How to Monetize Your Content in 2014

What will the future of content monetization look like? Are we forever stuck with an ad-based, privacy-encroaching business model (ala Facebook)? Does the failure of NewsCorp’s “The Daily” mean fee-based content is dead? What is the trend and how can you profit? These are the questions I want to answer in this article.

I’ve been thinking about content monetization a LOT lately. Not because I’m weird, but because that’s what the company I work for (WishList Products) does… at least in my eyes.

Right now, we call ourselves a membership site plugin, but let’s be real… our software does a lot more than pure membership site functionality.

To me, a “pure” membership site is one with a recurring fee that publishes ongoing content. WishList Insider is a membership site.

And, this is what WishList Member was originally built around… and something it does VERY well. But, it’s not all it does.

For example, WishList Member lets you set up products that can be purchased with a one-time fee… e.g. I charge a one-time fee of $19.99 for lifetime access to my PHP5 Decoded Program at LearnPHP.co.

Nothing about that says “membership site”… not in “pure” terms.

Or, how about the Pay-Per-Post functionality in WishList Member? Paying a one-time fee for access to a single post. Again, nothing about that says “membership site” to me.

What it DOES say (read: scream) to me is: “Content Monetization”.

All of these things, including a pure membership site, are ways of monetizing content.

But, who cares? It’s just semantics, right?

I don’t think so. You see, the web is in a state of trying to figure out content monetization right now. The traditional media models that worked in print, radio, TV, etc… don’t work as well online. And, frankly, I think the current model is broken.

Think I’m kidding? Consider that News Corp spent 10s of millions of dollars testing a new method of Content Monetization (news, in this case).

They created the first iPad only subscription-based news service called “The Daily”.

And, after a couple years of losing 30M annually, they finally shut it down.

Now, why would such a large news and content company spend that much money testing a new model if the current ones were working great?

Remember, NewsCorp is the company that owns massive news and entertainment companies like HarperCollins, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, GQ, Vogue, all the FOX variations, and more. And, they are the world’s second largest “media” group in terms of revenue.

So, again, why would they risk millions of dollars testing a new content monetization model?

I think it’s because they see the writing on the wall. As I said before, I think the most popular content monetization model is broken and unsustainable over the long-term.

What is that model and why is it broken?

It’s the advertising model. You get a bunch of people to visit the pages on your website and advertisers pay you to run their ads on those pages.

Most big websites charge per impression (pageview) not per click… so, the more people you get to visitor your site the more money you make.

Seems perfect in theory.

You can focus on writing high quality content on a regular basis which your readers love… and you continually build your traffic over time and allow advertisers to gain exposure with your audience which they love… and you make a steady income without having to “sell” anything… which you love.

Win-win-win. Everybody’s happy.

Except it never works that way in reality. Instead what happens is you become beholden to your “sponsors” (people paying you to advertise on your site)… and all they care about is exposure. They want pageviews.

You want to keep your sponsors happy and keep the money coming in so you start to focus more on how to generate pageviews… and you quickly realize it doesn’t matter if people actually read your content… only that they VIEW it.

You get paid for the impression whether someone actually reads your article (views your video) or not. And, this has dire consequences.

You end up spending more time writing the headline for your article than you do the article itself.

You could care less about the accuracy of your article as long as it is something that will generate controversy… and thus pageviews.

In the end… instead of peddling wholesome fruits and veggies to your readers… you sell them crack… and could care less how the rest of the world is affected as long as you get yours.

You don’t need to look far to see this actually happening. Look at any of the major news sources out there and you’ll see it’s all about drama.

You’ll see cleverly crafted headlines designed to generate the most dramatic response… coupled with articles that have little to no substance or, in many cases, completely refute the article’s headline.

It’s a “click-culture” designed to get clicks… not inform readers. And, it’s driven by the business model that’s used to monetize that content.

But again, who cares?

There’s a moral argument to be made here, but that’s not MY argument. Mine isn’t that you should care because it’s wrong and we need to do something about it (although, we DO)… my argument is that it’s NOT sustainable. It’s going to fall apart.

Why?

To use our analogy… if you feed an addict enough crack, they’ll eventually die or clean themselves up.

People will (and already have) figure out what’s going on and there will be backlash. Need proof?

Easy. Just ask the next 10 people you meet what their opinion of the news media in the U.S. is. Unless you’re at some sort of conference for journalists, you’re going to get negative reviews from the majority of those 10. In many cases, “passionately” negative.

As it stands now, most people don’t read the news from a particular news site (CNN, HuffPo, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, FOX, etc) because they LOVE that news source and believe it’s honest, informative journalism… they do it because the headline is so enticing they can’t resist clicking through.

This is going to change.

We’ve already seen the rise of alternative media on the web… media that focuses more on real journalism and honest reporting.

This is part of the backlash that’s happening. And, it’s going to continue. And, it’s going to mean big trouble for the big media conglomerates that don’t adapt.

And, THAT is why NewsCorp spent so much time and money testing a new business model. Because, they see the writing on the wall.

Now, you might say… “But, The Daily failed. Doesn’t that give credence to the idea that the current model is the only workable one?”

In a word… NO!

Just because someone executes poorly on an idea doesn’t make the idea bad. It means the way it was implemented is bad.

While The Daily was losing millions of dollars/month… there were thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of smaller publishers making tens of thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars per month… those same months.

And, for me, this is where things start to get more difficult.

Because, I see WishList Member and technology like it as a potential solution to a much broader problem.

The web, as a whole, is trying to figure out content monetization… meanwhile, we have tens of thousands of customers who already have it figured out and are making money hand over fist SERVING their members.

And, they’re doing it with more than just the traditional “membership site” model of content monetization.

Yet, I agree with people like Gary Vaynerchuk who believe content is more and more becoming a commodity… meaning the days of selling $2,000 online courses are coming to an end.

So, on one hand, we have big media corporations “selling” garbage content for pennies/click… and, on the other, we have smaller, well-known individuals and companies selling higher quality content for 1000s of dollars.

I think we end up somewhere in the middle.

And, it’s where I think software like WishList Member has a tremendous opportunity for growth. I think, right now, we see ourselves as “membership site” software and our feature-set reflects that. The way we make decisions reflects that.

We’re doing what we’ve been taught to do. Focusing on a specific niche and serving THAT niche. Not trying to be everything to everybody.

Yet, our customers tend to push us outside of that specific role (which is why we even have one-time fee and pay-per-post capabilities)… because our customers aren’t just building membership sites… they’re monetizing content… and they need the tools to do it.

So, what does a company like ours do?

There’s a Grand Canyon-size difference between seeing yourself as a “Membership Site Plugin” and a “Content Monetization” platform… a lot of which I talked about in an earlier post about platforms vs plugins.

And, the thing is… we’ve seen this before.

This is exactly the kind of disruption we saw in the music industry when Napster hit the scene.

And, it completely revolutionized how consumers saw themselves consuming music. Apple with iTunes was the first to really capitalize on this change and we saw how well that worked for them.

Who will be the first to really capitalize on the change happening with informational content? I don’t know, but I hope it’s us.

(photo by bookgrl)

Join 7,700 Other Freelancers Who've Built Thriving Freelance Businesses

Over 7,700 other freelancers have started thriving freelance businesses using the information on this blog. Are you next? Subscribe below to get notified whenever a new article is posted and create your own success story:

You might also like

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Pinterest
John Morris

JOHN MORRIS

I’m a 15-year veteran of freelance web development. I’ve worked with bestselling authors and average Joe’s next door. These days, I focus on helping other freelancers build their freelance business and their lifestyles.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Join 7,700 Other Freelancers Who've Built Thriving Freelance Businesses

Over 7,700 other freelancers have started thriving freelance businesses using the information on this blog. Are you next? Subscribe below to get notified whenever a new article is posted and create your own success story:

Success Stories

Ready to add your name here?

Tim Covello

Tim Covello

75 SEO and website clients now. My income went from sub zero to over 6K just last month. Tracking 10K for next month. Seriously, you changed my life.

Michael Phoenix

Michael Phoenix

By the way, just hit 95K for the year. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve taught me. You’ve changed my life. Thank you!

Stephanie Korski

Stephanie Korski

I started this 3 days ago, following John’s suggestions, and I gained the Upwork Rising Talent badge in less than 2 days. I have a call with my first potential client tomorrow. Thanks, John!

Jithin Veedu

Jithin Veedu

John is the man! I followed his steps and I am flooded with interviews in a week. I got into two Talent clouds. The very next day, I got an invitation from the talent specialists from Upwork and a lot more. I wanna shout out, he is the best in this. Thanks John for helping me out!

Divyendra Singh Jadoun

Divyendra Singh Jadoun

After viewing John’s course, I made an Upwork account and it got approved the same day. Amazingly, I got my first job the very same day, I couldn’t believe it, I thought maybe I got it by coincidence. Anyways I completed the job and received my first earnings. Then, after two days, I got another job and within a week I got 3 jobs and completed them successfully. All the things he says seem to be minute but have a very great impact on your freelancing career.

Sarah Mui

Sarah Mui

I’ve been in an existential crisis for the last week about what the heck I’m doing as a business owner. Even though I’ve been a business for about a year, I’m constantly trying to think of how to prune and refine services. This was very personable and enjoyable to watch. Usually, business courses like this are dry and hard to get through…. repeating the same things over and over again. This was a breath of fresh air. THANK YOU.

Waqas Abdul Majeed

Waqas Abdul Majeed

I’ve definitely learnt so much in 2.5 hours than I’d learn watching different videos online on Youtube and reading tons of articles on the web. John has a natural way of teaching, where he is passionately diving in the topics and he makes it very easy to grasp — someone who wants you to really start running your business well by learning about the right tools and implement them in your online business. I will definitely share with many of the people I know who have been struggling for so long, I did find my answers and I’m sure will do too.

Scott Plude

Scott Plude

I have been following John Morris for several years now. His instruction ranges from beginner to advanced, to CEO-level guidance. I have referred friends and clients to John, and have encouraged my own daughter to pay attention to what he says. All of his teachings create wealth for me (and happiness for my clients!) I can’t speak highly enough about John, his name is well known in my home.

Sukh Plaha

John is a fantastic and patient tutor, who is not just able to share knowledge and communicate it very effectively – but able to support one in applying it. However, I believe that John has a very rare ability to go further than just imparting knowledge and showing one how to apply it. He is able to innately provoke one’s curiosity when explaining and demonstrating concepts, to the extent that one can explore and unravel their own learning journey. Thanks very much John!

Mohamed Misrab

Misrab Mohamed

John has been the most important person in my freelance career ever since I started. Without him, I would have taken 10 or 20 years more to reach the position I am at now (Level 2 seller on Fiverr and Top Rated on Upwork).

Join 7,700 Other Freelancers Who've Built Thriving Freelance Businesses

Over 7,700 other freelancers have started thriving freelance businesses using the information on this blog. Are you next? Subscribe below to get notified whenever a new article is posted and create your own success story: