At some point, almost every blogger hits a plateau. After a period of rapid growth, they find that they aren’t adding new readers and new visitors as frequently as they used to. Your content is as good as it ever was, and you aren’t facing new competition, but you find it hard to maintain the momentum you once established.
When you get to this point, you’ll need to consider new options if you want to stoke the fires of your growth (and return the momentum you built previously). You might double your content output or increase your efforts to engage with your readers, but you might also consider attracting funding.
How can your blog use funding to keep growing at a substantial pace? And is it worth it?
How Funding Can Help You Grow
These are some of the main ways an injection of capital could help your blog grow:
- New products or services. If you’re thinking of expanding the blog into a business that sells products or services, you may need funding to invest in those assets—whether it’s in research and development or the production of your initial stock. You may even need training, if you’re providing the services yourself.
- Advertising. If you invest wisely, a marketing and advertising campaign should provide you with a positive return on investment (ROI). In other words, you’ll earn more in revenue than you spend on the ads themselves. Just make sure you have a way to monetize the traffic on your site before you make this leap.
- Staffing. If you want to increase your output, but can’t put in the time yourself, you may use the funding to hire a staff of content creators to do the work for you. You may even curate the manpower necessary to launch a new, related blog.
- Acquisition. If you’re looking for a way to expand your blog network, you could use the new money to buy a related blog outright. In fact, there are even resources that serve as marketplaces to buy and sell blogs, such as Flippa.
The Disadvantages
Be warned, however, that there are also some disadvantages here:
- Accelerated growth. Sometimes, getting (and spending) funding too quickly can precipitate the premature death of your business. The influx of capital often leads entrepreneurs to make hasty or wasteful decisions, and a business built on a stretched budget tends to collapse on itself in a matter of months. For example, if you hire too many people too quickly, you’ll quickly exhaust your resources and your blog will become unsustainable.
- Diluted shares. Sometimes, attracting funding means giving up at least partial control of your business. For example, if you reach out to an angel investor, they may only offer you capital in exchange for a stake in the business, which could give them decision-making rights.
- Time and effort. Don’t forget that finding an investor for your blog is going to be a full-time commitment in its own right. No matter what kind of investment you’re seeking, or what kind of campaign you run to get it, you’ll need to spend hours developing it.
Seeking Funding
If you do decide to seek funding, you have several options, including:
- Personal efforts. First, you could try to raise the money on your own. You’d start by asking friends or family members for a contribution or loan, and possibly dip into your own savings. Just be wary about tapping into your nest egg for an uncertain investment.
- Crowdsourcing. These days, there are dozens of crowdsourcing platforms that could help you collect small donations from your existing readership and fanbase. Ultimately, you could collect thousands of dollars even with a modest crowd. Or, if you want to monetize your content, you could leverage a creator-focused payment platform like Patreon to collect donations.
- Angel investors. Angel investors are independent financers who tend to invest in small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs. If you find one who likes your blog and your vision for its future, you could easily attract the capital you need to keep it going.
- Partnerships. You may also find a source of capital in a business or blogging partner, who may provide you with the infrastructure you need to keep building your enterprise.
So is it possible to grow your blog faster with a round of funding? Definitely. Is it worth it in every case? No. Consider your options carefully, including a straightforward path of organic growth, before you make a final decision. And if you’re new to the world of blogging and entrepreneurship, make sure you talk to a mentor or a fellow business owner before you proceed—their perspectives and experiences may just save you from making a terrible decision.
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