leadblogging is all about making money from your blog.

Sure, blogging can be fun, but it’s a lot MORE fun to get paid for your efforts. leadblogging allows you to not only get paid, but to get paid well. Today I am going to show you the basics of leadblogging.

But before I get into the basics of lead blogging, I want to share with you the funniest April Fool’s come back I have heard in a long time (PG-13)…

My friend Mike called me April 1 to tell me–in his most serious tone–that his wife was pregnant. I caught on pretty fast since I already know:

1. His wife has had her tubes tied after the birth of their last child
2. No one calls you on April 1st to tell you they are pregnant

But that’s not the funny part. In fact, calling someone and convincing them your wife is preggers is not even that original. What was original is what happened next.

After calling me he called our mutual friend John. After Mike tells him his wife is pregnant, John replied: “That’s not possible. I was wearing a condom.”

Classic.

Now back to leadblogging.

If you think about a typical blog, monetization works something like this:

Traffic +
Well Placed Ads on the Site =
Profit

In most cases the typical blogger tries to get as much traffic as possible so he can sell ads at the highest price possible and make the most money.

In some cases the content on the site is used to generate more traffic or more clicks.

So if you are getting 100,000 visitors a month, you can make $5,000.00 or so.

But leadblogging looks a little different.

With leadblogging you start out with traffic, but you look at it completely differently.

Traffic +
Trust Building Content +
Compelling Reason For Them to Give You Their Info +
Targeted Active Marketing =
Profit

Let’s break this down:

Traffic

Traffic can come from lots of different sources. You can use all the sources a traditional blogger might use–Google, Blogroll Links, Trackbacks, etc.–but you can also add sources like affiliates and free download sites.

Trust Building Content

With leadblogging your goal is not simply to generate traffic, your goal is to get people in your niche to trust you. Your content should be geared toward that goal.

People come to Full Tilt Blogging to learn something they can’t learn anywhere else: leadblogging. I need to make sure the content I provide shows them I know what I am talking about. They need to trust me.

You need to build trust in your visitors just the same.

Compelling Reason for Them to Give You Their Contact Info

Once a person arrives on your site, they need to have a compelling reason to either sign up for your RSS feed or, better yet, your email list. Visitors can come and go, but once you have a name and email you can gently nudge them to come back again and again. You can also offer them products and services actively.

So you need to have a compelling reason for them to sign up.

Earlier this week I knew my March earnings post was going to be information many people would have a strong desire to see. So, I put up a teaser post, but made the actual information available only to my RSS and email subscribers.

The result: Another 10 people signed up for my email list. If those people are “average,” they’ll make me an additional $230.00 over the next 12 months. That’s one post.

I also offer other incentives like a free book on blogging and a free podcast seminar every week. (By the way…if you haven’t signed up via RSS or email, you need to do so now.)

Targeted Active Marketing

Active marketing is easily defined as asking people to buy a product. That’s it. Most bloggers try to use passive marketing, hoping someone will click on an ad or an affiliate link. Active marketers TELL people to buy.

And when you tell people to buy an amazing thing happens: They actually do.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, the average RSS or email subscriber will buy, based on my recommendations, about $23.00 in products their first year on my list.

Last month I had a dismal showing on lead generation, grabbing only 7.4% of my visitors and adding them to my list–less than 1/2 of what it should be. But even at that low rate, it would only take 35,000 visitors to get me to the $5,000.00 level. And that’s not 35,000 visitors a month, that’s total.

At 200 new visitors a day that means a regular, monthly income of $5,000.00 would take about six months to achieve. Compare that with having to get 100,000 visitors EVERY month using passive marketing.

leadblogging looks better all the time, doesn’t it?

Next week I will break down how to create a compelling subscribe incentive. Stay tuned!

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