How to Earn Bundles From Your Blog Without Ever Selling Anything On It
Have you noticed this trend in blogging? Quite a few of the top bloggers don’t sell anything on their blog.
That’s right — no banner ads, no pitches on the bottom of posts, no page full of affiliate products.
The blog is nothing but useful information and resources. Take a look at Derek Halpern’s Social Triggers, for example.
Yet, these bloggers earn very well. For instance, recently popular blogger Jon Morrow announced he made $500,000 from his blog last year — and yet you will look in vain for ads or even sales pitches on blog posts on his site, Boost Blog Traffic.
How is this possible? What is the secret of this sales-free blogging approach? I had a chance to buttonhole Jon at the New Media Expo recently and ask him.
Why no-sell earns more than soft-sell
I’m among the many bloggers who take a pretty soft-sell approach to pitching on my blog. I never allow third-party ads, I only have one hand-picked ad at a time, and I have other affiliate offers corralled off the home page under “Products I Love” tabs.
I don’t like hard-sell blogs, don’t visit them, and don’t want to have one.
I feel comfortable presenting the occasional offer on my blog.
But let’s just say I’m not making $500,000 from my blog.
So I was intrigued to learn why these top bloggers have pitch-free blogs — and how they earn so much without ever mentioning their paid products or services on their blog!
As Jon explained it to me, selling directly on your blog is a triple negative for your blog-based business:
Selling on your blog ruins your engagement. When you provide useful content but then you turn it into a sales pitch at the end of the post, or you’ve got an ad, it stops people from commenting. They don’t share your post in social media as much.
It also doesn’t convert [sales] as well as the way I do it.
What do Jon and Derek and other blog ninjas do? They only sell on emails, to their subscriber list.
By keeping their blog pitch and ad-free, they focus entirely on building rapport and engagement with their audience — getting those questions and comments, and responding to them.
These blogs are positioned as free gold mines of advice. What reader doesn’t love that?
Then, when they approach subscribers to sell them something, more of them buy. Because the blogger has won their trust with their wide-open, all-free blog content.
Why email wins for marketing
This approach can work well for freelancers trying to attract clients through their blog — provide useful tips to your customers on your posts and convince them you’re at the top of your field with your expertise…then email them if you have a special offer or want to pitch your services.
Freelancers could employ this model to get prospects to sign up for an initial consultation that could result in ongoing work.
Consider taking it slow at first even on email, with freebie offers, too. For instance, most of Jon’s emails send subscribers to free training videos…which then sell a big-ticket item such as a $600 course, for those who need to learn more.
Freelancers could employ this model to get prospects to sign up for an initial consultation that could result in ongoing work.
Why? Writing to someone on email to introduce a product feels more personal than reading a pitch on a blog.
You can customize the email to even say their first name, if you like.
Email is your chance to explain in more detail why you created this offer, and why you think it would help your clients.
Also, sending email marketing keeps your selling activity away from your blog.
Blowing off casual visitors
Of course, this leaves out casual visitors to your blog from buying anything, which makes me a bit nervous. Some 60 percent of my site visitors each month aren’t subscribers!
But in reality, these casual visitors probably aren’t buyers anyway, Jon said. They haven’t made a commitment to stay in touch with you. They’re not all crazy about what you’re doing yet.
The fans are the people who buy your stuff. So if you want to earn more, and ads haven’t been working for you, try concentrating on making fans on the blog, getting them to subscribe — and then sell them through email.
Do you sell on your blog? Leave a comment and tell us your blog’s monetizing strategy.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by paolag.
Leave a Comment
I am not sure I agree… many people just filter the email into spam box. My foreclosure blog (foreclosures evictions and you) sold an affiliate product and had both traffic and sales. When traffic reduced so did sales but the traffic did not reduce because of the affiliate link – the traffic reduced due to changes in google and my time commitments.
The only sure thing is good, original and quality content. Just my opinion.
The marketing philosophy that ad-free blogging reduces the ability to sell as much as email does is accurate to an extent. The conversion rate is higher in emails than via the ads on a blog, but the exposure is higher on the blog than in emails.
But I believe displaying relevant ads on a blog also increases the chances of selling a product or service.
So online businesses have to find a way how they can integrate email marketing and blog advertising effectively.
If that’s true, then how do you explain people who’re able to pull down $500K without ever putting up a single ad?
It’s true there’s more exposure on the blog…but usually, casual passersby don’t buy your $600 class, or even your $36 ebook. It’s after you build a relationship with them that the sales happen…and that’s usually after they get on your list so you can stay in regular touch.
I personally am going to be dialing the selling on my blog WAY down after what I’ve learned, and probably taking ALL pitches and ads off my blog home page. (There’s currently usually only 1 at a time, but some posts have concluded with pitches in the past.)
Still deciding about my subpages that sell like Products I Love, and whether I’ll leave those up…I think they provide useful resources to my readers, so I’m torn on those. And they are small but steady sellers.
Carol, I’d keep the Products I Love Page because seeing what you recommend has been helpful to me. People know it will be salesy before they go there and can easily avoid it if they want to.
Hi Janet!
Thanks so much for the input.
As it happens, I was just at a meeting with my webmaster about redoing my site. And in talking with her about it, what I found myself saying was, “These pages have things my readers need to get started. I think we should leave them.” I earn very little from most of those Products I Love offers and Useful Books page…it is more about providing the resource and recommending things writers & bloggers might need to ramp their business.
But there’ll be no selling on the blog posts or home page or sidebar…that’s all gone. For instance: I’m selling my Blast Off class with Linda Formichelli this week. But you’d never know it unless you subscribe, since it has never been mentioned on the blog. Only on email.
And guess what — it’s sold out faster than ANY other class I have ever offered! More proof that Jon’s advice here is really worth trying out. It’s working for me.
From personal experience, I don’t agree with you. Most of the bloggers out there, who are actually making money, sell on their website.
Freemium model pose a huge risk to your business. It molds your readers to like, want and expect free products from you.
You will lose lot of readers and so, money, as and when you want to present a paid service or product to them. Why? Because they are used to getting free gifts from you!
And having said that, do you know that some of the best known bloggers are actually turning their free blog service into a premium model? Because they think that is hampering their business.
It’s not only about giving value. It’s about business, my friend.
Hi Carol nice article. Have you heard of Pat Flynn of smartpassiveincome.com? I’ve been listening to his podcasts and studying how he earns online. He is doing the opposite, he doesn’t sell anything on email but on his blog posts and videos he suggests products that he uses and tells people that the links are affiliate links. I think as long as your honest about it and you provide real value to your readers people will buy from you.
I agree with Milo. I think it’s more about keeping the pitches to a minimum, not where the pitches are placed. I’m going to be doing the opposite strategy.
My newsletter will be sales-pitch free, but I occasionally direct people to my services page in my blogs. However, I have no actual ads there either. I generally loathe them and avoid them like the plague.
This is really interesting. Although I monetize my websites and am always researching the best way to do so, I always go back to that don’t-ruin-the-love mentality. I don’t want to scare people away, I’m not going to throw any pop-ups in their faces, and I want them to feel safe and comfortable on my site. With that said, I love blogging, and I want to be able to continue to do so without having to take on tons of extra projects. Selling stuff allows me to do that (or, well, to at least cover hosting & domain registration fees, etc).
My favorite sites are those that share products and services that can help me, and that the writers also love. There are many websites that I’d spend more time on if they weren’t hard-selling all the G-D time.
You’ve given me plenty to think about. I’ll continue monetizing, but I’ll be refining my approach. Thank you!
I think it’s important to remember is that there’s a difference between the sort of sales that are obtained through email marketing and through blog pitching/adverts. In the case of the emails we’re talking about that could bring in $500k for a blogger, his readership have signed up because he’s built a rapport through his blog and they’re interested in what he has to say. For marketing on your website you’re assuming you can convince or intrigue casual visitors enough to buy something, whilst for the the email method you are attempting to build a trusting readership of loyal followers before offering them a product or service. True you’ll find them on the blog, too, but if you confine your sales to your emails you’ll pitch to *only* people who are already interested, making your methods look more respectful (and exclusive). Ultimately both methods can work, but as email sales of this nature are built on an existing base of respect they’re likely to convert more and at a higher rate.
Anyone who’s worried that their emails will simply not be read might as well be posting ads on their site, because if your emails aren’t being read by the subscribers it’s because you haven’t built an effective list of subscribers.
It is very good idea but for blogger to make that sum of money per year,he must have built concrete trust in his readers and requires confidence to use that technique.It will pay for new blogger in the log run but from the onset it will be a little bit difficult.
The probability of the emails falling into the spam zone will be low when you really provide useful content to them,this is because they will open in home of getting your next post,so as they read your mails frequently your mails won’t fall into their spam so easily
Whether it be a shoe store, or blog, the hard sell has me running for the hills, so the subscriber list strategy is interesting and one I may have to implement on my blog.
Carole.. didn’t mean to offend. IN my mind both are necessary, and can be done in conjunction with each other or separately as you do. There are people selling that don’t have a blog or an email as there are other alternatives too.
MILO I have watched Pat Flynn from the start and I think you nailed it. Pat has built trust through honesty from the start, but he also carefully built a base of fans that joined in his effort and watched his progress and journey.
One thing with a blog post or website is that you can devote a as much attention to a separate page hosting the product as you want. Many prefere just inline text links.
I know one thing, on writing sights that a revenue share – I earn very little. I do much better with view shares, where ads are chosen by others. Even then I am cross with pop up ads, undertone ads and overcrowding of space. My newest Squidoo venture is an experiment in combining the two (see hyperlink).
Well aside from the article, these comments have been more then helpful! I’ve just recently started my blog and reading through everyone’s ideas, advice, and experiences on this subject was helpful to say the least!
Thanks all!
-John
I think this is an interesting pitch. However, I’m not sure I agree either. I just delete e-mails like that. I’ve worked in the realm of marketing, and those kinds of e-mail make me roll my eyes… As a freelancer, $600 would be a lot for me to even THINK about spending on a product —
no matter how truly great and helpful it may be. However, again, I think this is an interesting idea, and I will certainly keep an open mind about it. Thanks!
All I can say, Amy, is try it. I was skeptical too, but recently ran a campaign on a product I had sold in the past heavily directly on my blog — banner ads in the sidebar and bottom of posts, and pitches at the bottom of posts…and when I ran it selling ONLY from email, I made substantially more!
People prefer not to be sold on blogs directly…I’m a believer from firsthand trials.