9 smart ways to boost your blog & biz income without working yourself to tears (#1 might just be more lucrative than a course!) - Meera Kothand | Email Marketing Strategist (2024)

If only there were little tweaks you could make to give your income a boost….

And better yet, if you could create it once and have it work for youon auto every single time.

Maybe you’re already making some money from your blog or business…

Maybe you haven’t but are itching to get started…

This post is about giving you a fresh perspective on how you can optimize your business for profit.

Most of the strategies shared in this post are based around 2 simple principles:

• It’s always easier to sell to an existing customer than to win a new customer
• Make the first sale quickly and make it an easy yes
  

I assure you that you won’t have to cry ugly tears trying to set up the tech…

…or have to save 6 months to buy fancy software. You don’t have to learn any complex marketing jargon either.

Want to dive deeper? Get instant access to my FREE Masterclass ‘DISCOVER THE 5—KEYSto exponentially grow your audience, brand and incomewithoutburnout’even ifyou’re a clueless ‘new to internet marketing’ solopreneur’. Click hereor the image below!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these resources, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I recommend these products only because I have experience with them and use them for my own business. For more info, read my disclosure policy here. *This post is an extensive update of the original post which was published in April 2017*

#1 Create THIS. Not a course!

Thinking about adding a digital product?

No, don’t start with a course!

(Note: I have big thoughts on that which you can read here and here)

The quickest type of offer you can create is a bite-sized offer or tripwire.

A tripwire is a low-ticket product usually offered as soon as someone signs up to your email list.

These are usually e-books, mini-guides, videos, audio files, templates, cheat sheets, or reports.

Your product should preferably be under $50. I’ve seen tripwires at various price points from $7, $17, $29, and $39.

There are 5 aspects to atrip wire strategy:

1. A simple product
2. A salespage
3. Creating a Pathway
4. Creating urgency – An evergreen timer
5. File delivery + Payment Processor

Your simple product

Studies say that people are more likely to buy from you asecond time if they’ve done it before.

The idea behind a tripwire is to get more people to open their wallets for you. To get more buyers on your list – not just subscribers.It’s meant to showcase your expertise.

Creating your product is the most intensive aspect of the trip wire. I’m not going to cover the product creation process here and will save that for another post.

But now let’s dive into the other aspects of this strategy.

Sales page

Once you have your product, you need to craft your sales page.

While some email service providers come with landing pages, not all of them are suitable for use as a sales page. Most landing pages provided by email service providers are only suitable for lead generation.

If you’re looking for a sales page tool, I recommend Thrive Landing Pages. It’s a drag and drop builder with plug and play sales pages that you just need to fill your text and images with.

If you’re hyperventilating just thinking about creating a sales page, hang tight. I have a video walk-through below to show you how easy it is.

Creating a pathway

You have your product and sales page.

Now you need to think about how you’re going to get people to that sales page to view your tripwire offer.

There are different ways you can introduce your tripwire to your subscriber.

• You can do it as soon as they opt-in
  • Plot out which blog posts are closely related to the tripwire product you created. How will that trip wire lead into your other core products? Once you have this mapped, create a content upgrade or free resource readers can opt-in to on that post.
  • Once someone opts into the free resource, they are redirected to a sales page cum ‘thank you’ page. This is easy to set-up in a tool like Convertkit.
  • A point to note: Give instructions to your subscriber. Why are they seeing this sales page and where’s their download? Have a sentence at the very top of the sales page to address this. I’ve given an example of my tripwire page below.

• You can also introduce your tripwire via an email sequenceor email course.

Createurgency

Notice how many course creators say that their sales rolled in at the last hour?

That’s because the ticking clock pushes people to make a purchasing decision.

Urgency is a good sales tool.

Expiring bonuses, price increases and time-sensitive offers are a few ways to create urgency.

For tripwires, because of their low price point, time sensitivity is the easiest way to create urgency.

You want toinclude a countdown timer to inject this urgency.

But what is key here is an evergreen countdown timer.

An evergreen countdown timer is one that is not tied to a date or time.

This means that 2 different people can sign up for the same resource in January or Julyand both of them will still be shown thetrip wire sales page. This usually works through cookies or by identifying your IP address.

So even if you access the page via a different browser, the timer doesn’t start fresh but continues or redirects to an expired page or original price sales page if the timer has lapsed.

Note: Motionmail app is a free countdown timer plugin but this works for fixed time periods and not for evergreen offers.

Deadline Funnel and Thrive Ultimatum are examples of paid plugins that give you the option of having evergreen countdown timers. These also have a whole range of other functionalities.

File Delivery

You can connect your payment button directly to PayPal.

Or you could use a tool like Sendowl or getDPD to handle the file delivery for you.

I currently useSendowl.

And it’s as easy as uploading your file, grabbing the quick sell link, and once you have this, linking your sales page ‘BUY NOW’button to that link.

Another option is to simply use PayPal and integrate it with your email service provider.

If you’re using Convertkit, you can use simple automations like these:

Purchased ‘Product A’ – Tag as Purchased Product A –Tag Added – Subscribe to Sequence A

This will trigger sequence A witha welcome email which has the link to either drop box or google drive where you can place yourproduct.

Here’s an example of how this comes together on my tripwire page:

• I have an instruction up top
• I have urgency
• I’ve made the file delivery automatic

Note: Need a more detailed walk-through of Thrive? Check out this post which walks you through the entire landing page set-up and integration with your email service provider.

#2 Your shop page doesn’t work but THIS does…

You launched a product.

It sold like gangbusters in the first 2 weeks.

Then it started to all go downhill…

Sales dwindled in the third week.

It comes fully to a halt in the fourth week.

You’re feeling like a sleazeball for constantly emailing your list…reminding them about the product.

Now, this happens…

To all of us.

But what you don’t want to do is exhaust your email list.

Yes, you may have loyal subscribers who love your work.

But sometimes your product isn’t a good fit and as many times as you share it, there are only a set number of people hearing about it every week.

So it’s unlikely you’re going to have new buyers from that existing email list.

One of the best things you can do to give your income a boost is to create an evergreen sequence.

An evergreen sequence sells your product on auto to new subscribers…it gets a continuous set of eyeballs on your product.

It’s not difficult to set up your first evergreen sequence. See this post if you haven’t done this before.

But hang on…

You can’t just have your evergreen email sequence.

You need a pathway for people to get on it.

Make sure that you’re promoting posts and other pieces of content that have gated content like a video or a content upgrade that new subscribers can sign-up for.

Then link these new subscribers to that email sequence.

#3 The dead simplest strategy

Raise your prices.

Rolling your eyes?

I get it. I mean it’s duh right.

The quickest way to boost your blog and business income is by raising prices.

And it’s necessary to review your prices periodically,

Has your expertise or online reputation grown

Do you have more testimonials to show for?

Does your price reflect your brand story?

Is it aligned with the results you’re promising?

Because here’s the thing…

Misalignment can happen in so many different ways.

Price can not be aligned with the value or promise of your offer…

Your ideal buyer can also not aligned with the price you’re offering. Do they buy into that price and believe that for the promise you’re offering, the price is valid?

The story you’re telling and your business values can also not be aligned with price …

And when these happen, you do yourself more harm than good.

So consider your existing offers and where they stand in the marketplace.

How can you align your price with your audience, story, promise and business values?

#4 Increase each customer transaction amount

You can do this strategically through upsells and cross-sells.

These are the complementary products to your main offer.

They either help the buyer solve a similar problem or a different aspect of the same problem.

The key thing to note is relevance and price congruence.

The way you create your upsell page is the same as that of a tripwire.

You need a sales page, a file delivery system as well as a way to create urgency. You also need to provide directions.

It can be confusing for a purchaser to land on a page to be sold something else when they haven’t gotten their hands on the initial product they purchased.

Your headline, in this case, should be clear.

It should confirm their sale, tell them where they can get the item they purchased and whattheir follow up stepsare.

Here are 2 of my examples.

#6 Before you add a new revenue stream

Never put all your eggs in one basket.

That’s what we’re told and rightfully so.

Over the past 2 plus years I’ve slowly added more revenue streams:

• Digital product sales (multiple offers)
• Affiliate income
• Book royalties (from multiple books)

I can add a whole lot more.

But I’m also wary of what I’m adding into the mix.

I don’t want to add an income stream that doesn’t gel with my zone of genius…that ends up feeling more like a chore and takes up more resources.

So more isn’t necessarily better.

It’s about the quality of that income stream.

Not all revenue is good revenue or derived from your zone of genius.

When you operate in your zone of genius you deliver offers and programs that get the best results for your audience.

Bad revenue though is work that’s draining, which you would cull if you could…that requires a large number of resources but still doesn’t deliver your best.

So before you consider adding a completely new revenue stream, think about how you can get deeper or wider on an existing revenue source that you enjoy and delivers your best.

#7 Maximize your revenue streams

How can you maximize what you already have?

By these 2 ways…

Deepen the transformation

Look for ways to increase value to clients and customers.

Can you add an extra pricing tier to existing products?

Can you charge more to bundle coaching or a done-for-you element to an existing line of digital products?

Widen the options

Where are you missing out on more eyeballs?

Can you expand the reach of a particular product by offering it in a different medium or selling it on multiple marketplaces?

You don’t always have to add completely new revenue streams. You can go deeper and wider into your existing revenue streams.

#8 Add a downsell

A downsell is a cheaper priced item you offer people who have not bought your core offer or main product during an evergreen sale or launch.

You have already primed this audience. So don’t let go of this opportunity.

Just because someone doesn’t buy from you doesn’t mean that they don’t like your product. Consider that it wasn’t the right time.

Offer a lower priced item that helps them with one aspect of their pain point…something that gives them a quick win.

You can also set-up a downsell to go out on auto.

This is pretty simple to set-up in Convertkit.

You can have a downsell sales page set-up just like you did for your tripwire and upsell.

Set up a new email sequence which offers your downsell product.

Wondering how to write these emails? I cover this in detailin my course The Profitable Email System.

Add an automation rule in Convertkit.

Anyone who visits your sales page is added to this downsell sequence if they don’t buy your core product.

#9 Address those bottlenecks in your sales funnel!

Where does your marketing need tightening?

Think through your marketing systems specifically in these four areas.

Can you create more pathways into a sequence that’s already converting?

Do you have a good conversion rate but don’t have enough leads into your sequence?

How can you redesign workflow and systems so that you decrease cart abandonment?

Do you need to address any confusion that subscribers have with your sales process?

Is there something they’ve been asking for when it comes to the sales process that you could ad dor tweak?

Sometimes, something as simple as adding an extra payment option can boost your income.

#10 Add a bonus to your affiliate offers

Your email list is an important part of the affiliate marketing strategy.

If you are consistent in the messaging you send and the products you promote, your list will start to trust your recommendations.

My email listhas been instrumental in boosting my affiliate income.

Whileyou shouldn’t be afraid to email your list every now and thenwith an affiliate offer, balance is essential.

When there are heavyweight affiliate promotions going on at the same time like those of summits or ultimate bundle flash sales, you need to view it from the point of view of your subscriber.

They are going to bebombarded with the samesales messages from everyone else.

This means that they may be seeing thesame cookie cutter email templates from 10 different people.

Be authentic about why you’re promoting the product and if it’s right for them.

To sweeten the deal, add in an extra bonus to say thank you if they do decide to purchase from your link.

There are many different types of bonuses that you can offer. For example, if you were promoting a course you could sweeten the deal by adding a related ebook for free.

Other possible bonus ideas include:

• A Private Facebook group for those who purchase the product
• Free video masterclass
• Templates etc.

So think of some possible bonus ideas.

Want to go a step further?

Create an email sequence for an evergreen affiliate product – one that’s always available for sale.

Yes, all the principles of how you would create an email sequence are still the same. Only difference…you’re pitching an affiliate product and not your own.

Which strategy are you trying?

There are plenty of ways to boost your blog income and these are just a few of them. Which strategy are you itching to try?

Ready to discover the 5—KEYS to exponentially grow your audience, brand and incomewithoutburnout’even ifyou’re a clueless ‘new to internet marketing’ solopreneur’. Click hereor the image below!