You may have just started a blog as a hobby, so it probably never occurred to you to write a business plan for blogging as a business. Maybe you don’t have a blog as of yet, and you want to treat your blog as a business from the start. Or perhaps you’re just curious and you want to know how to make a business out of writing a blog. Whatever your situation, the moment you want to begin blogging, if you consider blogging as a business option, you should consider writing a business plan for your blog. I always say, “Without a plan, how do you know where you are going?”
I’m reminded of that famous quote by Greg Reid – “A dream written down with a date becomes a goal”.
A goal written down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true. In this post, I want to spend time going through the steps of writing a business plan for bloggers, or future bloggers.
What is a Blog Business Plan?
Similar to a start-up business plan, a business plan for bloggers is a document containing the who, what, when, where, and why pertaining to blog planning and blogging goals. A blog cannot start itself; there needs to be someone to start it. That person could be you, or you and a friend, partner, or family member – this addresses the question of ‘who’.
The ‘who’ also considers who is your ideal target audience.
The ‘what’ pertains to what goals the blog is going to accomplish over the period of publication agreed to by the people starting it. The ‘when’ may include a number of dates, including start dates, publishing dates, and dates for the achievement of specific goals.
This may be obvious, but ‘where’ could refer to the location of the audience that you serve as well as your blog’s domain name. Finally, the ‘why’ is the most important element of the business plan. This is because it is the reason or motivation for wanting to achieve the goals.
What’s your mission statement, philosophy, vision, goals and niche?
Step 1 – Blog Overview
Many business plans start off with the executive summary which should be completed last, so we will leave it for the end. The blog overview will cover six different sections. These include the blog summary, mission statement, blog history, market and services, day-to-day operations, and financial goals.
Mission Statement
The mission statement is slightly different in most cases because it not only addresses the needs of the readers, it also takes into consideration the goals for the owners and other key stakeholders. Here is an example of the mission statement from LinkedIn; “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful“.
You can add a bit at the end of your blog summary that includes a personal goal or the ideal accomplishment of your ‘why’.
Blog History
Your blog history will be expected to give an overview of who you are and why you believe you are qualified to write this blog. What are you bringing to the table in terms of personal and professional experience? What qualifications, awards or certifications do you have? What makes you credible to your readers? And why is now a good time for you to get started on the road of blogging?
Markets and Services
Who is your target market and what will you be offering them? This section ensures that you have a good understanding of your audience, including what problems you are going to solve for the consumer or reader.
Day–to–Day Operations
Who will be responsible for keeping the lights on? Will you will be hiring additional help for specialized areas including legal services, accounting and payroll? Will you be hiring writers, editors, social media help? What’s the cost going to be for the day-to-day operations of your blog?
Financial Goals
Financial goals address how much money is needed to get this blog off the ground, and what sort of income will be required to keep it running every week, month, quarter, and year.
This section also outlines how you’re going to generate an income from the blog, and how much money the blog is projected to make. Come up with goals for monthly income necessary, and when you will be able to achieve those goals. Do some math with hypothetical numbers and write down the outcome of your calculations to target the goal dates.
Step 2 – Blog Description
Think a little deeper about your potential readers. Who are they, what problem you are trying to solve for them, and why are they reading your blog? Consider the opportunity, product or service overview, key participants, pricing and company structure.
Opportunity
What are the current market conditions? What geography will be covered by your blog? Where is your audience?
For example, you may be a mom blogger and you know that there are several other mom bloggers out there. This is where you focus on what makes your product or service offering different compared to others. What gaps are you trying to fill in your market, and what can you do better or differently than the other mom bloggers?
Product or Service Overview
This is the place where you go into a lot of detail about the products and/or services that you plan to offer for your clients.
As bloggers, we have the terrific opportunity of working with an audience, brands, and advertising networks. You can even offer consulting services so remember to include as much as possible about what you will be offering. Focus on what’s possible, but also keep in mind that you only have so much time in the day, so be realistic about what you can do and what needs to be outsourced.
Key Participants
In this subsection, you can include details of potential suppliers. For a blog, these can include your domain name provider, web hosting company, your course platform, WordPress theme provider, ad networks, etc.
I know this section will change over time, but you will need to start somewhere, and it will help you to understand what expenses you can expect when blogging.
Pricing
You really need to spend time understanding what price is best to charge your clients as you are in business to make a profit.
Personally, I find this area a big help especially when it comes to completing your cashflow statement. If you understand your costs, as well as your financial goals, then coming up with a price should be easy. It stops you from undercharging for your time.
Structure
What is your preferred company structure? Are you starting up as a sole trader/proprietor, partnership, or limited liability company?
Deciding on the structure will have a financial advantage or disadvantage. However, you can start as a sole trader or sole proprietor for now. The advantage of opening an LLC or partnership is that you can write off your expenses. There is a cost for opening a company, but it’s worth it because you can write off all the expenses when filing taxes the following year.
Step 3 – Analyze Your Market
This is where things get exciting. You will want to spend time researching your market. Be sure to include the size of the market, as well as the number of potential customers, every month, quarter, and year. The four subsections that you need to include here are the industry type, market segmentation and competition.
Industry Type
In terms of industry, blogging is in the service industry unless your blog is related to an e-commerce store, Etsy shop, retail stores, etc. If you have a mom blog, fashion blog, lifestyle blog, travel blog, or family blog, then the key deliverable for your clients is a service.
Check with your government agencies on the current statistics of the service industry in terms of revenues over the last three years, in addition to future projections.
Your town, city, or country will have a central body with statistics of growth for people in the blogging/consulting/freelancing industry. Collect these figures, analyze how they affect your business, and complete this section of your blogging business plan.
Market Segmentation
Market segmentation looks at your clients in greater detail. If you are a mom blogger, your clients could be stay-at-home moms or working moms.
You need to look at demographics in your market, geography, quality of products or services, and price ranges. Is the market growing or shrinking? What section of the market are you able to reach easily? What is the potential for growth in the next three years?
Competition
As you can imagine, getting a handle on your competition is super important. So, spend some time looking at who else is offering the same products and services, and ask yourself what you are doing differently.
What is your go-to-market strategy to ensure that your potential clients find out about you over the noise of your competition? Are your competitors solving the problem for your potential clients? What can you do better? Where are the gaps?
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis outlines strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a matrix format. As you can see, here is an example of a SWOT analysis and what you can expect to find in each section of the matrix. Spend some time creating a SWOT analysis for your blog or business as it really helps you understand your true potential and opportunities for improvement.
Step 4 – Operation Plan
Whatever your blog style and preference, in this section you will spend time looking at how you will operate smoothly for success. Consider order fulfillment, payment, key customers, facilities, outsource partners, and any technology that will help you work smarter.
Order Fulfillment
If you are running a restaurant, you understand that making and delivering those meals as fast as possible is essential to your success. As a blogger you will most likely deliver articles, consulting services, blog traffic, audience experience, courses, webinars and freebies. This section is about detailing how you are going to deliver all these items to your clients in the best format and in a timely fashion. What can you implement to give them the most amazing experience of order fulfillment possible?
Payment
If you plan to sell services, how will you accept payment? Have you considered tax and/or VAT? It’s important that you follow your local and international laws. Set up a separate bank account and payment services which will help you get paid. Will you send customers who paid a thank you note? I’ve found that the personal touches influence repeat purchases.
Facilities
Where will you operate? Even if you plan to operate from home initially, you want to make provisions for long-term as well as short-term plans. For example, if you plan to do a weekly podcast, where will you record them? Do you have a quiet room as well as the necessary equipment? What about when you plan to outsource some of the work? What means will you use to communicate with the rest of the team? To run your blog weekly, what do you need in terms of resources to deliver all the content?
Key Customers
This will only apply if you need to have big logos listed as your key customers on your blog. If this does not matter for your blog then skip it and move to the next subsection. Although remember, your key customers could just be people interested in travel if you are a travel blogger.
Step 5 – Marketing and Sales
In this section you will look at key messages, marketing activities and a sales strategy.
Key Messages
This will be a big reflection of your mission and elevator pitch. How will you attract readers to you?
What will you say in your social media images, workbooks, cheat sheets, quotes, etc. that will attract readers?
Marketing Activities
Once you know what you are going to say, you need to decide where you are going to say it. What format are you going to use to get readers’ attention? Will you use Facebook Live, posts, stories, videos? Instagram? Youtube? Choose social media platforms based on your target audience demographic, and be specific to target the audience you want.
Sales Strategy
It may seem like a lot of extra work and information at first, but without including a sales strategy when writing the start-up business plan for your blog, how will you know your go-to-market strategy?
For example, your sales strategy could be as simple as getting visitors to your website. Provide giveaways and freebies to gain subscribers. Another version of the ‘Freemium model” is hosting a webinar or a summit where you build an email list very quickly and develop a relationship with future readers who engage with your free content.
It’s best for you to map out a funnel or two showing the reader’s journey to understand what needs to happen to get sales or subscribers.
Step 6 – Financial Blog Plan
An essential part of your blog business plan is being fully aware of your finances. These methods actually help you to start acquiring a budget that you can use to maintain your blog.
Step 7 – Audience Research
It is so important to conduct primary and secondary research of your potential audience. Primary research involves getting potential customers to complete a survey using Google Forms or Typeform.
If you can find your audience on Facebook, then it would be best to conduct market research there, inside of Facebook groups. You will need to get permission from group administrators, which is actually great because you will be able to make more connections and gain awareness. If your audience is on a different platform like Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram, then you need to promote the survey using those avenues. Don’t be afraid to use many social media sites, but keep in mind that you need to be fully engaged. If you can’t be fully engaged then it’s best to create a profile, then link it to where you are fully engaged.
Secondary research involves using existing market research by notable companies and government bodies to draw your conclusions.
Step 8 – Build a Tribe
One of the keys to blogging success is to build a tribe of loyal followers. You can do this using Facebook Groups, Instagram, TikTok or any platform that allows you to grow a following.
Growing an email list is essential for keeping in contact with potential readers. Keep this email list up to date using a service for automated emails from which you can send updates on posts, giveaways, and even contact readers personally asking them what they would like to see more of.
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Have fun while figuring out what works for you, then make it systematic so that you can automate as much of it as possible. Subscribe for more business, sales and investing posts. Have a lovely day!
