I want to talk about DIY + craft blog monetization, but first I think it will help if I give you a short background about my experience so far -
Before I started Whimseybox, I was focusing full-time on building Dismount Creative. My original plan was to teach a lot of classes around Houston for things like girl’s nights, showers and other parties. Kind of like those wine + painting classes, except with jewelry and other DIYs. In fact, I started blogging to help get the word out about that business. I thought if I shared the kind of projects I like to make it would help people see what I’m about and then hopefully they’d want to join me. Did it work? Well, yes and no! I found lots of people who were interested in my DIYs which was*awesome* but I quickly realized that these people were all over the country (and world), not just in Houston. And at the same time, Joe and I knew that we didn’t expect to stay in Houston long-term so I started to re-evaluate how much time + energy I wanted to put toward building a local business. So I started pouring more energy into my blogging and looking for ways to turn it into a business that I could build and grow from anywhere. I did some sponsored posts, collaborated with companies on some larger projects and hosted DIY events at larger trade shows and conferences. I also started running some ads in my sidebar. (These are still up today, though I haven’t even logged in to any of the accounts that serve them up in over a year. I actually kind of forgot until now!) Along the way, I got frustrated. I often joked that my ad revenue was enough to support a dog, but not a person. (At the time, I didn’t have a dog so I didn’t even know what I was talking about – #radishdirago is expensive!) Ad revenue was meh, and sponsored posts and promotions were okay but I really needed something more. When I thought about where I thought I could really do something interesting and valuable, I kept coming back to one thing – projects + supplies. Since I started blogging the bulk of the (non-spam) emails I got from the blog were requests for help finding and buying the right supplies to make one of my projects. So I created the Whimseybox monthly subscription to make it easy for people to get the supplies + start making. It was a great first step, but now we’ve got something even bigger – more on that in a minute….
One of the things that’s been bothering me for a few years (among other things) is that there isn’t a good way for DIY/craft blogs to direct readers to the supplies we use in our projects, and as a result there’s no good way to earn revenue when our content inspires someone to make a purchase. Instead I felt like I was basically asking my readers to write down what they need, drive to their local big box craft store and wind up stuck in line (frustrated and exhausted) at 7:30pm on a weeknight. And then I compared that to my experience reading fashion blogs – see cute shirt, follow link, purchase, done. And in many cases, thanks to programs like rewardStyle, the blogger earned a commission on the sale. As a reader, that commission didn’t cost me anything and I was glad to be helping support some of my favorite sites. It just seemed like the fashion blogging world had it figured out. I actually tried to do more fashion blogging so I could use some of these tools. But, while I do love clothes, I do not love taking pictures of myself so that never really worked out.
So back at Whimseybox, this is a problem we’ve been working on solving because our mission is NOT to put a monthly Whimseybox in every mailbox, it’s to help power creativity. We’ve always know that out of all of the people interested in DIY/craft, only a fraction are going to be interested in it exactly once/month. The monthly subscription box was always just the first step. Because for every project that we design, thousands more amazing and creative DIYs are posted online. We want to help people make any of them, not just ours! That’s why last summer we launched the Whimseybox Shop, where you can purchase thousands of individual supplies and products. And i’ts still growing and changing – we’re adding hundreds of new items each week and making tweaks to improve the user experience and navigation almost daily.
After we launched the shop, we got to work building technology to help us better match up DIY projects with the supplies you need to make them. We’ve been using them internally for a while on our site (click on almost any project on our homepage and you’ll see a supply list underneath it) and on our blog. I’ve even used it here on Dismount Creative such as when I posted this faux jeweled sweatshirt DIY (which I happen to be wearing right now!). We call this technology Whimseybox Influencer, and now we’re opening up it up bloggers and publishers who want to use it to share the supplies they use in their projects and posts. It’s totally free to join, and when someone follows a link to make a purchase the blogger will earn an affiliate commission on that sale. We think this will be a great new revenue stream for DIY and craft bloggers and also provide valuable analytics as well. If you’re interested, check out our manifesto and drop your email address here. (And yeah, I had a total Jerry Maguire experience when I wrote that – “it’s not a memo, it’s a mission statement!”) I’d love to hear what you think!
PS -I was super-inspired to write about this today because I was listening to this podcast by Michael Hyatt called ‘How to Monetize Your Platform’ and the way he talked really resonated with me. I know that I’d like the bloggers I follow to be able to continue blogging and sharing their creativity online, and I’d love to see even more opportunities for people to do creative work and get paid for it. That is our dream for Influencer. As Michael says, “Art and money aren’t enemies. In fact, in most cases the art isn’t possible without the money.”
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(c) 2014 dismount creative