To remain relevant in today’s digital age, smart marketers are aware of the need to build a strong presence on Google and social media platforms. These are the information giants that dominate online search, advertising, and traffic. The problem many companies face is that these platforms constantly update and adjust their algorithms, making it difficult for a business to be found. To remain relevant and make money from your content, you need to focus on website traffic, change, and context.
Many companies provide free content at first, which is great for short-term growth because websites with free and valued content become popular quite fast. It’s a great way to build an organic following, but providing free content is unsustainable in the longer term. Those who begin with a free model typically transition to a subscription-based or ad-supported one.
Luckily, there are some great strategies to monetize your content, so let’s take a look at some of the most successful ones.
- Paid Subscription to Content
If you can create a physical publication of your content (e.g., a book or print magazine), and people want to pay for it, it’s a clear indicator that you produce valuable content. They can pay for it either upfront or as a subscription.
- Improve Leads and Sales
The metrics most content campaigns are measured against are leads and sales. By optimizing and improving them, you can certainly turn your content marketing into profit (even though you shouldn’t set sales as the goal for your content). Make sure that the road to conversion is as short as possible, invest more in nurturing your customers, and make your demonstrations and case studies interesting.
- Paid Events
Quality content has its audience, and once you build your audience of loyal subscribers, invite them to an event around that niche. Your revenue will be the tickets you charge the attendees. Events such as MozCon (Moz), DreamForce (Salesforce), and Inbound (Hubspot) all began with the audiences they attracted with their content.
- Native Advertising
Many content publishers are trying to increase their bottom line from advertising revenue (instead of seeking revenue from consumers). Running native ads (sponsored posts) has often proven to be a lot more successful.
- Affiliate Linking
When done the right way, affiliate linking can be really effective. This monetization strategy involves providing value through detailed reviews of products sold on an e-commerce website, along with a link that credits the affiliate for any sales.
- Use Your Email List
The email list is possibly one of the best pieces of content at your disposal. However, you should be careful not to start spamming your readers and subscribers with annoying ads. If you’re prudent, this can be a great monetization strategy to employ. Add affiliate ads or native banners to your emails, as well as article teasers for sponsored content that might interest your readers (along with a link to new content published on your website).
- CTAs
Whenever you publish a new content piece, you should be sure to end it with a good CTA that will direct visitors on where to go or what to do next. This strategy works best if your content leads into your core offering. Pin a CTA to relevant posts that don’t have a sales pitch. People don’t like it when things are being sold to them. Create content that has value independent of your offering but is still relevant to it, and then finish with a strong CTA.
Despite all the shifting tides and challenges within today’s content landscape, if you choose to utilize some of these strategies, you will be sure to monetize your content. Just remember that content marketing is not a way to get rich quick because its main point is to appeal to new customers (not to generate revenue).
