Lets say you built your community, reached your goals, everyone loves the blogs. How does this affect the bottom line? Is (should) there be income coming from this?
Monetizing Your Blog
There are several ways you can create income from the traffic and community you built with your blog. Among them:
- Sell advertising (either normal or text)
- Promote events to push ticket sales
- Link to items in your online shop
- Push memberships
- Promote "specials"
- Enable reader donations
- Offer "paid" content
Pitfalls of Cashing In
Unlike many other areas of your site, blogs tend to connect more with readers. As such there's an inherent relationship readers and writers tend to build with each other. Because of this normal marketing rules really do not apply.
Blog readers tend to shun traditional marketing. What they once viewed as open and honest, perhaps unfiltered dialogue, can easily turn when readers feel you're trying to take advantage of that in cashing in. Many readers tend to stop reading when this happens.
Finding a Balance
The first thing to remember is that there are probably already other areas of your site where traditional marking is not only accepted, but wanted. Say you're online calendar, ticketing app, or online shop. Readers of these expect to be marketed to and usually want to be.
This does not mean you cannot use marketing on blogs, it just needs to be a different kind of marketing. You should also realize that not everyone reading your blog is in the area that your institution is. The Google Geo Map is a great way to see this. Driving ticket sales may not even be the best way to boost income if a majority of your blog readers can't make it to your institution!
Do's and Don'ts
Here are some ideas of ways to help the bottom line without alienating the close relationship you have with your blog readers.
Do:
- Link to events if you're writing about them. Perhaps mention it as a footnote to your article. Give the people the opportunity to find out more if they want to.
- Link to associated material for sale. Again this should be a simple link if you're already writing about the material for sale, say an exhibition catalog.
- Write posts that pique interest. Behind the scenes, reader reviews, interviews with the artists, all of these things make people *want* to buy tickets, etc, witout coming out and saying BUY TICKETS HERE.
- Think about the bigger picture. The community you build are people who are taking a more vested interest in your institution. They don't need to be hit over the head with marketing. Building relationships is more important that selling just one more ticket.
Don't:
- Load your blog with banner ads. Nothing kills a blog faster.
- Post last minute "Buy tickets to XXX tonight!" posts. These are not informative, not why people subscribed, and will fill your blog archives with useless out of date garbage. An email blast is much more effective for this.
- Write posts that are soley about selling something. There are better places for this (calendar, shop), and tears down the relationship you've built with readers.
- Take your readers for granted.
It's really about being smart. Many times building your brand and building exposure is even more important than a quick sale *right now*. Nobody wants to be part of a community that is later taken advantage of. If you treat your blog readers like you would treat your friends, you'll have much more success in not only building a great blog community but also positively impacting your bottom line.