Niche Blogging: Getting Paid

Now that the new blog is launched, I can go ahead and tell you how I made money from it prior to ever publishing my first post.

photo credit: krisolin

When I started this blog, one of the things I didn’t know was that it would take doing a number of different things to monetize it. I’d read articles where bloggers (most in the technology and social media fields) had been hired to perform services as a result of writing about certain things, and then organizations would reach out to the them to speak or consult on those topics. Not the easiest thing to do here since I talk about so much stuff.

My plan to monetize discountthief.com consisted of seven different methods. I categorized four out of the seven as “long-term”, meaning it would take building up an audience and following in order to make them happen. Still – I wrote them down.

Number 7 on my list was a service.

I had a very vague idea of the service I could possibly offer, but honestly, I didn’t think it would materialize until later. Much later. So as a result, I didn’t have a process or even a description for the service. I hadn’t started brainstorming that far ahead yet.

One Saturday at happy hour with my friend Chris, we were catching up and I mentioned the new blog to her. She was super excited and supportive, as always, and immediately started to tell me how I could offer a service by helping women discount shop. This was along the same lines as what I had envisioned myself.

The next day I had an email from Chris offering to hire me. She’d been wanting to go through her closet and determine what she needed to buy and what things she should part ways with. What she didn’t want to do was pay the approximate $600 for a half-day session with a certified image consultant. She trusted me enough to put her wardrobe and personal style in my hands.

The experience was a success (according to the feedback Chris gave me) and alot of fun! We created several new outfits just by using clothes she already had, and then compiled a shopping list of items and shoes to buy. We headed over to DSW and Marshalls and knocked it out in about 2 ½ hours.

Chris took off her black cardigan and heels and put on  her  bedazzled sandals - one outfit, two ways to wear it.

When Chris told her mom about my new gig and how pleased she was with the outcome, her mom hired me. This was going to be interesting because keep in mind – I didn’t have a system in place to tackle this in person, and figuring out how to accomplish it with an out of town client was sure to be a challenge. I was up for it. Chris’s mom purchased the outfits I picked out and may hire me again to shop for her when she goes on a cruise at the end of the year.

I said to myself: I can do this. I can really do this.

So as of today, my one week old personal style blog has already made a profit. The only thing I invested in was the $10 domain name back in September – with no actual idea of how it would be used.

And now the real work begins. Figuring out a strategy to land more paying clients!