reporters, so they get into this old media mentality?

Blogging isn’t journalism. It is distinctly different in that this is a two-way medium where you connect with your audience.

The answer is to think like a business. As I’ve said a gazillion times, if you want your blog to be a business, then you have to treat it like one. That means:

  1. Have something to offer them.
  2. Engage in relationship marketing (be helpful, be trustworthy, be liked, be memorable)
  3. Ask them for a sale.

While other businesses are marketing in the paper or the yellow pages, you’re marketing on the Internet by smartly building bonds with like-minded people via your blog. You build a tribe of followers.

The methods are different, but the strategy should be the same.

Do me a favor. Next time you hear a blogger default to banner ads as the de facto way to make money with a blog, correct them. Tell them David Risley sent ya. ;)

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. Reality Check: A Blog Is Not A Business
  2. Bloggers, What Went Wrong?
  3. Can a Blog Be Useful For Marketing an Offline Business?
  4. Why Bloggers Should Start a Mailing List
  5. What The Entire World Can Learn From Internet Business People

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  • Okay David, you've talked me into it: I'm starting a blog. It's about something I know well and am passionate about.

    Now what do I do? I'm used to the website format, where I write a keyword-focused page, and if I did my homework well soon I'm on Google's first page with that page and get found for my keywords, along with all the long-tailed ones.

    Each page has a title, description, etc., and that's what people see when they find my site.

    But a blog is sort of like one long page, isn't it? Where does SEO come in?

    Thanks for all the great advice!

    Gina
  • HomeBizTips
    David,

    Your message is loud and clear here. You're actually talking to your readers here and not at them. Chances are, if someone is just starting out as a Blogger, he or she may make a few mistakes along the way. However, if they pay attention to what Problogger like you talk about, they'll reduce making mistakes.
  • Very good point. If bloggers plan to make money with their blog, they have to think about how to "make money with their blog", and not "make money because of their blog".
  • "Blogging isn’t journalism. It is distinctly different in that this is a two-way medium where you connect with your audience."

    I hate being a journalist...I'll rather remain a blogger with business approach to my blog.
  • I've heard you say this so many times, and I can hear it screaming at me everyday. I have known for at least 3 months that I needed to offer some sort of product or service from my blog, and it's made me crazy trying to figure out what that "thing" should be. (My dad always told me I told me I'd spend more time trying to figure out HOW to do something than it would take to actually do it!) I think I finally have it figured out, and it took being involved with Blogworld to figure it out.

    Thanks for hitting us with that brick every once in a while, David. It's like you said in your 6 Figure Blueprint...we need something of our own to offer to really make the money. It seems like we all go through this process from focusing on traffic & covering our blogs with ads, then to affiliate marketing, then finally to our own thing.

    It's cool to want to help others and share info for free to build authority but I think a reader is sort of looking for some sort of offer or product that will help them beyond our content. By not offering that "continuing ed" maybe we are really doing a disservice to our readers.

    So, I hereby declare that by the end of this coming week I will be ready & I will finally have something to actually market myself! :)
  • You have a point there david, but i guess not all bloggers are like
  • classyruralgal
    DAVID,

    Greetings from rural Australia.

    My first job, at 13 years old, was working in the local department store in my small town. I gave it up when I started university at age 17. In those 4 years I learned that selling is the most important job in business. It doesn’t matter how clever a product is, or how sophisticated a company is, someone has to convince the public they can’t live without widget xyz or company bda.

    I always wondered why bloggers had banner ads and if they ever made any money from them. Because I’ve never clicked on one. Now I know.

    If you’re not selling something, you’re not making money. And the easiest way to make money is to sell something you love and believe in so much, you’re passionate about it. Your enthusiasm wins people over and if the product is good and you’re honest and trustworthy, you can’t fail.

    It doesn’t need to be your product. And it doesn’t need to be a downloadable product. I design, make and market my own textile products. My business is purely mailorder. Taking orders and posting parcels. And it’s a very successful business. But I also have two products in my catalogue that aren’t mine, which I just love, and sell hand over fist because I can wax lyrical about both in a genuine way.

    And everything can be sold if presented properly. Remember Pet Rocks?

    What you say is true. Having a following of 400,000 readers is only an ego trip for the blogger if their followers aren’t buying something and putting money into their account.

    The tricky bit is balancing the scales so you don’t appear to be only selling, selling, selling. Which drives everyone away.

    A good post, David. And you answered my question about banner ads.

    Take care,

    CAROL

    Carol Jones
    Director
    Interface Pty Ltd
    Post Office Box 139
    KANDOS NSW 2848 Australia
    Tel: +612 63 58 85 11
    Fax: +612 63 58 85 10
    Designers of The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover
    My simple solutions for difficult problems make every product a joy to use
    Visit my website at http://www.simplesolutionsfordifficultproblems.com
  • This guy David Risley has a proven track record, talks a lot of sense, and is living testimony to the validity and accuracy of his own words. Listen to every word he says intently, then put what you hear into practice, and you won't go far wrong.
  • David, you hit the nail on the head with this one. The most important point you make - and probably the most difficult thing for most bloggers to figure out, is this one:

    "Have something to offer them."

    The corollary to that, of course, is to have something to offer the audience *that they would be willing to pay for.* And even for aspiring probloggers who figure out the first part - that they need to have some actual product or service beyond the blog posts themselves - identifying the second art can be terribly hard.

    But I suppose that's where market research comes in.
  • evanhadkins
    I think the connection with journalism is that an authority blog is a similar to a newspaper column. They can be useful models for the style of writing I think.
  • Well, yes and no.

    I sell through my website, but it earns a decent amount of money from "just" ads - more than enough to pay the mortgage and taxes.

    Obviously I need other income to live on, and in my case a lot of it comes from efforts on the site, but it's easy to imagine the two being separate - that is, the site still bringing in Google money but everything else coming from unrelated sources - for example, let's say that I totally lost my mind and decided to take a job :-). Concurrent with that (because I've lost my mind, remember) I remove all of my personal selling stuff. Mabe I have to as a condition of employment...

    In that situation, the advertising flow is a nice addition to income. I'd need to spend a few hours per month updating and maintaining things, but not many, and I'd still get my mortgage and taxes paid.

    So yeah, I agree: if you are looking for your site to support you, it's tough to do with just ads. But there's nothing horrible about it just being extra income.
  • Be A blogger with a "Internet Marketers" Mentality
  • When I first started blogging one of the first lessons I learned was to forget about the banner ad campaign route as a means to a sustainable income. Sure, you can make a few bucks to buy some printer ink or paper, but unless you have huge traffic, you're just wasting valuable site real estate.

    The fact of the matter is this, new bloggers concentrate too much on the journalistic aspect of things and pay too little attention to the business of marketing and the techniques for how to do this online. Thanks to David, I've learned this lesson myself.
  • i try to make money with blog without even put one ads on my blog, can i do it?
    if i succeed i would say david risley made me.. :)
  • buckwhys
    I'm starting to get my head around this concept, I hope! :-) Thanks for helping me with the "mindset" Dave.
  • Last week I dumped my Adsense and Amazon ads. They just weren't bringing anything in. I am going back to the basics of building a better blog, building up its readership and developing my own product. I vow never again to put Adsense on my blog.
  • This is a pretty passionate post man...and I dig that :) Yes, most bloggers are bad business people. To temper that a bit, I'd like to add that MOST business people are bad business people, period. Let's not forget that most businesses will fail. Blogs are included with that of course, and especially any industry that has a very low entry requirement (how hard is it to set up a blog anyway?) is going to experience high failure rate. That said, I love your advocacy of this medium...a blog is a powerful tool, but I'm cool that most people suck at it. I don't think we should make it harder to start a blog; we should just be cool with the high failure rate and have faith that people can learn in the school of hard knocks. Because I think you and I both know, it doesn't matter if you're good or not...the world's gonna let you know if you're bringing value or not :)
  • remarkablogger
    Right on, brother. That's why I don't work with "bloggers." I work with business people. :)
  • Great Post!

    Bloggers have lost their focus! They need to gain trust and then make sales!
  • I think I really lost focus on that aspect of blogging. I've been blogging for several years now. My early blogs were all crappy ones over flowing with affiliate offers. They made a little bit of money, but nothing compared to what I think the coffee one is capable of doing. However, I was focusing too much on building traffic and not enough of promoting affiliate products and my own. I think that's starting to balance out now and I'm really seeing some positive results.
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