How to Monetize Online Content
Discover six strategies on making money from online content.
The content you create can be a great source of passive (and even direct) income.
But it isn’t there yet. You may already be creating content that people love, but you haven’t found out how to create a blog and make money online. Or, you may not have started your creation journey yet. But you’re ready to start. And all you need is some guidance to make your content a cash cow.
That’s where sites like BlurBay come in. They can help you set up a pay-per-view page for your content. Who knows, you could even monetize YouTube without 1000 subscribers.
Read on to discover six strategies for monetizing content online.
Who Can Monetize Online Content?
Technically, anybody who creates content can monetize.
But that’s a simplistic approach that ignores the four main ingredients that make content monetization work – knowledge, a platform, engagement, and, most importantly, dedication.
The first two are fairly simple. If you have knowledge or opinions to share, you have the foundation for great content. And there are a ton of platforms out there that’ll help (more on some of those later). But it’s engagement and dedication that are the tricky ingredients.
You see, not all who create content have the power to make the people who consume that content care. The select few who do make get people interested, but even they can fall down if they’re not dedicated enough to keep things fresh. To keep creating content after their initial successes.
Anybody can create content.
But without these four ingredients, most won’t be able to learn how to create and blog and make money online. They’ll just contribute to the stream of content that nobody consumes, and for which nobody cares. If you want aim higher, and monetize YouTube without 1000 subscribers, to use our earlier example, you’ll have to think out of the box.
Monetizing Your Content – Six Strategies
That got a little negative, right? But the point is to impress upon you that monetizing content and creating content aren’t the same thing. You need the four ingredients to get any money coming in. The good news is that once you have those ingredients, you’ll know how to make money. Online blogs can be lucrative with any one of the following six strategies.
Strategy 1 – Develop a Masterclass
Let’s dig deeper into the first of the four ingredients discussed above – knowledge.
Everybody has knowledge. You have information and ideas floating around in your head that few (if any) other people have. And those ideas can be your ticket to monetization, as long as you know how to get them out there.
Enter the masterclass.
Masterclasses are videos that you use to share your knowledge with an audience. And this doesn’t have to be a massive group of people. Even those with the most niche knowledge can find people who need to partake in that knowledge. Often, they’re the people who can charge more because, though their audience is limited, there are so few people with their knowledge that what they are sharing carries more value.
A masterclass is also great because it can accompany other types of content. For instance, you may run a membership site where you share most of what you know, with the masterclasses reserved for people who are willing to pay a little more. Content monetization stacks upon itself that way.
As for platforms, there are plenty to use. BlurBay is a great example – it lets you upload and stream video content on its platform so you don’t have to pay to have your own website developed. Put simply, you can learn how to make money. Online blogs are the way forward in this regard.
Strategy 2 – Affiliate Partnerships
Maybe it’s not your content itself that’s monetizable.
People don’t want to pay to read (or view) it, and you may not feel comfortable asking for money directly for people to consume what you have to say.
With affiliate partnerships, you don’t have to ask for subscriptions of payment.
These partnerships are simple – a company has a product to sell, and they have you acting as the salesperson who makes those sales. But simply telling people about the product won’t do the job. As a content creator, it’s your job to create content that establishes your expertise in the affiliate product’s field. That expertise creates credibility. And your credibility is what leads to people buying using the link you provide.
It sounds simpler than it is.
The pitfall you have to look out for is going so deep down the sales rabbit hole that you forget why people consume your content in the first place. Finding the balance between selling and informing is key, with a slight preference for the latter so the former can do itself.
Strategy 3 – License the Content
Licensing content only works if you’re creating content that people are willing to pay for. Assuming that’s the case, it’s simple – people (or companies) pay you to use the content in whatever way they need it.
Think about how musicians and their record companies may license a song for use in an advert. The song is content that the ad agency wants to use so that agency pays a fee to access it.
The same setup applies to your content. You can either license pieces exclusively (i.e., giving one company the sole rights to use a piece you create) or sell non-exclusive rights so that anybody who wants the content can use it.
Stock image websites, like Shutterstock, are a good example of the latter. Photographers and illustrators create imagery that they put on these platforms. Licensees browse through the collection to find an image they like, then pay a fee to have the rights to use it.
So, the question you need to ask for this strategy is simple – do I create content that people will pay to use?
If the answer’s “yes,” then licensing is a great content monetization avenue.
Strategy 4 – Advertising on Websites and Blogs
When people think of monetizing content, they usually think of putting ads on their content so they don’t have to charge people to consume it. There’s precedence for this in the traditional marketing world, just as there is with licensing. TV and radio stations use advertising all of the time to pay for their shows, actors, and presenters.
You can do the same for the content you publish on your blog or platforms like YouTube.
You’ve probably seen this before. Banner ads on blogs. Adverts before YouTube videos. These adverts are usually facilitated by ad platforms (such as Google AdSense) that pay you either a small amount per impression generated or a larger amount for clicks through to the advertiser’s site.
Adverts are a great way to monetize content you’d otherwise be unable to monetize. But they come with a risk – intrusiveness. The more intrusive your ads, the more likely people are to stop consuming your content. So, you have to find a balance. A banner above a blog post is fine. Dozens of ads scattered around and within the content are intrusive, and the extra money that having more ads generates is soon lost because people don’t want to put up with the constant selling.
Strategy 5 – Sign a Sponsorship or Brand Deal
We touched on YouTube in the above strategy, and with sponsorships and brand deals, that’s usually the platform of choice.
You’ve seen this before if you watch YouTube videos – “Before we get to the video, I want to introduce X (usually Raid: Shadow Legends for some reason).”
Then, the creator goes on a minute-long spiel before getting into the content. It can be annoying – people often skip the sponsored message – but it’s a great way to get a guaranteed income from your content from the get-go.
So, how do sponsorships and brand deals work?
First, you need an audience. That could be on social media, YouTube, or whatever platform you choose, but that audience needs to be there to make the sponsorship or deal worthwhile. Companies don’t pay to advertise to no one.
Assuming you have the audience, alignment is next up. No alignment with your content means your audience doesn’t connect with the sponsor, often leading to the end of the deal. Think videogame sponsorships on videos talking about home DIY and you’ll see why – it doesn’t make sense.
Finally, the mechanics. That’s the simple part. In a sponsorship, a company essentially pays for a little ad time in your content. Brand deals are more complicated (and often reserved for influencers) in that you’re expected to actually use the product being advertised. Your usage within your content shows the product serves one of your needs and, by extension, can also serve the needs of a viewer.
Strategy 6 – Transform Existing Content Into eBooks and Paid Content
Most content creators start with no monetization.
There’s a simple reason – you need an audience before you can monetize, and you need time to build that audience. Once you finally get to the point where you have an audience that engages with you, you’re likely also left with a ton of content you’ve given away for free that you could have monetized.
So, how do you monetize it?
Some of the strategies already shared can work. For instance, placing ads on the content will net you some cash from people who’ve arrived late to the party, though you won’t get much from your established audience.
A more effective technique is to take what already exists and repackage it into something new.
Course creators do this all of the time.
They may have a few dozen blog posts that collectively represent their teachings on a specific subject. Those posts are scattered, making it harder to consume all of them, so the natural solution is to bring them all together into a course or eBook. Now, they have a sellable commodity. By repackaging what they’ve made (usually with a few tweaks to bring it up-to-date), they have something for which they can charge, or at least content to use as a lead magnet for email addresses.
E-Books are big business, too.
About 30% of American adults read them, and more will follow as access becomes more widely available. Repurposing what you have lets you appeal to that audience. Plus, you can always create e-books containing new content, especially if your audience is dedicated enough to pay for masterclasses and courses.
Create Cash With Content
Your content has more value than you may realize.
It may not feel like it when you’re at the start of your creation journey. But if people are consuming what you’re putting out, you have a commodity that’s ripe for monetization.
How you monetize depends on the type of content you create. But you have the potential to learn how to make money. Online blogs, influencers, and YouTubers often rely on ads, sponsorships, and brand deals, with bloggers also getting in on the advertising game. Affiliate partnerships are useful, too, especially if you have knowledge of an industry that you can parlay into convincing arguments for what you’re trying to sell.
And if knowledge is all you have to deliver – e-books, courses, and masterclasses are your route to monetization. Who knows? You might even be able to monetize YouTube without 1000 subscribers. Of course, you’ll need the appropriate platform such as BlurBay for hosting your videos, but your knowledge in video form is content that creates cash. If you want to learn how to create a blog and make money online, sites like BlurBay should be your first port of call.
