9 Ways to Achieve Diversification of Income as a Blogger

I am a big advocate of diversifying your income as much as possible when you are a blogger. The flow of income and projects can be very unpredictable and certain streams can even stop. You are much better prepared to have money coming in from various places to ensure you hit your income targets.

I thought it would be of value to explain my different sources of income and a bit about each of them.

Branded Campaigns

Five years of blogging in a niche area means I am well known in the UK and am a go-to blogger in the personal finance world. Brands will approach me to create content for them for product launches or promotions. Recent work over the past few months has included Aldi, Talk Talk, Gumtree, Natwest and AXA IM. These campaigns will be across the blog, YouTube, social channels, newsletters, whatever the brand wants!

This content is sometimes a showcase of the new product or brand but might also be some natural searchable content that people really want to read with a mention of the brand at the end of the post.

This branded campaign income can be inconsistent and is often paid 30 days or even 60 after invoicing so cash flow can be tough to manage if this is your sole source of income. For example the summer months of July and August are pretty tough for campaign work, now I have three years of history this repeats every year.

Affiliate Marketing

Its great to run this income stream alongside the sponsored posts. Maybe you can set up affiliate links within the sponsored post content. I have certainly done this successfully with energy saving content with affiliate links to brands or uSwitch for comparison on energy brands.

Affiliate marketing though is a tough nut to crack. I learnt most of what I know from Emma Drew, whom is the undisputed queen of affiliate marketing, so good she runs this course. She knows exactly how to create an audience whom want to buy the products she is talking about. And a commission is earned upon each sale. This has no impact on the price the customer pays you just earn a fee for the recommendation.

Once I learnt from Emma how to do affiliate marketing properly, I managed to grow my income up to several hundred per month.

Writing for Media and Case Study Work

I have written content for newspapers and magazines and have also appeared as a case study in publications. I have written for or appeared in all sorts, Woman’s Own to iWeekend, the Daily Telegraph, Mail Online to The Sunday Times. These can be incredibly good for your profile if they mention your website and link to it (warning it doesn’t always happen!). Mostly they are paid but not always.

Freelance content for other websites

I also write content for branded websites, normally under my pen-name Mrs Mummypenny personal finance expert. I write a series of content for the PensionBee website on all sorts of topics. Subjects written about have been summer holiday savings tips, I have interviewed some aged 50+ friends on their future financial plans, whatever content is relevant to their plans I will write.

Public speaking

This was something that I set as an objective at the beginning of 2018, I wanted some paid public speaking gigs. It fills me with a huge amount of fear, but this can only be a good thing and I feel more compelled to go for it.

I have done a few public speaking jobs this year talking to the general public and talking on video for YouTube channels for brands.

Product sales

Many successful bloggers, once they have built up a following, offer products to their audience. Maybe they are an expert at a particular skill and have built a course to share their knowledge. I have tried this to a degree of success. I co-wrote the book Blogging Your Way To Riches, which two years on still brings in passive income. And did very well when self-published in Nov 2016.

Coaching is a popular service that I offer. I can help anyone to come up with the perfect commercial pricing structure depending on their niche, social numbers and time blogging. I have experimented with a course on how to make money out of blogging, but to be honest without much success. Maybe I need to rethink that model!

User Testing

These are great jobs when they come in and require you to be a user tester of a product or service. I love doing these jobs giving my honest feedback on a product. Or maybe trying to break an app to spot the flaws before it goes live.

Blog Advertising

This is something that I haven’t made much money from, as until the beginning of Nov 2018 I was using AdSense. But I have now switched my Blog advertising provider over to Mediavine and the income is considerable higher. This is a lovely passive flow of income. Traffic dependant as you do need to have 25k sessions per month. But if you can get there the income is worth it.

Podcast/Radio Show

I host a weekly radio show Mrs Mummypenny Talks on SG1 Radio and turn this into a podcast after the live show has aired. This is still fairly early days having been launched in June 2018, but had the potential earn great revenue. Podcasts and regular shows are often sponsored or there may be payment involved for an interview. I interview people every week who have an interesting story and/or something interesting to tell the listeners about.

I think that’s it for income streams? Is there anything else you do that I have missed? Are there other opportunities that I should be taking full advantage of?