How to Monetize The H#!! Out of a Blog

Greeeetings from San Sebastián / Donostia, Spain!

If you’ve been following my stories on IG, you know that I’m friggin’ obsessed with this place. We came to Spain to scout it out because C’s mom wants to retire here (she’s Costa Rican, of Spanish descent) and so we figured: why not??? My whole goal with running an online business has always been: F-R-E-E-D-O-M. I don’t want to have to live somewhere, be to somewhere, be a prisoner of a place, because to me that means I am a prisoner of my own life. I don’t want have to trade my life for my livelihood. I want to have both.

So, here we are! Tomorrow we might hop in the car and cross into France, too, to check out that scene a little bit—and I don’t mind bringing my work with me, because I’m a full believer that work is love, when it’s done right. That’s the opportunity we all have in front of us, anytime we want it: the ability to do work we care about, without anyone telling us that we can’t, or we’re not good enough, or someone else got the job.

Give yourself the job.

Always give yourself the job.

You are the only person who can.

Which brings me to today’s discussion! Recently, I sent out a note asking for YOUR questions, and one of the questions that came back is a great question for us to unpack today. So often, we don’t start things because we can’t clearly see the path forward: “I love it, but how will I make money with that?! I wish I could be doing that, but I don’t even know where I would get started.”

Right? RIGHT!

The question was:

How do you plan to monetise your Costa Rica blog? What’s the business model?

A simple question, but an answer that I know will lead to plenty of ah-ha moments when it comes to building YOUR thing.

So, the Costa Rica blog! It’s called With Love From Costa Rica, and it’s something I’ve been working on behind the scenes. This is a great example of the type of content that a lot of people would loooove to create (travel! lifestyle! fun!), but then the sneaky question always stops them dead in their tracks: “But how would I make any money???”

Because writing a blog is sort of a dream come true, right? Like, I remember the first time I ever realized people could make money blogging—maybe back in 2007?—I was instantly intrigued. Who was paying these people to do this thing? Who was offering these fantastic jobs?

That was my first mistake. Of course, when you’re used to spending your life working for another person, the first thing you assume is that the only way to get a job like that is when another person gives it to you. Now, you know what I think about THAT: totally fine, but totally not the only way! Or even the best way, considering that they’re going to pay that writer a fixed amount of money on contract, but you could make WAY more money doing this yourself. But, creating a career out of blogging is one of those things where you have to learn to think differently about the way value is created. Because this is how you make money: by creating value.

Ugh, what an annoying statement, right? “By creating value.” WTF does that even mean? I know, I know. Don’t worry, I got you! But first, I want you to consider any blog, newsletter or Instagram you follow, and I want you to think about why. It’s because you get something out of it, right?

What you get are one (or more) of these 3 things:

• Inspiration
• Entertainment
• Information

So, for example, I follow tons of interior design accounts because I want to be inspired, I want to gather ideas, I want to influence my own style via osmosis. That falls under the inspiration category.

On the other hand, I also follow @overheardnewyork & @overheardlondon because I DIE every time they post. The things people say! But this isn’t really to inspire me—this is just for sheer entertainment. It brings me DELIGHT. (And you can sell delight if you do it right.)

And finally, I follow accounts with amazing tips and know-how. Since I fly often, travel tips are useful to me. This falls under the information category.

All three of these give me different types of value—and typically, whatever you’re creating will fall under one of these categories. However, if you can combine inspiration or information with entertainment, that’s going to outperform straight-up information, for example, because a big part of being ON the internet is being entertained…even if you’re Googling for something mundane.

This is the foundation of everything you do, because it’s the only way that you can make people care about what you’re doing. Sure, you can start a blog documenting the number of times your Uncle John says the word “dipshit,” but it’s of little use to the rest of the world. So, start with your reader in mind: how can you inspire, entertain, or inform?

Once you do that, you know what you’re going to have next?

Attention.

This is THE currency of the internet—and it’s how bloggers of all types actually make money. But not just bloggers: all media companies. Forever and ever and ever and ever, this has been true: traditionally, it’s how TV networks make money, it’s how newspapers make money, it’s how magazines make money. Not with their content, but with the attention they get from their content.

When you have attention, you have demand.

Because attention is what can be monetized.

And not just the way you’re thinking.

Traditionally, companies like TV networks and newspapers and magazines sold attention in the form of ads. We’ve got X number of eyeballs, and you can pay us for access: here’s what it costs.

Now! This model is NOT dead, by any means. Think about all the podcasts you listen to, and all of the sponsorships (ads) that you hear there. Think about the IG accounts you follow who do “sponsored posts.” These are all creators who have earned attention with their content, so now they can turn around and sell that attention as a form of revenue. You want access to my audience? There’s a paywall.

This is one of the #1 ways that blogs earn money: by monetizing the attention they receive. However, one limitation is obvious: you can’t earn money if you don’t have any attention! So this business model is a tricky one, because it means you’ve got to reach a certain level of success before you can monetize. That said, you’d be surprised at how few followers you can have and STILL get brand partnerships if you’re very focused + specialized with your content.

^^^That, right there, is why most people don’t get started. The assumption is that you’ve got to be BIG in order for blogging to work for you. But that’s not the case! You don’t have to be big, you just have to be good at finding the right people. That’s what marketing is all about, and you can do all sorts of things to get in front of the right people: you can pay for ads, you can pitch articles, you can get on podcasts, you can speak, you can use the hell out of social media. The point is, you’re hanging out where they’re hanging out. That’s REALLY all that marketing is!

If you can do THAT, you can start a blog—because that means you can hijack attention and monetize in other ways.

What are those other ways?

Lots—beyond selling advertising!

1. You can become an affiliate and affiliate other people’s products. All you need is attention and a product match, and boom.
2. You can write an eBook.
3. You can create an online course.
4. You can start a paid newsletter.
5. You can offer a service.
6. You can create a mastermind.
7. You can run a paid community.

The sky’s the limit! You can literally sell anything once you’ve got content and people flowing to that content: the key is matching that audience with the right product or service.

Now, you might notice that few of those are “passive,” meaning you don’t just get paid to write your own content and then march through a field of daisies. However, once you get a few of these things set up? Then you can just create content and let the products sell themselves. (Thanks, systems!)

SO, that’s the very long way of getting to the heart of the question: what am I doing with the Costa Rica blog? How am I going to monetize that?

Here’s the business model for With Love From Costa Rica:

1. I’m producing a fun, irreverent travel guide called, “Don’t Be a Tourist Boob in Costa Rica.” It’s my signature style, applied to everything I know about visiting the country. (After a million years of living there, I sure do know lots of tricks!) This will be an entry-level product, and all new subscribers will be pitched the travel guide on auto-pilot.
2. I’m creating a course for nomads who want to move to Costa Rica: “Don’t Be an Expat Boob in Costa Rica.” This is the next tier up in terms of value, and is a great natural progression to target the subset of buyers who love it so much, they want to move there. (Like, everyone.) The reason why I’m doing a course for them, and not for tourists, is because tourists don’t buy courses on traveling to countries: but expats buy courses on moving to them. My content, however, is broad enough that it attracts both groups.
3. I’m looking into creating a paid community for expats moving to Costa Rica—the next tier up, where you pay for continued access, can ask specific questions, plan your move, get help, find resources, etc. This is a bit more tricky because I’ll have to hire on staff to moderate the community, but it’s also not tricky at all because I happen to know lots of super qualified folks who work in tourism and would LOVE this job. I could moderate it myself, but I always go back to my overarching goal with business, and that’s F-R-E-E-D-O-M. So, I want the work that I create to be as scalable as possible, too.
4. And finally, because Carlos, my partner (The Tall Costa Rican from The Middle Finger Project book!) just recently sold his tourism company, I figured this would be a nice opportunity for him, too, in the event that he would like to run with it at some point: he could easily offer 1:1 trip or relocation consulting. Costa Rica is kind of tricky because not a lot of stuff is published, like apartments for rent, and requires you to pretty much be on the ground and know someone or have a contact who knows someone. So, him and a team of people we could assemble would make for excellent consultants. After doing it his entire life, he can literally do this in his sleep—and it’s a fun way for him to also market a new wine tour he’s considering doing when we’re in the country. How’s THIS for a fun idea: we were brainstorming ways to monetize wine in Costa Rica, since this is what C is currently studying (and why we’re here in Europe!), buuuuutttt of course, wine is not an industry in the rainforest, so wine tastings seem out of place. However, there are plenty of tourists who drink wine, and seek out good wine for their gorgeous rental homes and their guests—but even a decent selection is hard to find. So we may explore leasing a beautiful space where we can create a high-end wine market & tasting experience of: “The History of Costa Rican Told Through Wine.” Isn’t that cute?! I’ll GLADLY take credit for that hella cool idea. We can talk about being conquered by Spaniards as we a sip Spanish Albariño, talk about the French influence as we sip on a French Bordeaux, talk about Portugal, and Germany, and Taiwan, and other cultures that have influenced modern-day Costa Rica. (Yes! Taiwan came and built Costa Rica a bridge in 2003 called “Puente de la Amistad,” or “Friendship Bridge.”)

SO, ANYWAY, WE HAVE IDEAS!

I have tonnns of ideas.

Right now, I’m focused on creating a network of behind-the-scenes systems that will work to attract, subscribe, and convert on auto-pilot, because what I want to do with this blog is not so much be known for it, as much as I want it to serve me as a passive revenue stream.

Mostly, I just like having options. I like taking my knowledge and creating businesses out of it. That’s what blogging really is: a way to monetize what you know. And YES, I recommend you do it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES. It’s not going away, and the way we use the internet is only going to grow: so please, make yourself a part of that ecosystem. And do not worry about things like “oh, but that’s already being done.” Who cares! There are already tons of Costa Rica blogs, but I know I can do it better. I also know that people don’t buy from you because you are THE END ALL AND BE ALL of a topic: they buy from you because they like your style and they want to know what YOU know. They want your personal views, perspectives, and ideas. This is what content and blogging does for you: it creates a demand for your personal brand.

Have a GREAT week ahead!!!!!

XOXO,

Ash