Many people are confused about how to actually make money with content marketing.
They get what content marketing is.
It’s providing helpful information to people on a blog or a website for free, so that people can get to know them, trust them and like them. They get that these people will join their list and buy from them.
But they still have one very important question.
When does the make money with content marketing part kick in?
That’s a vital question, because it’s always important to begin with the end in mind.
There are many ways to make money with content marketing. For the sake of time, I’m going to share the top three from my point of view.
If your goal is to make money with content marketing, I believe you are going to like these next three ideas.
The first way to make money with content marketing is list building.
Content marketing is the perfect list building vehicle, and I do mean perfect.
Everyone is familiar with the squeeze page (or a lead capture page) where you offer a book, report, or a series of videos in order to get people to opt in to your mailing list.
Once these visitors are on your mailing list you can be in communication with them, be of service to them and, hopefully, sell them something.
A squeeze page is a powerful marketing tool. No question there.
But more powerful still is a blog with 100 or 200 articles on it, where visitors can read to their heart’s desire without having to subscribe first.
This is what Frank Kern calls “results in advance”. You help a person (your reader) accomplish something first and then ask them to do something in return (join your list) after.
Very powerful marketing that.
When you engage in that type of content marketing, where you are giving before you expect to receive, and then you have an opt in form in plain sight on your blog (or a pop up window that comes up from time to time) people will want to subscribe. These people will be very loyal subscribers.
Content marketing is one of the best ways in the world to do list building, and list building is one of the best ways in the world to make money online.
These two go together like peanut butter and jelly, a perfect complement to each other.
To my way of thinking, list building is by far the most powerful way to make money with content marketing.
The second way you can make money with content marketing is to display ads on your website.
This can help you make money with content marketing rather quickly.
Let’s assume that you’re going to start a blog and it’s going to be about a particular topic, and you’re going to do some content marketing.
You’re going to fill that blog up with articles, videos and even audio about your particular topic so that when visitors come, they can hear your opinion and find links to other trusted resources.
Your readers will also save time because you’ve done the work for them by curating the best of the best content into your blog.
While they’re spending all that time on your blog, they notice that you have ads running that are specific to your particular niche.
They are interested in the ads because the ads match the content on your site. They click the ads and you get paid.
Simple. Powerful. Effective.
Here’s an insider tip about making money with content marketing by displaying ads on your blog or website.
Where people make a mistake is when they run ads for ClickBank type products that have nothing to do with the content on their blog.
You want to be careful there.
If you have ads on your blog that are relevant to the topic that you’re doing content marketing about, people will notice the ads, will click on the ads, and in many cases you get paid just when they click.
Sometimes you get paid with a cost-per-action type model, other times with a cost-per-sale type model.
It’s pretty straightforward.
With cost-per-action (also known as CPA), you get paid when a person clicks the ad.
Another way to go is a cost-per-sale model, where you get paid when a person buys a product after clicking the ad.
Regardless of how you go about payment, displaying ads on your website or your blog can be a very powerful way to monetize your content marketing.
The third way to make money with content marketing is to do joint ventures.
As you build your audience, and your lists, there are going to be many people who want to reach your audience.
And the only way they can do that is to structure a joint venture that benefits you both.
They won’t spend the time to build a site like yours, but they want to have the benefits of a site like yours – the viewers, the people who come to your website and see ads.
The ability to send an email to your mailing list.
In that case, you can do a joint venture.
Perhaps this person has a product to sell or they’re trying to register people for a webinar.
You can help them achieve that with your already established readership, and you both can profit.
When these people approach you they will ask “Would you consider doing a joint venture with me? Let’s place this banner on your website, or let’s run this article on your website, or let’s send this email out to the people on your mailing list, and when things happen I’ll pay you a percentage.”
Or, in some cases, they will just pay you a fee.
Either way, you win.
One insider tip. Don’t take every JV you are offered.
Before you begin a joint venture it is important that you have some sense of the product being sold, and that you can genuinely recommend it to your readers as a good product for them.
So check out the product, or webinar or whatever it may be, and make sure you feel good about promoting it.
When you do a joint venture from your website like that, if it’s a product you believe in and you’ve checked out, and you can say to your audience with integrity, “I believe in this product. I think it’s a good product”
When that happens, people will respond in surprising numbers.
That’s why doing joint ventures from a well-run content marketing site can be so profitable.
This is something that, if you haven’t experienced it, might be a little hard to believe.
But it can happen to you if you put in the effort to make it happen.
This can be one of the surest, and fastest, ways to profit from your work with content marketing.
There are many ways to make money with content marketing.
Today we have touched on three of them.
These are three great ways to make money with content marketing and make all that hard work pay off.
- List building is the most important thing you can do.
- Ads on your site can be very effective, especially when they’re targeted and they create curiosity.
- And joint ventures with other people can be very profitable, particularly when they have quality products to sell and you have built the right audience for what they offer.
I hope you find this helpful.
To learn more about content marketing and curation, check out the other articles on this blog, and stay tuned for more to come.
And be sure to check out Curation Power, where I’m teaching members everything they need to know to succeed with curation.
Whether you curate content or create content, let me encourage you to do the work of content marketing.
Because succeeding online with content marketing is a beautiful thing indeed!
