Okay, business blog owners: This might pop up in your mind a bit too often: How can I make money from my blog? The answers are largely typical: Placing ads, promoting affiliate programs, doing sponsored posts, etc. But one question remains unanswered: How to get brands to place their ads or order a sponsored post on your business blog?
Instead of answering the above questions with my limited knowledge, why don’t we tap the answer from the experts who have done the very thing – and succeed? Well, in this blog post I want to highlight the tips coming from one of the experts.
This person’s name might ring you a bell: Gary Vaynerchuk or also known as his nickname Gary Vee. No? ‘still doesn’t ring a bell?
Okay, let me tell you who he is:
- Businessweek’s top 20 entrepreneur to follow & one of Ask Men’s 2010 most influential men of the year
- A pioneer and expert in social media; an influential author; a great speaker.
- An angel investor of many popular tech startups – Twitter, Path, Uber, Birch Box, Appstack, etc. and an advisor to Disqus, HubSpot, Quirky, etc.
- Offer brand consulting at his own VaynerMedia; a wine enthusiast and run a wine business, as well as its popular website, Wine Library
Whoa.
Just visit this page to learn more about him.
Okay, that’s that for the brief background. So, what’s next? Okay – of many great lessons he share (just search for his name on YouTube and voila!) – this one interest me (in fact, this is also one of Mr. Vaynerchuk’s favorites.) Let’s get down to it, shall we?
Wow. Mind-blowing. Awe-inspiring. Paradigm-shaking. Life-changing.
Some lessons learned
Not only sharing his tips, he puts what he preaches into practices – right away. Here are some lessons we can learn – directly or indirectly – from his video lesson:
1. I’ve got great content – why can’t I make money?
Business bloggers and blog owners often think that their content alone can make them money. I did this sort of thinking, until I realize that no matter how great my content is, no targeted traffic means no business. You see, your content means nothing if nobody read and benefit from it.
“Just build it and they will come” is not working. Not anymore. Whether your business blog is a $10 startup or a $100,000 one, you need to get out there, put on a megaphone and shout aloud to the mass that you are, indeed, exist.
Then you can go to no. 2 below…
2. Want advertisers? Reach out
Sure, when people are flocking to your business blog, chances are, you can start making money from your blog via click or impression-based advertising (e.g. Google AdSense, Clicksor, etc.) But from my experience, the most revenue of my blogs is actually coming from advertisers or media agencies – not ad networks.
But waiting is not enough. If you want to grow your business blog’s revenue, you can’t afford to wait for somebody to come and ask about advertising opportunities; you need to reach out to others as the opportunities do EXIST out there.
So, do you want to get advertisers on your blog? You need to reach out. Period. Want advertisers? Let companies and brands know that you are open for advertising opportunities!
Doing what Gary Vee did is very straightforward: Do Google searches and starts making phone calls. Period. Stop thinking too much and make that decision right now, the Gary Vee-style.
3. Want to close more deals? Offer value
If you notice how Mr. Vaynerchuk talks with the website owner, what he did is actually offering a premise: What if my wine website has 5,000 visitors a day, would that interest you? Well, as a website owner, I know I can get more than just sales from a partner website like that: I’ll also get brand exposure, which can lead to more business outside the wine website I place my ad on.
So, depending on the ad placement pricing and the arrangements in how things work, I’ll take any offers providing me the best value of my money. So, if you want to convince an advertising client to deal with you, offer value. Period.
Takeaway
As you can see from the video, it’s actually simple to start making money from your blog. But the question is, are you willing to hustle the way Gary Vaynerchuk does? Are you ready to take action, not waiting for 3 days but for only 3 seconds? Your answer will determine whether your business blog will make $100 a month or $10,000 a month.
So, let’s hustle!
