The Biggest Mistake Food Bloggers Make

What an elite group of bloggers is getting right

According to iBlog magazine’s 2015 Women’s Blogging Industry & Business Annual Report, only 15% of bloggers spend more than 3 hours per week prospecting and contacting networks, brands and agencies offering paying jobs. If you’re in that small percentage of the blogging population, you’re a member of the elite, and you’re probably seeing tremendous returns for your efforts.

In most industries, blogging is one part of a broader marketing strategy. It’s an important part, but smart marketers recognize that blogs can only reach their full potential of persuasiveness if they distribute posts via social media and blogging platforms like disqus. They know that incorporating lead magnets and calls to action are critical to a blog’s success and that networking and traditional advertising forms like press releases are also necessary elements of a successful marketing strategy.

Why many food bloggers aren’t marketing their blogs

I suspect the reason 85% of bloggers neglect prospecting and by extension marketing efforts is that they don’t consider what they’re doing a real profession like other entrepreneurs. It’s more of a hobby that they cross their fingers and hope might yield a small return.

However, food blogging can be a highly profitable endeavor when done right. And doing it right means making the choice to take a professional approach to your blog.

It’s the rare business model that will succeed with no effort put into it. Likewise, bloggers who want to monetize their blogs and to gain consistent, profitable partnerships with networks, brands and agencies will have to put in the time on those partnerships.

The good news is that if you work a mere four hours per week on prospecting, you’re already ahead of the curve!

Marketing advice from a network founder and CEO

Ana Flores, CEO of Latina Bloggers Connect We All Grow Summit, shared the following insight:

Given that it’s such an important topic, I’m surprised that such a large percentage of bloggers don’t invest enough time in actually strategizing how to market their brand and researching paying jobs. It makes more sense when you see that they are getting most opportunities through brands reaching out to them directly and by applying for blogger network campaigns. As a network founder & CEO, it thrills me that we are providing a serious source of income to so many women entrepreneurs. However, I’d also love to see a much higher increase in bloggers realizing they actually should be spending much more time in marketing. The rule of thumb in business is 60-30-10: 60% on marketing and/or sales; 30% on making or creating your product (blog, videos, email text, images, etc); and 10% on administration and management. Bloggers are entrepreneurs and we need to see ourselves as such and apply the rules of business and marketing to our brands at any level in order to see those precious hours spent in creating content reap real rewards which allow us to reinvest in our business.

Amazing, right? Marketing is so critical to your food blog’s success (and to the success of any blog), Flores recommends you dedicate 60% of your work time on it. That’s twice as much time as you spend on actually creating your blog posts!

If, as Flores suggest, bloggers don’t see themselves as entrepreneurs, then that extra time and effort may seem wasteful. However, if you’re serious about the success of your food blog, it’s time to start marketing it.

What do you need to learn about marketing to feel more comfortable in taking your food blog to the next level?