If you are just thinking about starting a blog business then you need a strong plan for it and hence reading this post becomes extremely important for you.
A successful blog can be created only if it has a strong plan. You simply cannot launch a site and expect it to work well. Just remember, your blog business plan is the blueprint of your blog.
So, if you wish to start a blog and want to create a strong blog business plan, then here is the best way to create the most efficient one.
Sounds good, so let’s get started!
Why You Need a Blog Business Plan?
A blog business plan is needed to get a real clear direction of vision and goals of your business, ensuring that your plans and thoughts are organized into a single central place. With a blog business plan, it becomes possible to start a successful blog and earn better results.
Hence, to ensure that your blog business plan is an effective one, it is essential to focus on each of its key components.
Key Modules of a Blog Business Plan:
Creating Executive Summary:
The first part of a blog business plan is its ‘executive summary.’ Usually, it is written in the last and must include everything related to your blog business.
Mission Statement:
You need to explain in brief terms about your business. The statement must clearly explain the purpose, and why you created it.
Highlights of the Growth:
If you have already started your blog and are running it for a short time duration, then you can always talk about the growth volume you have achieved. This can be mentioned in order to increase the growth of money you are earning from it. Also, this can be used to increase page views or followers on social media. Highlighting the growth aspects would increase the overall business value of your blog.
Mention About Your Services or Products:
The executive summary of your business plan must talk about your services and products. You can write small sentences about the ways to monetize your business, which you will use or plan to use.
Mention Business Goals:
While talking about your goals, you need to mention the plans for your future. You must be clear about the goals you want your blog to achieve. Also, the summary must talk about certain techniques that can be used in order to achieve business goals.
Brand:
If you are already a brand name, then you must talk about it.
Brand Name:
It is essential that you come up with your brand name. The brand name must be similar to your blog name. Just keep it simple.
Mission and Vision of Your Brand:
It is essential to explain the vision and mission of your blog brand and why you are doing it.
Explain Your Brand Style:
Your branding must appear cohesive. You must create an attractive style of the brand. For this, you need to decide on brand fonts, brand colors, and other aesthetic traits of your brand. This must be included uniformly across the site, social media platforms, and business collaterals.
Brand Values / Vibes:
It is important to pick the values and vibes of your brand that people can get associated with. It must be smart, meaningful, and action-oriented.
Description of Blog Business:
This component is related to tackling the culture and organization of your blog business.
What Makes Your Blog Set Different from Others?
Just think about it, why people would come to your blog. It must be because your blog has something else to offer. Hence, consider how you are different from your competitors and what you need to do, to differentiate yourself from the competition.
What Your Blog Serves?
The plan must basically revolve around the target market. The blog must revolve around important aspects. Without a proper audience, it is difficult to grow the community around a blog or transform it into a full-time business. You need to be clear about what you are serving. Mention about their hobbies, future goals, things they do for living, aspirations, and more.
Explain Your Company Culture:
You might not be running a professional blog business, but still, you have a culture and brand personality to uphold. Explain what the people want to learn from your blog, the words you need to describe the blog’s personality and what purpose the blog serves.
You need to analyze the brand personality and develop a real personality of your blog.
Explain the Structure of Blog Business:
If you presently accept money and run a blog, then you have to file taxes on your income. You can convert your blog in incorporation or LLC to get more customers and clients and protect your business and income from lawsuit things.
Website:
The next important component of an efficient strong blog plan is to talk about your site.
Infrastructure:
You need to consider things like, what your site will be on, where you will host your site and what domain name provider you would use.
Content Planning:
The next aspect to consider is to talk about the topics that have to be included in the content. Having an idea of what your blog content consists will help you save valuable time. It is because this is something that your target audience would need.
Analyzing Your Competition:
Before introducing your blog in a business, it is vital to research the competitors and blogs running just like your business. This will help you stay ahead of others. When you do the research for your competition, then there are some important things you need to consider:
Research with Proper Analysis:
Make sure you look at your competitor’s site and think of numerous ideas on your blog. It is fine if the competitors have a bigger following, can earn bucks, or have another statistic that might make you feel a failure. It is not about comparing with other people, rather it is about analytical thinking and conducting the research.
Identify Your Competitors:
Furthermore, it is essential to make a list of your competitors. Consider other bloggers in your niche and do something similar to you or what you wish to do. Look for other bloggers that have similar offerings and products. You can include a link about their blog on the list.
Research Goals and Strategies of Competitors:
Once you know about your competition, it is then essential to take time and research properly about the goals and strategies. You must visit their social media platforms and websites. Things they are promoting, strategies they are implementing, things that make them different from the competitors, and goals they have.
Identify the Price Points as well as Product Ranges of Your Competitors:
If your competitors are selling any products then jot down the price range for such products. This would provide you an overview of how much money you need to price your product and how much money your target audience is willing to pay.
Make a List of Weaknesses and Strengths of Your Competitors:
Lastly, review your website, offerings, and its strategies to have an idea about what precisely exists in your domain and how other people create their blog communities and businesses. It is now time to go deep into the details and select at least 3 to 5 competitors and create a list of their weaknesses and strengths. In addition to this, you need to use their knowledge to create a well-rounded plan.
Research Your Audience Well:
Besides researching the target market, it is essential to dig deeper into the details and research about your audience well.
Conduct a Survey:
With a survey, you can easily understand your audience. You can perform surveys through free sites and share the same with your peers. I suggest sharing the survey results with an email list on social media platforms and blog multiple times a week.
If you have a small audience or presently non-existing then it is best to focus on social media channels. Twitter and Facebook chats are great to get more details about the target audience. You can join these chats and groups to know about the nature of your target audience.
List Ways to Precisely Help the Audience:
As discussed in the previous step, it is essential to know about your audience specifically and what makes your blog better than others. Here, you don’t have to reinvent anything rather you can employ numerous strategies, which others are doing. But make sure you always add your own personality and flair to each thing you create.
Build a Community:
It is essential to grow the audience and develop a community before introducing or launching your product through a blog. If you wish to grow your blog, then you must buy the eBooks and courses you like. But make sure the eBooks give you enough strategies to create and launch a product and grow your audience as well as traffic. This can be done in the following ways:
Social Media:
You can use social media channels to develop a strong community online. The community offers a strong platform to grow your niche and increase the traffic volume. You can emphasis on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more to find your prospective audience and engage with them.
Email List:
Additionally, you must put the focus on your email list. This will help you sell your products and would also be an excellent medium to connect with the audience.
Humanize the Brand:
If you wish to build a profitable blog community and businesses, you need to humanize the brand. This relates to the steps you need to take in order to get connected to your audience.
Exhibit Your Product or Service:
It is now time to monetize and exhibit your strategies to sell your service or product. Now, you need to turn your blog into a business. Here are a few steps for starting the process.
What You Will Sell?
Think about the service or product that you want to offer to the target market. It can be an EBook, e-course, topic, certain services, or more?
What are the Benefits of Your Product or Service to Your Audience?
The core aim of a blog plan is to serve the audience. These people can turn the blog into a strong community or a business. Think about the ways to monetize that you wish to select and how it will impact your members.
What Makes Your Service or Product Different From Others?
It is of utmost importance to take competitor research for your product or service and the one sold by your competitors. How are your services different from others and what things offer them more value.
Sales and Marketing Strategy:
Finally, you need to create a strong strategy for sales and marketing. It is because after creating the services, it is essential to advertise them.
Ways to Market Your Services, Products, and Blog:
Jot down the means that you will employ to promote your services, products, and blog. You can employ Facebook ads, make tweets, and strategize a strong Pinterest plan to promote your content.
Money You Will Spend on Promotion and Marketing Per Day:
You can turn your blog into a reliable business only if you invest some money in it. Just ensure you identify the time you will be spending on promotion and marketing each week and day.
Launch Strategies:
Finally, you must plan the launching strategies for the blog. Make sure you introduce your blog with great zeal.
Define Your Growth Strategy:
If you want, you can always come up with some growth strategies that can help you grow your brand. Plan the promotion and marketing strategies, which you will use to keep your blog business growing and thriving.
If you are eager to transform your blog into a business, then make sure you follow these steps and head start to your new business plan. Get started!