This is a guest post by Kevin Lenton.
Kevin works with companies to build and maintain their online relationships with clients, as well as prepare content geared at high conversion rates. In his spare time he enjoys playing the harmonica – an activity he’s been involved in since the age of 12.
If you want to guest post on this blog, check out my guest post guidelines.
Making money from your blog may seem like a dream, but many people achieve this goal every day. Developing and manufacturing a product to sell takes considerable time and effort and there are many things a blogger should keep in mind before putting their product up for sale. Here are seven things that you should know before manufacturing and monetizing your product.
1. Secure Hosting Service
Bloggers should carefully choose their web hosting service to ensure that their blog files are secure and the company is reliable. Free web hosting services are available, but bloggers who are looking to manufacture and sell a product often need more resources than free blog hosting sites offer.
Regular hosting services will probably charge bloggers a fee for processing each transaction for the products being sold on the blog. The fees add up quickly and can be quite expensive. Bloggers who use Advanced Hosting are able to process their own transactions over a secure connection. This saves money and ensures that the financial information being shared during each transaction is secure.
2. Identify Skills and Background
Everyone has marketable skills, but it may take some time for them to be discovered. Looking at your resume is a great way to figure out your skills. The same skills that are used to get a job can be used to decide what kind of product you would excel at creating. Some people are great at matchmaking, while others are good with finances or pets. Everyone has something they are good at and they can sell this information to others.
Using the experiences you have gone through in your life is a good way to figure out a product to sell. People going through situations such as divorce, bankruptcy, raising special needs children, and more are always looking for advice. Sharing your life experience can be very profitable if you can find the right audience.
3. Know Your Audience
According to a survey conducted by Perseus UK, about 92% of blogs are created by young people, under age 30. These blogs are mainly used for updating friends and family about their lives and generally don’t produce much money.
Bloggers must target the product they are offering to the people who read their blog. If a blog is about finances, any product that is intended to save the buyer money would be a good fit. An e-book about pet food would probably not sell very well on a financial blog.
4. Research
Anyone who is planning to manufacture and sell a product should research the market conditions and check out their competition. With over four million blogs on the web, the product you are planning to sell is likely already available. A unique product is much more likely to sell than one that has already flooded the market. Many people are selling everything they can to stay afloat in the current economy and doing your research will help ensure that the product you are selling is superior to the competition.
5. Types of Products
There are many types of products that bloggers sell to their readers. They include e-books, training courses, tutorials, and videos. E-books are a popular option for bloggers to sell because they can be written about almost anything and don’t cost a lot of money to produce. Videos and tutorials are also popular, but cost more to produce because more equipment and editing is usually required.
Podcasting can be an effective way to generate income. Interested customers can subscribe to your podcasts through PayPal. Some bloggers use affiliate programs to earn money, but they generally earn much less money than bloggers who sell products that they created.
6. Advertising
Even the greatest products will not sell if nobody knows they exist. It’s very important to know your audience and the best way to reach them. Bloggers often create social networking profiles to interact with customers and create an ongoing relationship with the people who read their blog.
Facebook has released statistics that state consumers spend at least 700 billion minutes logged in to their Facebook accounts each month. Much of this time is spent reading posts from companies and their products. Encouraging customers to talk about your company with their friends will likely increase your customer base and the amount of money that is generated.
Email is another way that bloggers advertise their products. Offering customers an incentive to sign up using their email address gives you an easy way to reach them. Contests and discounts are an effective way to introduce customers to new products being offered on your blog and catch their interest.
7. Budget
One of the most important things to consider when manufacturing and monetizing a product you have created is your budget. Each blogger should determine the amount of time and money they are willing to spend to manufacture and sell a product. The type of products a blogger decides to offer for sale on their blog may partially depend on their budget. If the blogger is a great writer it will probably be more cost effective for them to offer an e-book for sale than someone who would have to pay someone else to write their book.
Making Money Using A Blog
Capitalizing on the skills they already have and knowing their target audience are important things for bloggers to consider before creating and manufacturing a product to sell. Bloggers should make sure that their web hosting service is adequate before attempting to sell any products through their blog to ensure their customer’s financial information is secure.
I know the rule of thumb is that you have to spend money in order to make money but I’m not in a position to spend money. I have spent money on my web space but nothing else so far. PayPal charges a whole big 3% to use their services as a seller. They’re extremely reliable so I don’t see why I should use them because of my circumstances.
The budget factor is utmost important, sometimes we know lots of things that can be done for advertising, marketing etc, but we can only work within our budget.
I haven’t sold my own product yet, probably later after I have got enough traffic to my blog.
Thanks for sharing
” about 92% of blogs are created by young people, under age 30.” I think it’s true. I didn’t make money in the start. But it wasn’t due to not targeting right consumer. It was because I never thought about it like that.
Still I’m looking for more ways to monetization.
In blogging, I think, the biggest challenge is to produce good content regularly. For me, the being “regular” is more important.
Do you have solution to that?
Spending a little money to make your blog secure makes sense to me. At first, security doesn’t seem to matter too much, but once your content grows and your audience begins to depend on you, such issues take higher priority. Thanks for the tips!
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for some great information. I did not realize that some hosting companies charged a fee for tranactions. Thanks for that information.
I have not finished my own product yet, but it sure helps when you share information like this, so we don’t have to learn the hard way when we go to selling our own product.
One thing that I have leartned when it comes to blogging is don’t give up. All good things take time and you have to keep moving forward. It is people like you Kevin and Andrew that are a big help in directing us and teaching us.
Thank again and blessing to you,
Debbie
Yeah,I agree with you.
It was the thing to find out when the process of engineering something.
The most important thing I think that is the object and methods to attract audiences.
The next thing is how the ad to bring out the best results.
Do you think ?
Kevin,
Great Post. You’ve made some nice points.
Knowing your audience is very important, i think one can use survey tools or forums to know about their audience.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for these tips.I have a mobile themes store.My site has got good traffic but no one buys it.But when i upload it on their main site ie their official store people buy it.All i need is to know how to make visitors of my website to buy themes.also do i have to create separate sitemap for sub domain?
I think you have mentioned all major points needed to start manufacturing own product. But I will say that never ever enter any niche just for making money, if you don’t like it and don’t have any interest then you can help your readers will latest info in your market and will face problem while communication too.
I think you should create a knowledge base for your products first to determine every aspect of of it before going public. There are instances that you might have thought you know every thing about you product but you might discover something else. It may lead you to unveil its full potential 🙂
The Facebook statistic that you mention, that consumers spend at least 700 billion minutes logged in to their Facebook accounts each month, was astonishing to me at first, then I thought about how many Facebook users there are around the world 🙂 Still, there’s no denying the fact that people spend an increasingly large amount of time on Facebook. This really helps solidify the fact that social media platforms are the wave of the future and so important for those who want to establish their business online.
Hi Kevin,
you have made 7 important points that those of us who are looking to monetize their own products should pay attention to.
The research part is extremely important. I have found that reading comments in relevant forums is a great way to evaluate the market. I remember when I was looking to make a Calorie Counter, reading hundreds of comments in forums helped me understand what features dieters wanted to see in an online calorie counter.
I have started to selling my own e-book but getting failed with a little success, not like my expected. It’s really hard !
Hi Kevin,
This post of yours is really informative on how to manufacture and monetize your own products. I agree with you on the part of identifying skills and background. If one is very knowledgeable and passionate about blogging, then they can really convince others on this subject. If others are knowledgeable about insurance, gadgets, etc, then they are the ones to go to concerning their specific subjects. Thanks for sharing!
Nice post Kevin,
I really want to emphasize the importance of research and knowing your market. You can never know too much! Especially if your marketing a site towards something you are not personally passionate about, you really have to put in the time and research to understand your target market.
Otherwise your product will likely flop. Great post again.
It is important that you love what you are marketing and you enjoy doing it. You have a
hard time doing it if you are not personally passionate about it…thanks for sharing this
article!