Hello hello!!
Earlier this month I shared my experience taking the LadyBossBlogger online course called “How to Make Money as an Influencer”. You can read my first review of the course here. I finished the course shortly after that post, and I have been using some of the tips and knowledge from that class since then.
I’ve wanted to be able to make some sort of income on my blog for a while, but I never really felt like I had a grasp on all the moving parts of doing that. It’s hard to know what you are doing wrong and right when you are blogging all by yourself, so I thought this course would be a great way for me to familiarize myself with the ins and outs of making money as an influencer.
I have been blogging for almost 4 years (started my senior year of high school!). I don’t have a crazy amount of followers, and one of those reasons is because I haven’t blogged consistently since then. I believe if I had continually blogged for those four years, I probably would have seen a much bigger difference in my following and income. But you know, I was doing other things!
So when quarantine hit and I needed another way to keep myself busy, I jumped right back to blogging. And quickly into that I had some companies reach out wanting to send me free products for collabs. I now know that it is so important for any blogger to know their worth as a person and “employee” and request companies to pay you for collaborating with them if at all possible.
Now when it comes to small and upcoming businesses, I tend to take the free product and call it a day. But when bigger companies reach out, I think it’s necessary to ask them to compensate you… I just never knew how.
I do think this course helped clear up how to ask for compensation, how to prepare a media kit, etc. etc. But, I don’t think it is worth the price tag.
// HONEST REVIEW //
Let me first start off by saying that this course has TONS of information and resources. It truly has everything you need right there. That being said, don’t expect to automatically start making money because of this course.
You have to go out of your way to consistently use the recommendations from this course. I don’t think any of what I learned from this course automatically helped me get paid collaborations with brands, but it did help me know the way to approach compensation and present myself to brands.
This course really tells you almost everything you need to know – Instagram growth hacks, social media planning tips, legal terms, media kit creation, finding your niche, and even how to find a blog name. I already learned a lot of that stuff prior to this course, so the most helpful things for me were legal terms, language used to reach out to brands, and the list of websites that influencers can use to connect with brands.
At the end of the day, I probably could have learned this stuff on my own. But having everything in this course takes the guess-work out of it and can save you a lot of time.
// WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE NEXT //
This course has both beginner level and advanced level topics. I think it would be beneficial to break this course into two different levels and expand on the brand pitching and compensation topics in the advanced level. A lot of things in this were so basic that it kind of took away from the actual goal of the course- to make money.
Another thing I would like to see is more interactive content. Whether that be one-on-ones with the founder of the course or videos to show editing, brand pitches, etc. I learn best with a combination of reading and listening, and I’m a very visual learner, so that would have made the course more enjoyable.
I also would like to see less of a focus on affiliate marketing. I understand affiliate links are all the rage for making money as an influencer, but I don’t think many people are going to buy products from me at my 2400 follower count.
It’s just very unlikely for someone to purchase a $300 course from me especially if most of my followers are other small bloggers or my personal friends. It would have been more beneficial to have more pages on reaching out to brands, negotiating payment rates, and ideas incorporating paid content in a more organic way.
// PRICE //
The LadyBossBlogger course is very pricey. If I wasn’t gifted this course to review, I probably would not have taken it. I do think there is great value in a resource that has all the info in one place, as well as a community that can help out when you have completed the course. LBB offers that.
I do have a 40% off code MADISONDRAKE that makes the course much more reasonable in cost. If you want to make payment a little easier, LBB does offer a payment plan.
Some of the proceeds from this course do go to the Micah Project– which is really awesome!.
LadyBossBlogger does offer tons of other resources that I think you should check out if you are interested in improving your blog/blogging.
// FREE RESOURCES //
5-Day Master Affiliate Marketing
3-Day Become an Instagram Influencer
Even though I do have some more negative opinions on the course, I do think it was helpful. I think a lot of earning money as a blogger comes from your grit personally, nothing that a course can truly give you. You have to reach out to brands, seek them, be confident in your approach, etc.
This doesn’t happen overnight either, and you might have to do more digging. Some people grow 10K followers overnight and immediately have incredible brand deals, and other people might only have 1K followers and still are able to make some money through affiliate linking.
Regardless of your situation in blogging, there is always room for improvement and areas for growth. If you are at a loss of how to improve, checking out LBB might be helpful for you.
Let me know if you have any more questions- I would love to chat about LBB, blogging, our just life in general!!
xoxo
Madison
