Blogging takes time. Time you can’t spend on other things you love, let alone a job. So if you’d like to keep on blogging and also need to pay your bills, it’s nice to know that are plenty of methods to make some money from your blog. Here are a few ways that have worked for me so far.
Affiliate marketing
The easiest way to make money from your blog is affiliate marketing. Affiliate websites provide you with personalized links to a product or a website, which place a cookie in a persons browser. When that person buys something via that link in the next 30-60 days (depending on the affiliate network) you get a small commission. On this blog you find quite some links, because it’s the easiest way for me to make some money from my blog. The network I use for this is Rewardstyle, but you can also check out Zanox, which doesn’t have any requirements for admission.
Product placement
Once you’re getting the hang of blogging, brands will find their way to your inbox, asking whether you ‘would like it if we send you a product for free’. You can take this two ways. Either you think it’s fun that you’re receiving something for free, or you think it’s odd that a brand asks for free promotion. If you don’t feel comfortable working for free you should decide on a fee. A lot of brands will tell you they have no budget available, so then it’s up to you to decide if you like the item and still want to use it. In case you plan on using the item for free you can of course make up your own rules. It’s your blog after all. So if a brand then asks you to promote them on Instagram, to use a special hashtag or include their links, you shouldn’t feel obliged to do this.
Brand campaigns
Traditional ways of advertising aren’t as popular as they used to be. Nowadays a lot of brands ask blogs to spread their message. For this type of collaboration the marketing department will send you a proposal with a hashtag and number/type of posts. Traditionally campaigns are what a brand spends a big amount of their marketing budget on, so don’t sell yourself short on this one. Being part of a campaign means making a decent amount of money.
Sponsored posts
Instead of a campaign this is usually just one post, promoting one particular thing. This can be all sorts of things, like a new collection or growing the brands social channels. You can also think of a giveaway, which is a great way of bringing attention to a brand. If you get approached a lot for this type of post, it will definitely be a good idea to set up a going rate.
Brand ambassador
Being a brand ambassador is kind of like a side job. A brand can ask you to write a certain number of posts a month on them, attend their events and basically promote every bit of news they have. There’s a couple of things you want to keep in mind when doing this. Only do this when it’s for a brand you really love and when it’s a paid gig. If it’s paid, this means you’ll get a steady fee every month, which is pretty awesome. If it isn’t paid you’re still working with a contract, which makes it hard to ever ask a fee for anything you’ll do for the brand.
Online shop
If you have a product or service to sell, you just found yourself the perfect channel to sell it on! You already have an audience reading and loving everything you post and stand for. So if you’re a designer, sell your designs. Thinking of setting up a t-shirt line? Wearing the t-shirts on your own blog will give your readers all the more reason to buy them.
Banner space
Banner space is kind of like advertising space in a magazine. I think that’s exactly the reason why it doesn’t really work on my blog, but maybe it works on yours. You can give it a try by adding some banners from an affiliate network. If your conversion does turn out to be high, this is data you want to send along when you’re ever selling banner space.
If there’s any specific questions that are left unanswered, let me know! Keep your eyes peeled for plenty more tips to come.
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