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March 2017 Blog Income Report

Today we start a new chapter in the blog.  Heather and I have decided it is time to start sharing our income figures on a monthly basis by creating a monthly income report for the blog.

We have discussed this idea many times over the past years, but for various reasons, we always decided against it.

Our thought process on this has now changed and here is why:

• We are hoping that these reports will motivate other bloggers, both new and established, and help them attain their own income goals.
• This is an easy way to motivate ourselves and make ourselves accountable for our business goals
• I have recently started working on the blog full time.  Since I am more of a business and numbers guy, this is the exact type of project that I love.
• Reading other income reports over the years has motivated us and shown us what is possible.  Now, we are ready to devote time each month to preparing these reports, and we hope others will find inspiration and tips from reading ours too.

Blogging can be a great way to earn an income, and the lifestyle associated with it is simply amazing.

If you are new to the blog, here is a little bit about us and what we do:

It’s A Lovely Life is a lifestyle and travel blog.  We love to share about products and services that make life better and easier. We also travel the world 150+ days a year as a family, featuring resorts and many family friendly destinations.

Heather is the main writer for the blog, and she has been blogging for about 10 years now. She started writing about budgeting and saving money and gradually transitioned to writing about our lifestyle and travel. She has built this blog to what it is, and she loves every second of it.

I have been a licensed real estate broker for the past 10 years, owning our own successful brokerage. At the beginning of 2017, we made the decision for me to work on the blog full-time because the income potential is so great. I learned so much in the real estate world that will directly benefit our blogging business.

Just 5 years ago, the climate in the blogging world was much different than it is right now. At that time, there were very limited opportunities for bloggers to make money unless you had an enormous following.

The climate in 2017 is completely different. Brands are clamoring to work with bloggers to feature their products and services in the form of sponsored posts.  Sponsored posts are essentially advertisements, but are crafted in a natural way that is much more effective than standard print and online ads.

For the past 4 years, the majority of our blog income was derived from sponsored content. Each year our blog income has increased dramatically and it shows no signs of slowing down.  As our following and traffic grew, we were able to increase our sponsored post rate and stay very selective in what brands we choose to work with.

Our income has risen to the level that Heather and I can work together, and we absolutely love it! There is no more commuting to work for me (unless we are traveling for a story) and we are able to spend much more time together as a family. When it really comes down to it, that is the most important thing of all.

A few years ago, we started to get involved more with travel blogging, and we are so glad we did! Last year we traveled 150 days out of the year to Cancun (twice), Hawaii, A 19 Day Tour of Florida, A Dude Ranch in Tucson, Aruba, Jamaica, Virginia, Maryland, Austin, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin Dells, Colorado Springs, Park City Utah, all over California, and more.  We were hosted on these trips, and in most locations, we received VIP treatment!

While the travel blogging does not contribute to the majority of our income, it is increasing. We feel the travel blogging market is still in its infancy as many resorts and destinations are now beginning to offer payment in exchange for sponsored coverage.

We also have gotten heavily into video over the last year.  We film some standard vlogs, travel vlogs, room and resort tours, as well as some short funny videos. We have also been hired to do numerous sponsored video content projects over the past year for lifestyle and travel. According to all the research, video will become increasingly important, and we want to be poised to take advantage of that.

In March we have added a major aspect to what we do. We are helping other bloggers out on a more formal basis to increase their income and incorporate travel blogging into what they do. Heather has always had a passion for helping other bloggers in any way that she can. We decided it was time to organize her knowledge and we just introduced the following two courses in March:

• Start A Money Making Blog – Free 5-day Email Crash Course (click the link to signup) – This course was designed for new bloggers to help them start a money-making blog the right way
• Start A Travel Blog – Free 5-day Email Crash Course (click the link to signup) – this course is designed for new bloggers or established bloggers that are interested in the world of travel blogging

So far, the results have been amazing.  Over 1000 people have signed up over the past 2 weeks, and we plan on expanding our marketing considerably over the coming weeks.

We are currently working on extensive courses on both money making blogging and travel blogging. These will be premium courses that we offer for sale. Due to the volume of content, they are not ready yet….but they should be ready soon.

Most of our signups for the free courses come from spending on Facebook ads. In the past, we have resisted spending on Facebook ads because we love free traffic (who doesn’t). But, in order to reliably increase signups, we knew we needed to spend a considerable amount on ads to make this happen.

Facebook ads are a difficult thing to master, but after some trial and error and a LOT of research, we have been able to gradually decrease the cost per new subscriber. We know we need to dramatically increase our email subscriber list in order to hit our future income goals.

In March we dove into the world of affiliate marketing.

We have always resisted this area, and have solely focused on income from sponsored content. 

While we still plan that sponsored content will be a major portion of our blogging income, we realize that we are leaving a considerable amount of income on the table without affiliate marketing.

Going forward, we will increase our affiliate marketing efforts for those products and services we love. This will increase our income as well as help our readers get matched up with things that they will hopefully love too!

Before we get into the numbers, I want to make it clear that everything we have done can be done by anyone else. Blogging is not rocket science!  You just need some knowledge and persistence and YOU too can duplicate or surpass our results.

So, without further delay, let’s get to the fun stuff.  

Here are our income figures for March 2017:

Sponsored Posts for It’s A Lovely Life and Sponsored Content Written For Other Websites: $29,997

Sponsored Video Projects: $3000

Sponsored Travel: $2995

Sponsored Social Content: $75

Affiliate Income: $1,742.75

Breakdown of Affiliate Income:

• SiteGround: $1,400
• Fiverr: $60
• Revive Social: $123.75
• Amazon: $6
• iGain: (survey offers) $89
• MaxBounty: (survey offers) $64

Total Income March 2017: $37,809.75

***Please note that much of the income listed above has not been received yet. These figures are based on projects committed or contracted during March. Some of the projects have been completed already, and some have not. For the purposes of these income reports, we will recognize the income in the month in which the work is committed or contracted. It also includes affiliate income generated. In both cases, there is sometimes a lengthy delay between this step and when the funds are actually received. We have left out individual names of sponsors for their privacy.

Since this is our first official income report blog post, we will also give you some year to date information because we have not shared it yet:

January 2017 Blog Income: $28,346.00

February 2017 Income: $29,220.00

1st Quarter 2017 Income (Jan, Feb, March): $95,375.75

***For now, we will not detail our exact expenses aside from providing a list of tools that we use to run the blogging business. Please note that we have many additional expenses not reflected in this report that relates to our overall business operations, and are not specific to the blog. Since we have our own company, we are responsible for many other expenses and taxes (health insurance, retirement plans, tax preparation, legal fees, etc) that would be too extensive to document in this report.

Expenses & Blogging Tools that we pay for:

• Bluehost – Web hosting
• ConvertKit – Email list service designed for 
• Facebook Ads – Used to drive signups for our free email courses and build our email list. We spent $1,376.45 in March 2017.
• Tailwind – Pinterest Scheduling
• Revive Social 
• Grammarly Premium – helps me with my Grammar!
• Social Warfare Plugin – Premium plugin that makes posts easily shareable
• PicMonkey – Premium version. We use it for video thumbnail editing, Pinterest images, and various graphic design projects for the blog
• Canva and stock images – Paid version
• Stock Images Package – Read this post for more information
• Video Editing – We have most of our video content edited for us
• Themeforest 
• Pretty Link Pro 
• Fiverr – mostly miscellaneous graphic design work
• Google Apps for Business – Gmail, google drive, calendar, etc.
• Namecheap & Godaddy – domain registrations
• Virtual Assistants

From the list above, you can see that our list of expenses for the blog are extensive. However, many of these tools and expenses are things that helped us get to where we are today.  Over the years we have tried out many additional services and tools that did not work out, but the above list of items is crucial for our success.

Overall, we are very pleased with our March 2017 income of $39,709.45.  Our year to date income of $94,975.75 brings us a little short of our goal of $100,000 in the first quarter of 2017, but we were really close.

One thing I would like to note is that we turned down numerous opportunities for sponsored opportunities that were not a great fit for the site. At this point in our development, it is very important for us to only work with brands that align closely with our vision. We have learned that this really helps to increase our revenue in the long run.

As for travel blogging in March, we took an overnight staycation at Pechanga Resort in Temecula, CA. We also took a 2 night/3 day trip to work with a Visitor Bureau. We did not take any major trips in March due to some commitments we had at home this month.

Here are our top goals and priorities for April 2017:

• Continue increasing our sponsored post income. We love working with brands to tell their stories to our readers and are really looking forward to some really great springtime posts.
• Grow our email list to 5,000 this month
• Increase our affiliate income substantially. Since this was a new area for us in March, we are learning the ropes and should be able to really increase our April affiliate income
• Launch our money making blogger course. This is going to be a huge guide where we share everything that we have learned to make the substantial money we make on our blog. If you want to sign up to be notified when the course is released you can add your email here and we will keep you updated on the release.
• Book additional sponsored family travel destinations for 2017
• Substantially grow our brand new Facebook groups: Start A Money Making Blog (those interested in starting a blog), Money Making Bloggers (existing bloggers that want to earn more), Start A Travel Blog (those interested in starting a travel blog or adding travel to their existing sites) 

Our blog is our business….a business that produces a substantial income for us and allows us to travel the world to some amazing destinations.  It also provides us access to amazing events that are simply not available to the general public.

As you might have guessed, this makes us big fans of blogging. The best part about it all is that it is a business that requires very little investment to start (only $59/yr with our recommended host), no inventory to buy, and can be done either full or part-time on your own schedule.

The sky is the limit for blogging and we would love to help you on your own journey!  There is great information in these free email courses and we urge you to click the links to signup:

Start A Money Making Blog – 5-day Email Crash Course – this free course was designed for new bloggers to help them start a money making blog the right way

Start A Travel Blog – 5-day Email Crash Course – this free course is designed for new bloggers or established bloggers that are interested in the world of travel blogging

Also, we would love for you to join our Facebook groups.  These are private groups, so click the links to request access:

Start A Money Making Blog – for those interested in starting a blog

Start A Travel Blog – for those interested in starting a travel blog or adding travel to their existing sites

So that’s a wrap for the March 2017 Blog income report.  Follow along each month as we detail our money-making efforts on the blog.  

Remember, this is something that you can duplicate too.  You just need to have a plan in place and the persistence to pull it off.  We’d love to hear about YOUR blogging journey in the comments below.