What is monetizable content? If you’re a content creator, you know how difficult it can be to make money. It’s not easy to monetize your work and make a living. (Especially if you don’t have any experience with business or marketing…)
But there are ways to increase your income as a content creator. In this post I’m going to cover what a content creator is, what monetizable content is, and different monetization strategies you can use.
What is a content creator?
A content creator is someone who leverages one or more types of content online to build a brand, increase their visibility and ultimately, make more money.
You’re probably familiar with most of the platforms you can leverage as a content creator: blog, podcast, Instagram, Discord, YouTube, Clubhouse, TikTok.
These are just some examples, but you get the idea.
Monetizing as a content creator is a great way to make money online. It can help you to generate passive income and increase your overall income. It’s a relatively easy way to make money, as long as you have the right strategies and resources in place. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the benefits of monetization, the different strategies and platforms available, and the tips you need to maximize your efforts.
What is monetizable content?
Monetizable content is the process of generating revenue by leveraging online content. It involves leveraging content such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, and ebooks to generate income. Monetizing your content is often associated with affiliate marketing and Google adsense. But as you’ll see in this post, there are a lot of options for making money as a content creator!
With other forms of making money online, you need to grow an email list and create digital products, physical products or services to sell. While you can stack your income with these offers AND content monetization, when I’m talking about monetizing content, I’m specifically referring to being able to make money WITHOUT creating a thing to sell.
Make sense?
Monetizing content + leveraging content to make money takes a ton of different forms.
For example, you can create sponsored posts or videos, sell digital products such as ebooks or courses, or accept donations or payments for access to your content. You can also use monetization to generate revenue from advertising, either through display ads or affiliate links.
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Benefits of monetizable content
Monetizable content has a ton of benefits (and also some drawbacks and limitations to be honest).
Monetizing content generates passive income, as you can keep making money from your content long after you publish it. It also has the potential to help you reach a wide audience, since the audiences on the platforms you’ll post content on are constantly growing. Using a content strategy for making money also helps you to build relationships with your audience. This helps the effectiveness of your monetization, and allows you to interact with your people in a more personal way.
(For comparison, if you’re just running a Facebook ad to a course, you’re not really building relationships or a trusting, loyal audience necessarily.)
If you already have a business model that doesn’t involve content creation (like a brick and mortar physical product business), you might still consider adding online monetization. You can use the content to increase brand awareness, and awareness of your products or services – and possibly aso passive income overtime.
The Limitations
There are SOME drawbacks if content is your only method for earning money online. For example, if you sell a product or service, it’s pretty easy to find multiple ways of selling that product. You can use partners, ads, funnels, automations, etc. to find new ways to get more sales.
With monetizable content alone, you have to depend more on algorithms and organic growth. This can be limiting and take time to grow. (But the benefit is that the overhead costs to start are basically $0.)
Statistics
Monetizable content is becoming increasingly popular. According to Statista, the global monetizable content market is expected to exceed $16 billion by 2025.
PR Newswire reported the following in July 2021:
A recent report from 360 Research Reports said that the global Digital Content Creation market size is expected to gain market growth in the forecast period of 2020 to 2025, with a CAGR of 9.1% in the forecast period of 2020 to 2025 and will expected to reach USD 16900 million by 2025, from USD 11920 million in 2019. Active tech companies in the market this week include HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE: HUBS), Moovly Media Inc. (OTCPK: MVVYF) (TSX-V: MVY), Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP) (TSX: SHOP), Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM), Atlassian Corporation Plc (NASDAQ: TEAM).
These figures show that monetizable content is becoming an increasingly important part of the digital content landscape. This means that now is the time to start leveraging monetizable content to boost your income.
Create a Content Strategy
Before you can start monetizing your content, you need to create a strategy. First, you need to identify your target audience. This will help you to create content that appeals to your audience and will help you to monetize your content more effectively.
Next, you need to decide which monetizable content methods you want to use. This will depend on your audience, your content, and your goals. For example, you may want to use ads, affiliate links, or sponsored posts. This will help you to determine which platforms you should use, as some platforms may be more suitable for certain types of content.
Finally, you need to create a plan for how you will monetize your content. This plan should include when you will publish your content, how you will promote it, and how you will track your results. This will help you to maximize your success.
Creating a Content Plan
Once you have created your strategy, you need to create a content plan. This plan should include something like the following:
- Content schedule: This should include the topics you plan to cover, the type of content you will create, and when you will publish it.
- Promotion plan: This should include the platforms you plan to use to promote your content, the target audience you plan to reach, and the tactics you will use to promote it.
- Tracking plan: This should include the metrics you plan to track. More on that:
If you’re just starting out, I know it seems overwhelming to think about tracking data. But as you grow, you’ll want to have a pulse on what platforms and what types of content are working best for you. This can be as simple as a Google sheet that tracks the data that matters to you and your goals.
For example: make a row in a Google sheet for each post you create. Seven days after you post, take a look at the engagement on the piece of content (views, watch time, clicks, comments, saves, or whatever else is important to you).
Since posts can go viral long after they’re posted for random reasons, I would just look at the data either 7 days out or 30 days out for video and social media content. For blogs and longer form + longer life content, I would look at the data 3 or 6 months out.
Content Tips
In addition to creating a monetizable content plan, there are some other tips you should keep in mind when monetizing your content.
- Focus on quality: Quality content is really important for monetizing your content and building a relationship with an audience. Make sure that your content is well-written, engaging, and relevant.
- Engage with your audience: Engagement is key for monetizing your content. Respond to comments, ask questions, and interact with your audience as much as possible.
- Test different methods: Monetization methods can vary in terms of their effectiveness. Make sure to experiment with different methods to find the ones that work best for you.
- Monitor your results: Tracking your results is essential for monetizable content. Make sure to track your metrics regularly and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Popular Monetization Platforms: Examples
There are many different platforms you can use to monetize your content. The most popular platforms include Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, and YouTube.
- Google Adsense is an advertising platform that allows you to display ads on your website. You will earn money for every click on the ads.
- YouTube is a video-sharing platform that allows you to monetize your videos. You can display ads on your videos and earn money for every view.
- Instagram: Instagram now pays creators for views on their reels. While the income is going to be low when your audience is small, I’ve seen some people make a full time income from it eventually. It may take some time for Instagram to approve your ability to make money with Reels (they will send you an invitation)
- Tiktok: Similarly, there are opportunities to monetize your content on TikTok. Here’s some more info about TikTok
These platforms are great for monetizable content, as they can help you to generate a steady stream of income.
Types of Content Creators
The above are some examples of platforms you can use, but taking a step back, I’d probably first decide which types of content creator appeals to you the most. Maybe choose a combo of creators below to experiment with, and see which platforms works best for you. Each of the types below will have one or more options for monetizing your content.
- Blogger
- Instagram influencer
- TikTok creator
- YouTube creator
- Only Fans
- Coach
- Author
- Artist
- Podcaster
- Clubhouse
- Discord
- Educator
Conclusion
Becoming a content creator is a great way to make money online. It can help you to generate passive income and increase your overall income. However, it’s important to be strategic from the beginning or you’ll waste a lot of time.
In this blog post, we took a look at the benefits of leveraging content to make money, the different strategies and platforms available, and some tips for maximizing success.
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Enter your email below to get an invite to our FREE, live monthly workshops.
Each workshop blends business coaching with mindset to help you grow your aligned 6-figure business.
