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Small Business Marketing Strategies

Why your email list isn’t growing as fast as you want

By Christian

Why aren't people signing up for your email list? Why aren't they buying what you're selling? The answer is a lot simpler than you may realize...

Building a solid email list of people who want to hear from you regularly is the single most important thing you can do as a small business owner. A targeted, responsive email list makes everything else so much easier. Wouldn’t you agree? Yet many of us struggle with how to get this done, so I want to give you a specific example from my own business.

What People Want to Hear vs What They Need to Hear

As a sales trainer, I’ve always had to tell people what they NEED to hear. If I spent all my time with clients telling them what they WANT to hear, we’d never make any progress. When it comes to getting results you simply have to do what it takes. Short cuts don’t work. We all know this, right?

I’ve spent the last few months sharing on this blog what I’ve learned about how to produce results for real. I know how to sell…been doing it online and offline for over 10 years. But importantly, the fact that I know this topic isn’t what causes people to sign up for my list. They only sign up when I tell them what they WANT to hear first. That’s how we get started. I can only tell people what they need to hear after I first tell them what they want to hear.

Here’s an interesting tidbit…I changed my opt-in forms a while back and promised a quick, simple solution to starting a profitable business blog (the most common request from my paying consulting clients so far)…my opt in rates immediately rose between 200%-1000%. Overall, an average 400% increase across the site. Consider the impact of this. I changed NOTHING about the blog or myself. I’m selling the exact same stuff I was before. All I changed was the packaging! Here are some questions to consider:

  • Can you see the value in this?
  • Would you be willing to repackage yourself as well?
  • Do you feel this would somehow diminish the value you offer people?
  • Do you believe telling people what they want to hear is dishonest?

Current Perception (NOT actual value) = Value

Would you like to see a 400% increase in your results as well? Then carefully criticize your marketing message, your headlines, your tweets, etc. Are you simply “giving valuable information”? Or are you “telling people what they want to hear”? Go back and look at what you’ve done so far, and you might be surprised at how often you’re failing to CONNECT with your audience. It’s an honest mistake. We all do it.

See…information is only valuable if it’s acted upon. And no one acts on information just because YOU know it to be effective. This is really important: they have to PERCEIVE it to be effective. Put another way…you can’t sell what’s actually going to be helpful to people. It’s silly, but it’s true. People only buy what they PERCEIVE to be valuable. See the difference? It’s huge.

So, the buyer’s CURRENT PERCEPTION is what you need to connect with. That’s why people keep buying crappy get-rich-quick products. They promise to deliver what the buyer PERCEIVES is a solution for them. But you are different. YOU are going to sell them something that actually helps them, right? But first you need to realize that your headlines and sales messages should not attempt to communicate the ACTUAL VALUE of what you’re selling! Your sales process, in order to be effective, must actually engage the buyer’s current perceptions of value.

…as a marketer you need to realize that purchases (or opt-ins to your email list) are made at the point of intersection between perceived value and communicated value…

What do your buyers want?

They want a quick fix. You don’t even need to research this. Trust me; every market is the same in this regard. They want to make more money…NOW. They want six pack abs…NOW. They want to find their dream home…NOW. And they don’t want to have to come up with a down payment (of course). You get the idea.

In other words, they want something completely ridiculous, and it’s your job to engage that desire. Notice I didn’t say it’s your job to give them what they want. This is a very important distinction. It’s simply your job to ENGAGE their current perceptions of value. You’re not selling them a piece of junk, because you’re not a scam artist, but as a marketer you need to realize that purchases (or opt-ins to your email list) are made at the point of intersection between perceived value and communicated value. In other words, your message must intersect with what they’re looking for…which is a quick fix. Unless that occurs, the buyer is not engaged, and no sale…no opt-in takes place.

Conversely, if your message DOES engage their perceived value, they can hardly help themselves. Your offer becomes so much more compelling, because you’re speaking to them directly. You’re meeting them on their turf. You’re making the extra effort to communicate to them that you actually understand what they want.

Questions

  • How does your marketing hold up to this criteria so far?
  • Are you going to go back and figure out a way to increase your conversions by 400%?
  • Does this “repackaging” concept not sit well with you; do you feel it’s dishonest?
  • Can you think of an example where you really felt you had a great offer, but it failed to connect or get the result you had hoped for?
  • Is there anything I can do to clarify or help you implement this concept in your business?

I honestly feel this one single concept can completely change the course of your business. I’ve seen it happen again and again. One tweak, and everything changes. I hope this article gives you some fuel for improving your marketing dramatically. As always, comment or email with your questions or concerns:-)

Are You Using These 3 Deceptively Easy Ways to be Exceptional in Your Business Niche?

By Christian

There are easy ways to be exceptional in your business niche. You don't have to be act like a dork or have some stupid gimmick.

It’s easy to be exceptional. We just over-complicate it. Can we agree that it’s very important to be exceptional in your niche? Building a website isn’t enough, is it? Just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. You need to be exceptional. If we’re not exceptional, why should anyone buy from us?

This article is about how to be exceptional in your niche, even if it’s highly competitive. And the answer is way, way simpler than you may realize.

Don’t be a Red Hat Realtor

There is a small real estate team in my town, and they all wear red hats. That’s their marketing angle. Red hats. Genius, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, surely people will stand up and take notice of them now, right?

Would you notice a Realtor because they wear a red hat? It’s possible, I suppose. But would you be more inclined to do BUSINESS with that Realtor due to the fact that they wear a red hat? In most cases, I’d wager (and hope!) the answer is no. The red hat is bad schtick. It represents nothing substantive. Schtick can be done well, but this is not the case with the Red Hat Realtors. It’s horrible marketing, and it’s a great illustration of where many of us go wrong more often than we’d like to admit.

Many of us seem to be convinced that we need a gimmick in order to get business. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Being exceptional is much simpler than that.

Let me know if you disagree, but I see a massively huge difference between merely getting attention and actually building influence with your customers. Given the choice, which would you prefer?

  1. Getting lots of attention
  2. Building real, significant influence in your niche

Let’s focus on the latter, shall we?

The Attention Myth

You may be inclined to ask about the value of getting people’s attention. Don’t we need to get people’s attention first in order to influence them? Perhaps the Red Hat Realtors are onto something after all.

It’s true that attention is more scarce than ever. But what is the solution? Bigger and bigger ads? Louder and louder ads? More and more funny looking hats? Look at Times Square in NYC. You can walk straight through some of the biggest, most expensive advertisements on the planet and in five minutes not be able to recall any of the marketing you just witnessed. I’ve done it. It is fun to walk amongst all the lights and energy, but it doesn’t make you want to actually buy anything. So why do businesses continue to spend bazillions on horrible ads that don’t work? Because they don’t know how to be exceptional.

Advertisements have gotten so loud and overbearing that everything has become a din. This isn’t a recent change. It’s old news. Yet most marketers have still failed to adapt. Here’s what we need to realize:

  • Just because something is scarce (i.e. attention) doesn’t mean it’s valuable.
  • Quiet is the new loud.
  • Authenticity is the new schtick (and the only schtick).
  • Influence is the new attention.
  • You don’t have to be loud to be exceptional.

You don’t need to get people’s attention at all. What you need is clout. And you get clout by being exceptional. When you’re exceptional, attention comes to you automatically. You cannot “get” people’s attention. Their attention is theirs. It’s not yours to take.

The Exceptional Mistake

Many of us at our core, don’t believe we’re exceptional. This is a costly mistake…and it’s the reason we think we need to do something gimmicky in order to stand out. You are exceptional, actually. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be in business for very long if you don’t believe in yourself. You can get away with it for a while if you have a huge advertising budget, but even then you have to pick up the slack with actual awesomeness, or it’s all doomed.

If you don’t believe you have anything of exceptional value to offer your customers, you need to go back to the drawing board. Don’t be out there making offers you don’t believe in. I’m in earnest. If you’re not awesome, the best thing you can do is stop trying to sell anything at all and do some soul searching. Do more research. Focus on your education for a while. Meditate. Find yourself. It’s worth the time it will take, because when you find your inner-awesomeness, there will be no stopping you. This may sound pretty simplistic, but it’s really true. There are so few awesome marketers out there, you will rise to the top automatically when you truly believe in yourself.

3 Deceptively Easy Ways to be Exceptional

The most awesome ways of being exceptional are also deceptively simple. Remember, are we trying to merely garner more attention? Or is our goal to get serious clout and influence with our target audience? If your focus is the latter, then the following list is an awesome place to start. It’s not about marketing tricks. Being exceptional is simple. Soak these in and let me know what you think…

Mind Your Biznas

Properly managed businesses tend to last. Do you know how to read a balance sheet? Are you familiar with how write up a profit and loss? Fortunes are lost on genius and great ideas all the time, due to poor management. Pizazz makes millions; it also fritters them away. If you want pizazz, run a big expensive ad. See where that gets you. If you want influence, you have to build it brick by brick. Rise to the top by simply outlasting everyone else. It probably won’t take nearly as long as you think. Stay in business. If you stay in the black, you’re already better than 95% of your competition. Be present.

Now that’s pretty boring isn’t it? But give it a whirl. Work hard in your business and stick around for five years, and then come tell me you’re not one of the top contenders in your niche. I dare you. Most blogs only last a few months. We’re so impatient, so focused on finding some ninja tactic or trick to becoming an overnight sensation in our business, that we overlook the fact that we’re ALREADY in the process of completing the most crucial first step to success. The first prerequisite to success is simply remaining in business. This uber-effective, highly classified ninja tactic is underestimated by almost everyone. I encourage you to give it a second look.

Work More

If you regularly clock out along with the 9-5’ers, there are only two explanations. One, you don’t like what you’re doing, in which case you need to change gears. Two, you actually BELIEVE Frank Kern when he tells you that a successful business can be purchased in a box for $1997. I love Frank and employ Kernsian marketing tactics in my business, but you see where I’m going with this. Hard work cannot be divorced from entrepreneurship. If Frank has to work his tail off to make his millions, so do you and I.

Be Yourself

This is a tough one, isn’t it? We often think that standing out means being loud or in some ways being something we’re not. In business there is a difference between standing out and having clout. Don’t be a Red Hat Realtor. Successful marketers will tell you that clout is not intrinsically coupled with acting like a clown. The last thing you want is a lot of attention and no substance. What a horrible place to be, because not only will tons of people not be buying from you, but they’ll also be TALKING about why they’re not buying from you.

Substance and value draw a different kind of attention. They draw the kind of attention you actually want. Top marketers will also tell you that a lot of serious money is being made quietly by marketers you’ve never heard of, probably because they’re just not in your niche. And that’s fine. Don’t get cornered into thinking you need to be loud or have millions of people in your database to be successful. Being yourself is not only sufficient, it’s exceptional. When you’re authentic, you realize there is no competition after all. What a beautiful place to be.

Is This Really Enough?

Can business really be this simple? Just be yourself, work hard and manage the heck out of your business? I know I’d be crazy to tell you there are no other options, so instead I encourage you to go find me some. Find a way to forcefully grab people’s attention that will result in meaningful, sustainable profitability. I’ll wait right here.

But I won’t be holding my breath 🙂

Authenticity is the mother of all real value, and real value is not only sustainable and profitable, it’s also…well, real. What more do we need?

How To Set The Price For Your Product Or Service

By Christian

There has been a lot of commentary lately about pricing, and I wanted to throw a quick idea at you to see what you think. Most recently (and popularly) Chris Brogan mentioned that he charges $22k for a day of one-on-one consulting. Many of his readers were appalled that he charges so much. Many thought it was well within reason. It was an interesting discussion. How do you feel about it?

How To Look At Pricing

Not everything is free! Pricing your product is a key concern, and it's a lot simpler than many of us make it out to be!

Anyone who sells anything has to approach the issue of pricing at some point. What is the correct price for your product or service? It’s natural to ask yourself “what is my offering worth?”, but I’d like to submit that isn’t necessarily the most helpful way to look at it. Let’s say you’re writing an ebook. What is an ebook full of truly valuable information worth?

You can probably see where I’m going with this. An ebook is not worth a fixed amount. I’ve seen ebooks given away for free…sold for $17…sold for $97…sold for $997. Is the thousand dollar ebook ten times longer than the hundred dollar product? Is the length of the book what justifies a higher price tag? Is the value of the information what defines the price you charge? If that’s the case, how do you quantify the true value of the information contained in your product?

Doesn’t it seem like it should be easier than this? I think it is. I think pricing is just another area where we allow our brains to do way too much work. In fact, it’s fairly simple. You can charge whatever you want for what you’re selling. End of story.

Pricing Is Subjective

Is it wrong for Brogan to charge $22k for a day of his time? Wrong? Unethical? I just can’t see how it could possibly be construed as wrong to charge what people are obviously willing to pay. It seems to me that $22k is probably a lot of money for most people. However, does that mean it’s a lot of money for EVERYONE? Of course it’s not. To many people, $22k isn’t that big a deal, especially if they’re getting something in return that’s greater in value.

I’d spend $22k all day long if I’m getting significantly more back in value…how bout you?

That’s the point…$22k is only a lot of money if the value is not there. If you can take what you learn from that day with Chris Brogan, and apply it to your company and go on to earn more, how can that possibly be construed as wrong or overpriced? I bet most (if not ALL) of the people who complained about Chris’ rate were people who have not used his one-on-one consulting…people who are NOT in his one-on-one consulting target market.

It’s a mistake to view a marketing piece for which you are not in the target market and use your personal disinterest as an argument as to why the marketing must be faulty. You’re not in the target market…OF COURSE you’re not interested. Why would you be?

Pricing is subjective…your product and your time is worth what people are willing to pay. Chris later explained that his intentions were to price his service at a rate that would get him only a few clients per month. He doesn’t have the time or inclination to take on more than that, and the price he set intentionally rules out anyone who is not going to be able to fully utilize the value he offers. He’s selling to a very specific target market, and we should all do the same.

What is a day of YOUR time worth? What is an HOUR of your time worth? What is your product worth? There is no one answer.

Don’t ask yourself what the value of your offering is. Ask yourself instead WHO you’re selling to, and then determine what they’re willing to pay. You can determine via testing, research, surveying or trial and error. That’s your price. Your price is not some magic number that’s the “right” number. There is no right price, and consequently there is certainly no wrong price.

Most Of Us Would Like To Earn More From Our Business, Correct?

I wrote an article for Blog for Profit recently which encouraged readers to consider dramatically increasing the price of what you’re selling. It’s not a prescription for everyone, but it’s something to consider. At least look at the option and the benefits of selling at a higher price…even a considerably higher price. There are a lot of positive benefits to consider. I hope you’ll think it over.

There Will Always Be Complainers, And There Will Always Be Happy Customers

Finally, consider that no matter what you charge you’re going to come across people who aren’t in your target market. No matter what you do, you are not selling to everyone. You’re only selling to a specific demographic. One of the natural side effects of this is that many people who view your offer will not connect with it. Some of them will complain.
I don’t care if you’re charging $17 or $1700 for whatever you’re selling…some people are going to complain and say “what a piece of crap; I can’t believe you’re charging that much. I can get that information for free just by using google, blah, blah”. And you will also get many happy paying customers. Don’t let the naysayers sway you. They’re simply not in your target market.
There is no wrong price for your product. No price is too high. As a matter of fact, the higher the price the better you must connect with your market. That’s not necessarily a bad thing is it?

Pricing Is Packaging

Pricing is nothing more than a way of positioning your product and targeting a specific audience. What is your product worth? It depends 100% on who you're selling to!

I’d submit that pricing is nothing more than an element of packaging. It’s a marketing component. An important one…but it’s nothing more than that. Do you wrack your brains trying to determine the right color in which to package your ebook? Color is important, and it certainly has an effect, but we don’t typically argue over it. We typically don’t get complaints from people saying “how dare you use red in your ebook cover…that’s so last year. If you had used blue, I would have bought it, but now I’m history.” But when it comes to price…it involves money, so people get emotionally wrapped up in it.
When you use red in your marketing, users either connect with it or they don’t. There is little emotion involved. But when you charge $1,000 or $10,000 instead of $100, some people get upset. As a marketer and business owner, it’s essential to understand that pricing is simply a tool you can use to position your product. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s not a matter of right and wrong; it’s just marketing.
If someone gets upset about your pricing, it’s not because you’ve misused pricing or done anything wrong. You’ve simply positioned your product in a place that’s not appropriate to the complaining customer, and they are choosing to react emotionally.

Value Is Not Optional

All this said, value is not optional. If what you’re selling is crap, then the consumer is going to call you on it. And that’s the way it should be. If you’re going to use any price other than rock bottom, you need quality on your side.
We live in a world that is fascinated with rock bottom pricing, and rock bottom quality is a result of that. If you’re selling at premium price points, quality is the price of entry into that forum. If you’re good at what you do, you have a world of options at your disposal with regards to pricing, and I encourage you to explore your options without inhibition. You are worth more than you think you are!
Did you happen to read Chris Brogan’s article and the ensuing comments? I was amazed at how negative some people can get when it comes to money. What are your feelings on this? Is there such a thing as a “right” price?

How to Make Money Blogging Pt 2

By Christian

Hi guys! Well I promised a follow up on the last post about making money with your blog. As it turns out, I will be doing a few of these. I appreciate the emails I got on the last one. Interestingly also, most of them came in via Facebook. I like that the Facebook crowd is reading Next Level Blogger. Much thanks! I understand that a lot of you are concerned with getting some cash flow coming in from your blogging efforts quickly, so of course I am more than happy to describe what I’ve done and what works well for me. I welcome questions, comments and confused glances. This stuff is actually pretty simple when you look at it!

As a new blogger, you can make money talking with your readers on the phone. Do you truly have expertise to offer? Charge for your personal time. It's the simplest, most straightforward way to monetize when you're new 🙂 It sure as heck beats what you'll make with Adsense!

Making Money with Services

As I described in the last post, the traditional methods of producing cash flow from a site are things I usually avoid. So if I’m not going to put ads up and monetize that way, what are the alternatives? Making money with services is a no-brainer way to get started. This is where the bulk of my income from Next Level Blogger comes from currently. The thing about offering a service is that there’s no set up time. Simply put up a page describing your service, and voila, you’re in business.

I have a caveat about doing consulting, and it is this: it takes a lot of time. It’s not really scalable, so it’s not a long term focus for me, but it’s a great way to get income started right away. I’m a big fan of my time and value it highly. This is probably true for you also. As a result, I do not consider consulting an ideal long term business model. This is why a lot of consultants charge $250 an hour, $400 an hour or more. It minimizes the time commitment and ensures that the time you spend ear to ear with clients is as hard-hitting, focused and as valuable as possible. That said, working for an hourly rate is a way you can get off the ground quickly and getting some income going right away.

There’s an important point here that I don’t want to be overlooked. Many of you think this doesn’t apply to you, but it does. I know some of you have already written this off as not applicable to your business. If so, you’re wrong 🙂 Hear me out. A lot of you are small business owners. A lot of the people I’ve consulted with are network marketers, Realtors, attorneys, etc. You already have a business, and it’s not a consulting business. So therefore, this method of income generation doesn’t apply to you, correct? I’d argue no…you’re dead wrong.

One of the beauties of blogging is that it can open up entirely new income streams that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Creating a service is certainly an example of this for many businesses.

Right before creating Next Level Blogger, I was doing affiliate marketing exclusively for income (granted, my own flavor of affiliate marketing…I tend to do very little by the book), so does that mean my blog needed to be about affiliate marketing exclusively? Does it mean I can only write about affiliate marketing and only continue making money through affiliate marketing? Of course not! I have 10 years of sales experience and have been selling online in different capacities (PPC, Ebay, Yahoo Stores, ghost writing to name a few) for over 6 years. So why put myself in an affiliate marketing box? I can cover a lot of ground when it comes to marketing.

How does this relate to YOUR business? I see a lot of small business owners put themselves in a box unnecessarily. One of the industries I’ve worked with most heavily recently is real estate. Real estate professionals are really good (no offense guys!) at viewing their business in only one very limited way. List a house, find a buyer, get a commission. Go list another house, find another buyer, get a commission. No problem with that model I suppose, but what the heck is wrong with opening up your opportunity a little bit? Create some new income streams for yourself! I’ve written about many ways to do this, but a great way is by offering a service via your blog. What’s wrong with offering your real estate consulting over the phone? What’s wrong with knocking out a call or two with your blog readers before going on your regular appointments for the day? To me, making $150 an hour (my current rate at the time of this post) is no way to get rich, but it sure is a fine way to fill in some gaps 🙂

What is your niche? Where is the area of your true expertise? Who can you really help in a targeted way? Don’t underestimate yourself!

A lot of professionals I speak with get locked into just working out of their office and ignore the fact that the people reading their site who don’t necessarily even live in their state, could use their help also! Don’t ignore that opportunity!

If you’re truly an expert in a certain area that is valuable to others, you not only have a perfect foundation for starting a great blog, you have a perfect foundation for starting a powerful service. Do you have to do this? Of course not. I’m just sharing what’s worked well for me, and offering a service got income coming in the first month for me. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. I got an email from a guy that wasn’t even a subscriber. He’d never left a comment on the site or anything. I was barely up and running, and he hired me for a few hours. I was so excited I made something like $500 my first month blogging 🙂

Do you think I would have been hired for that job if I hadn’t made an offer? No way. All I did was put up a page with a service offer, and bam. It’s not a lot of money admittedly, but very few blogs make $500 their first month. And it sure beats putting up some Adsense like most bloggers do. That would have made me maybe $3.

I will write a more in depth article shortly covering some basics tips on creating a service for your blog, so keep an eye out for that.

I’m also not quite finished with this make money from blogging series. There are a few more points I will be covering in the next post or two. In the meantime, I encourage any questions or comments, and I’ll make sure to include any questions in future content 🙂

How to Make Money Blogging Pt 1

By Christian

Making money with a blog really has to be one of the biggest concerns out there I suppose, so I want to address it directly. There are different approaches of course, and I can only speak to the techniques I’ve personally employed, what has worked well for me and what HASN’T worked well for me. This will be a two-part rundown of what has not worked for me…and what has 😉

Today I’ll cover a couple things I’ve tried that have failed for me. I’ll follow up shortly with more info on what DOES work for me, and what I’m doing today to generate income from blogging.

My Blogging Failures

First off, I’ve failed in a number of areas over the last few years since I’ve been blogging and building niche sites. I made many mistakes when I first started, so hopefully you can read this and avoid the same time wasters. Monetizing a site is always a concern if you’re doing something as a business, and the two most common ways of monetizing are through ads and affiliate marketing.

Making Money with Ads

There are a number of ways to do this on your site. Adsense is the most common way to put ads on your site when you’re small and just starting. A lot of beginners don’t realize that putting ads on your site isn’t something you can just do on a whim, expect through Adsense. If you’re new and wanting to monetize your site, you’ll likely go down this path a bit and look into putting some ads on your site.

Hopefully I can save you some time here…what you’ll find is that most ad networks won’t even talk to you. Why? You don’t yet have the high level of traffic they’re looking for. The most popular networks really want you to have a high level of traffic to start. What do I mean by that? Requirements vary from vendor to vendor of course, but I’ll say it this way: if you’re not getting at least 50k visitors a month on a regular basis, your prospects will be limited. Some vendors won’t be interested til you get into six figures or higher. Adsense doesn’t have this requirement though. This makes Adsense highly accessible and easy to implement.

Adsense is also very simple to optimize and style to your site. How does it pay? It pays fairly well actually, if you compare what most other ad networks pay. The problem is that if you aren’t getting a high level of traffic, Adsense is not going to pay you more than a few dollars (I mean that quite literally) per month.

What do I mean by saying it pays well then? It pays well on a per visitor basis.

It’s important to understand that the larger ad networks (like Federated Media and others) don’t pay much better according to my research. It’s just that monetizing with ads does indeed pay well, if you’re bringing in a large number of visitors. If you’re not, it doesn’t. That’s pretty much all she wrote. Even A-list bloggers rarely depend solely on advertising income. There’s also a growing trend for well-established bloggers to be trimming back or even removing their ads altogether. They’re concentrating on much more profitable income sources. Even when you are getting tons of traffic, advertising still rarely cuts it on its own.

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another avenue I tried when I was first starting. I didn’t sell a single thing. Nothing. This is just my personal experience. I’ve since learned how to do affiliate marketing more effectively, and it’s a terrific way to earn some extra money. It is not in any way a significant source of income for me at this point, but earning an extra few hundred bucks here and there is not something I’m gonna turn down 🙂

That said, most beginners (like me too when I was first starting) just put up some affiliate banners in their sidebar and wait for the orders to come in. In most cases, they just don’t.

As is the case with most things, you can overcome lack of skill with sheer numbers. Will you sell some product by simply placing an ad in your sidebar when you’re pulling in a ton of visitors? Yes, of course. If 200,000 people hit your site in any given month, it’s likely someone is going to click through and buy something.

I’d like to say I have no problem with this form of monetizing, except for one thing…it simply doesn’t apply to most sites. Yet ironically, it’s what most people try. And then when it doesn’t work, people conclude that “blogging doesn’t work”. It’s a massively incorrect conclusion to draw, although I understand why it happens.

These are the most common avenues I see new bloggers take, and they almost never work…for the same reasons. Hopefully you can read this and save yourself some headaches. However, let me assure you that there are some effective ways a new blogger can generate income. If you’ve read Next Level Blogger for a while, you already know…my experience is specifically in small niche websites. I generate 100% of my income online, and I don’t have a single website that pulls in more than 5-6k visitors a month.

I’m a blogging advocate for a reason! You can most definitely generate a good income and lifestyle with your blog. Even after only running this blog for a short time, I’m already seeing a significant change in the way I do business, and I expect this process to continue. This is what I’ll use to continue in Part 2. That is where I’ll cover some things that really work for me, and they’ll work for you too. In the meantime, please comment or contact me any feedback or questions. Talk to you more soon. Thanks!