0 to profitable in how many days?
For those of you who are regulars around here, you’ll know that my personal posts are generally few and far between. However, sometimes a story is just too good not to share – so stick with me..
My sister Claire, in the current madness that is the recession – is in the unfortunate position of both building (and financing) a new home, and unfortunately being recently made redundant.
Now before you all reach for your violins – let me tell you a bit about Claire.
Claire lives and breathes to write. She started her own blog about a year after I started my own, in 2008 during maternity leave, partly as a creative outlet, partly as a diary of the massive changes going on in her life with the birth of her son.
Already a proven talent in writing having worked her way up the ranks as a journalist firstly in a local paper, followed by employment as editor of a regional magazine, she continued to build her audience in her spare time as a hobby. What started out as initially a bit of a blogspot page, made more sense to move to a website of its own – and WordPress as it grew.
However, the blog in its previous capacity, was (I think she’ll be happy admit) a little more than a hobby, and something to work in her spare time. That said, it has gained traction, and her personal and eloquent writing style has built a loyal following. If I had half the command of the English language that she had, I’d be ten times more successful as a blogger. She can truly make words dance off the page.
Roll on a couple of years, and the current situation is this: The magazine has sold to another buyer – who in an attempt to save it has no space for Claire’s position, leaving her out of work. To add to the fun and games, her and her husband have started building a new house (which was a blog post of frustration to get planning permission for in itself).
With the housing market being the way it is, their existing house has sat on the market for an age, refused to sell and left them with two mortgages to pay, on one persons salary. Existing job positions have come along that simply don’t make economic sense, as the price of childcare and travel end up with her just breaking even at the end of the month.
Not so much fun.
So here’s the craic.
Claire has approached me to take her blog to the next level, and to actually get it generating revenue to help with things. I’m under no illusion, blogging as a business is probably one of the hardest ways to make money, but what it does do, is give her the flexibility to work at home, for herself whilst looking after her little boy. It’s not going to happen overnight, but with hard work and elbow grease, I’m confident it can at least make a little impact on her finances. It’s also the perfect scenario whilst waiting for a job to come along to show that she’s not just planning on sitting on her laurels -as, if nothing else, it showcases her writing work and creative talents perfectly.
So, over the past two months or so, in between keeping my own blog updated, juggling work, and life, I’ve eventually managed to create a more commercial WordPress theme, with room for advertising, and more editorial content.It’s been a challenging build, with a few creative uses of the existing WordPress platform.
A new design however, does not a successful blog make. There are a number of things we are planning on doing, and hopefully this post is the start of documenting the strategy, and shares with you guys just where we are. In my eyes, there simply isn’t enough of this kind of case study / site growth information on the net, i.e. going from a standing start to building an actual business with traffic. This project is perfect, as I can have both creative control over the design, recommend high traffic content for Claire to write and develop the site further. Its a challenge I’m absolutely relishing, and one that fits perfectly into what I’m all about.
Week 1 – Day 1.
The story so far..
We’ve already managed to build a pre-existing presence brand page on Facebook – prior to the new site going live, and without I might add, advertising the Facebook page elsewhere on the web. This shows that you can start marketing and building an appetite for a product prior to launch using social media. Claire has an existing personal Twitter account, which she has managed to put to good use in growing a presence there as well. Take home tip? Leverage should never be underestimated online – so if you have existing traffic elsewhere, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with channelling to new projects to help them get off the ground.
First things first we’ve got planned promotion wise for this week -
1) A competition post, announcing the site – and giving away a video baby monitor.
2) A guest post on another larger site. (will link to when its up)
3) This post explaining what we are up to.
From a bottom line point of view, the first thing I’ve started to do, is retrospectively link up any product to an appropriate affiliate program. If you can buy it, its getting an affiliate link. I’ve asked Claire to maintain an affiliates database so she can maximise return per post, and per product.
To do’s for me this week?
1) Implement Google Adsense into the post design, and start looking at implementing a forum.
2) Document the financials in a spreadsheet somewhere online – so you guys can keep an eye on progress
So – here’s the statistics at the start of this week. Day 1.
Facebook fans at time of writing for Mumunplugged: 154 fans
Twitter followers for Mumunplugged: 61 followers.
Traffic per day: 36.5 uniques a day on average. Day of launch: 96.
I’ll be updating this post as the week progresses, and you are welcome to come along for the ride. I’m reaching out to you for help getting this off the ground, as there’s a couple of things you can do to help..
Join the Facebook page over here.
Subscribe to Claire’s site
Follow Mumunplugged on Twitter
Reblog this post elsewhere.
I’ve got a couple of ideas up my sleeve for ways to promote the site, not just through social media – and there will be a huge learning curve involved for Claire – but the web being the way it is, I’m hoping that we can ramp things up relatively quickly, with the help of others, and through social media. As the days go by, I’ll give you guys an update on what we’ve done, and what the figures are looking like – including who’s helped us out and where.
Watch this space.
linky
posted:May 18, 2010 11:48 pm
Best of luck with the site Paul (&sis). Will be good to see how you get on.
If you would like to guest blog post for Lookaly too just let me know.
Lee Munroe
linky
posted:May 19, 2010 2:24 pm
Thanks Lee – appreciate that, I’ll be sure to pass that onto Claire, see if we can’t put a spin on it.
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:May 30, 2010 12:49 pm
Looking forward to your updates !
Ruben Ooms