Income Reports are a tricky thing. On one hand, it’s highly awkward to share the details of how much money the blog has made, and on the other hand, I want to shout it from the rooftops to help every other mom know she can do this too! I try to casually mention to family members that blogging is a real way to contribute to the finances. That by turning your skills into online content you can help others and change the world! But most of the time it just passes in one ear and flows out the other.

Either they don’t understand what I’m saying, or they think it’s highly unlikely to make money online. But it’s not. It’s very very real. And that is one of the main reasons why my husband and I decided to write our income report below. Very much like a fitness coach showing you that working out and eating healthy can make you look and feel better, this income report is here to show you that with hard work, time and energy, you’ll be able to monetize your blog too. Nobody develops a six pack after a few weeks of working out, and the same applies to blogging. You won’t be making thousands after your first month. But with consistent effort and lots of time, you will see results, and others will start to notice!

As many of you know, I’m 36 weeks pregnant with our third little blessing. My two daughters are 3 years old and 1.5 years old – so in short it has been challenging to work on the blog, grow a baby, and raise two beautiful little girls at the same time. I used to be able to work while they napped, but for the last few weeks, I’ve been napping with them. I also used to wake up super early with my husband as he bolted off to work at 6:00 am, but lately I’ve been sleeping in. Growing another human is hard work and I’ve been exhausted.

So to be 100% open with you, my husband has been helping a lot with the blog and around the house. It has truly turned into a partnership, especially the last few weeks. So please understand that the income below reflects the efforts of months and months of hard work, and also the energy and manpower of two people. Not only is he helping to grow my YouTube channel, manage all of the affiliates and set up technical elements; he is also helping with dinner, the dishes, bath and bed time, and supporting me.

If your husband is not on board with you starting a blog, maybe you can share this income report with him. Maybe it will help convince him that blogging is not just a hobby and can turn into a life changing business.

So with that, let me give it over to John, my handsome husband, to walk you through the August Income report for Start a Mom Blog.

August 2017 Start a Mom Blog Income Report

This post contains affiliate links.

Income Report at a glance:

Gross income: $39,888

Total Expenses:$2,872

Total Net Profit: $37,016

Difference between previous month: +$12,142

Welcome Back to Start a Mom Blog Income Reports!

Hello everyone! John here – it’s good to be posting again!

We haven’t published an official income report since December for a couple of reasons. These reports take a long time to put together, and as any mom knows, time is in short supply.

But the bigger reason is because… we were scared.

In December, we mentioned that our eventual goal was to reach $10,000 per month.

When we first started monetizing the blog, that seemed like a radical goal at the time.

But we kept putting in consistent, small efforts over time. And they compounded on each other. Slowly but surely, the growth came.

And as the growth came, more and more ideas came – ways to continue to serve our audience with additional products and opportunities.

So we put our heads down and focused on that. Here we are months later, and it’s time to take a breath, recap how our year has been, and give some lessons learned for you, so you can continue your own growth story!

Why We Publish an Income Report

Blogging is such an interesting hobby/passion/business.

You can start with such a tiny budget – no huge equipment, no major technical expertise (that can’t be learned easily). And the growth potential is just incredible.

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. It takes TIME. And it can be weeks or months before you ever see the first return on your investment.

Your first posts might not get a single share on Facebook. That’s OK.

Your email opt-in might not get more than a few subscribers. That’s OK.

Your traffic may be a flat line for weeks. That’s OK.

You are building a foundation of content, skills, and consistency. That alone is an amazing return on investment.

Even though it doesn’t feel like it!

People want instant results, instant gratification. That is the hardest part about blogging.

It is a slow, steady grind in the beginning. Until it takes off.

Everyone in the beginning stages starts looking for motivation when they are wondering if it’s worth it.

That’s where I think our Income Reports start coming in handy. We want to show you what is possible when you stick to it and push through that difficult beginning.

It is NOT to flaunt our success – it is to help reaffirm you that you are on the right track.

When we started out, there were moments of self-doubt. We would check out big blogger’s income reports and think, “If they can do that, we can make something happen!”

Because of the motivation of those income reports, it kept us going until we started to have something show for it as well.

We’d like to pay forward that favor to you!

And there’s another reason for these reports

We love our readers – you are seriously amazing and have become such a large part of our lives over the past couple of years.

Some of the emails you write us become the topic of dinner conversation.

We thoughtfully consider how to respond to a difficult question during the kids’ bath time.

We get to go deeper into our thought process during these reports and show a bit more of our personal side, and that’s just amazing.

Alright, so let’s get into the meat. What are some of the things we tried that have been working for Start a Mom Blog!

YouTube Webinar

We did our first Live Webinar Launch for Ebook by Number!

It was a scary but exhilarating experience – and I wasn’t even on camera 😉

There was more technology involved in pulling this off than we have done in the past, but luckily it went off without a hitch.

We created a special webinar page on the blog, and figured out how to embed a YouTube Live Stream to that page, including comments!

The end effect was a clean interface that allowed us to present our new product AND engage our audience in a whole new way!  

It provided a great platform for Suzi to be open and personal, while also having a concentrated time to talk about her new course.

Webinars are a more advanced way to engage your audience, but it was so rewarding! We had over 130 in the audience during the presentation, and made almost $10,000 from Ebook by Number alone during the initial launch week!

With our third baby due within a month, we aren’t planning any webinars at the moment – but I am excited to put another on in the future. If you’d like to know more about webinars and how you could incorporate them in your niche, leave a comment below 🙂

Super Simple 3 Step Funnel

In August we also released a complete beginner’s guide to a sales funnel that we have been experimenting with.

In the short time that we have been running it, it has generated over $3,000 in sales alone – all on autopilot.

I definitely recommend you check out the post for all the details (including a step by step video!), but at a high level, it goes like this:

The idea is that you get people into the funnel through any of your opt-in offers. These are all potential customers, because they just said a little “YES” to you by giving you privilege to contact them.

Instead of sending them directly to a Thank You Page, you offer them a one-time offer for an extremely attractive offer. You want the offer to be attractive to a new customer, because this might have been the first time they’ve looked into your niche.

That is why we chose the Income Journey. It is motivational to a new blogger, and it quickly walks through OUR journey to making over $17,000 per month in a year. It should meet the customer where they are. What questions would a new person have when coming to your site? Make sure your special offer answers those questions, and you’ll increase your conversions!

Sales funnels are a powerful tool, and can be extremely fun to draw out and plan the path that readers will go through.

The big thing to keep in mind is that a sales funnel is NOT a “get rich quick” scheme. It’s not just trying to get money from your readers’ pockets and into yours.

It is a tool to help you guide your customers on the most useful path that they should follow on their journey through your content.

QUICK TIP: You should always be looking for the shortest path between where your readers are and where they want to be. This is a tool to help you do just that!

Blog Strategy Seeker

If you haven’t learned yet, Suzi and I are huge nerds. We love excel and creating fun little tools to help drive decisions.

But we never really found the right use for a tool with Start A Mom Blog.

Until August 🙂

During a walk with the kids, we started brainstorming what tools we could create. The goal was to make an awesome Optin tool to increase email subscribers.

We kept thinking of ways to make blogging more efficient. Ways to help people who ALREADY had blogs.

We eventually realized that we were trying to serve the wrong audience. We needed to find a way to help our audience determine the right TYPE of blog to start, because that is one of the hardest decisions in the beginning.

Enter the Blog Strategy Seeker 🙂

It’s a simple tool that helps you pinpoint the right type of blog for you based on your interests.

As I said, the purpose of this was to increase subscribers… so how did it do?

We got a nice bump of 343 subscribers on the launch day of the tool, and it continued to contribute a good number of subscribers going forward. Nerdy success for us!

In total, we increased our email subscriber list by 3,135 during the month of August.

QUICK TIP: You never know which optin idea is going to really take off. Have fun with it. Experiment. Be consistent, and you’ll create a nice portfolio of freebies that will help grow your audience!

Back to School Bundle and the benefit of having multiple products

Another big event in August was our first “Back to School” sale.

Sales are a funny thing, aren’t they? You’d think that if your products were priced right, then you wouldn’t need to run sales ever!

But why does EVERY business run sales almost every month – for even the most unrelated events?

It has to do with the psychology of a customer that is on the fence. Sales can sometimes provide just enough value to incentivize them to take the plunge.

And if you’ve seen other courses in the blogging sphere, you’ll know that we understand our audience and their price points, and always try to over-deliver in value.

So when we run sales, we generally try to create bundles and add more content to the offer, instead of simply discounting the price.

So in August we offered a Back to School sale! It was very relevant because finally families are starting to return to normal, and moms would be able to pick up their blogs again.

And over the course of the 1 week sale, we made over $5,000 in course sales!

When you have multiple products, it is easier to create bundles and bonuses, which might open up just the right combination to work for your customers!

So let’s get down to business – how did Start a Mom Blog do in August?

Sales

Products:

Teachable Courses:

Blogging Bundles: $5,591

Blog by Number Course: $6,739

Ebook by Number: $10,285

List by Number: $111

Optins ABCs: $185

9 Step blog Plan: $756

Theme by Number: $285

Teachable Courses: $23,952

Sendowl Ebooks:

Amazon Affiliate Ebook: $770

Blog by Number Ebook: $720

Email Bundle for Blog by Number: $141

Income Journey: $2,738

Stock Images: $140

Other: $76

Sendowl Products: $4,585

Affiliate Marketing:

Divi by Elegant Themes: $262.50

ConvertKit: $1,834.99

Amazon Affiliates: $80.26

Siteground: $8,625

Tailwind: $41.98

PicMonkey: $241.46

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: $219.60

Other: $45.98

Total Affiliates: $11,351.77

Total Income: $39,888

Expenses

ConvertKit: $199

Siteground: $45

Sendowl: $267

Teachable (Including affiliate payouts and transaction fees): $2,346

Tailwind: $15

Total Expenses: 2,872

Total Profit = $37,016

Want to know in detail what the blog has done in 2017? 

If we can make this happen, so can YOU

We are incredibly blessed, and we have you – our wonderful readers – to thank for so much of our success!

Again, these reports are a way of us sharing how things are going and what is working, to help boost your blog to the next level.

The beauty of blogging is that there is no limit. No hourly wage. No approvals you need to wait on to implement ideas.

We live in a wonderful sandbox online.

We all have a voice, a talent, a special something.

Suzi likes being in front of the camera relating with her audience. I like editing the videos afterwards to manage her YouTube Channel.

Suzi likes to find something that works and put her head down to implement it wonderfully. I like keeping my head in the clouds to think of cool new technology or techniques to try on the blog.

My point is all of this, is to find what you like and do well, and focus on it.

If you stay genuine, consistent, and persistent on your passion, yours will be able to grow as well!

KEY TAKEAWAYS – ACTION LIST

The simple sales funnel can be implemented quickly and easily – even if you don’t have your own product yet. It can also help you make that first $100 with your blog without feeling salesy!

If you don’t have a collection of your own products yet, you can always partner with someone else in your niche and bundle your products together to run an attractive one time offer.

If you’re having a hard time growing your blog, think about where you can get help. Once I acknowledged that I can’t do it all at 36 weeks pregnant with 2 little ones – my stress level decreased. My husband has been a huge part of growing the blog the last few weeks and I am so thankful.

Not everything you do will have a great return. Not every post will bring in traffic. Not every freebie will convert. But if you keep working on your blog, all those small efforts will pay off. The most successful bloggers aren’t the smartest, they are the most consistent.