During a recent group coaching call with my students, one of them asked how to turn blog readers into paying customers. This is an excellent question and one that merits further investigation as bloggers turn into business owners.
It’s true that there is money in blogging. However, most people assume the only way bloggers make money is through ads or sponsorship. That’s one way of doing it (and a lucrative one at that), but you can also turn blog readers into paying customers. In this article, we explain how.
Come up with an offering based on what your readers need.
In the case of this student, they’ve been blogging for a long time. In that time, she’s noticed certain trends and issue among her readers. Part of her homework during group coaching has been to come up with an offering that offers solutions to those issues.
For instance, many bloggers turn into coaches and digital consultants for varying things. Or, they create classes to help their readers with specific problems.
In my own business, I offer group coaching for small business owners who need to improve their digital marketing. I also offer an on-demand class where I teach students how to start a freelance writing career.
Email your list.
While answering this question for my student, I quickly pointed out the importance of an email list. In fact, all but one of my students signed on to the program as a result of an email I sent to my list. I can credit most of my affiliate sales to my email list as well.
A common theme I see among bloggers who want to become business owners is they let their email lists go cold. That means they are not actively communicating with their blog readers via email. It’s a shame, because as many online marketers will tell you, the money is in the list.
What you write in the emails matters as well. There is certainly specific content and copy that makes people more apt to buy. Russell Brunsun has some great email strategies in his book, “Dot Com Secrets.”
Make it easy to purchase items from you.
Another method in which bloggers can turn readers into paying customers is to make it easy to buy. This may look like having an online storefront or offering the ease of purchasing something directly from an email.
This is where online payment processors and shopping carts come in. They allow you to accept multiple forms of payment while giving your customers the ease of being able to purchase something quickly.
Try phone sales.
For higher ticket or a la cart offerings, you may want to try selling on the phone. Here is the exact strategy I used to sell seats to my group coaching program:
- Send out an email with some sort of client story or win.
- Invite individuals to get on the phone for a consult.
- Individual fills out application.
- If the individual seems like a good fit, we get on the phone.
- I sell.
This very simple method led to a launch just shy of five-figures. The incredible part was most of the students are long time blog readers which have turned into paying customers.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve put in the work to build a blog or brand, you can definitely monetize it by turning readers into paying customers. This will give you another avenue of income so you don’t just have to rely on advertisers.
