Tag Archives: monetization

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Leverage Your Brand and Make Money

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Hello Freelancer friend and thank you for coming back to continue our examination of how Freelancers who are just regular folks can leverage our know-how to generate a sufficient income in the 21st century knowledge economy.  For most, it is an uphill battle.

One very ambitious (and possibly overwhelming) monetization strategy is to write a business book that will either:

  1. tell your business creation story— how you overcame adversity and persevered until you prevailed, or breezed through every door and stumbled into lucrative assignments
  2.  function as a how-to guide that details how the reader can become a more proficient and successful public speaker, financial manager, business strategist, Freelance consultant, or the like

A business book is an evergreen PR tool and door opener.  Authors are often asked to give quotes to journalists and content producers, are more often invited to speak at business or professional association meetings, receive more adjunct teaching opportunities and are considered more qualified than non-authors by potential clients.

Podcasts are another promotional strategy, one that is more accessible than writing a book.  Ideally, podcasts will position a Freelancer to monetize his/her knowledge or skills and it’s not necessary to create a series that will attract thousands of listener downloads and a gaggle of advertisers.  For at least a handful of podcasters, several of their strategically selected guests have become clients.  However, in order to make that transition, one must be the host of the show and not merely a guest.

Yet, if one appears as a guest on enough podcast shows and moves up the food chain to appear on popular shows, it will be reasonable to apply that achievement to the pursuit of paid speaking engagements.  Preferably, speaker circuit bookers will find you, but it would nevertheless be worth your while to initiate contact.  You could possibly receive offers in the $250 – $750  per talk sector.  You won’t get rich, but you might create a modest revenue stream and enhance your ability to attract big-budget clients to your core business.  Along with your podcast appearances, become a panelist or moderator at conferences sponsored by neighborhood business associations, chambers of commerce, or professional associations, to hone your pubic speaking skills and enhance your presence and brand.

Finally, there is the growing popularity of creating and presenting online courses.  If you are an experienced teacher and comfortable in front of the video camera, you may want to brainstorm a course or two to create and present.  Essentially, this means you must identify a problem and then design a course to solve it.  Click the link and get information on how to  create your online course

In closing, I don’t see much of a solid business model in the new economy brand and knowledge monetization game, I’m sorry to say, and maybe that’s why so many Freelancers are struggling.  As I see it, a business model is similar to the template for a franchise.  The template is not as precise as a mathematic formula, but given similar business conditions and customer demographics,  one can produce the desired outcome.  In other words, if you buy a CVS or Dunkin’ Donuts franchise, you will make money if the store has the right location and management.  Unfortunately, our fortunes in the 21st century knowledge economy are not so predictable.

Dorie Clark (no relation), author of Entrepreneurial You (2017) and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, advises Freelance consultants to follow these steps to monetize our knowledge and brand:

  1. Cultivate an inner circle.  From this group, one receives feedback and  encouragement.  If some in your circle are well-connected, they may provide important client referrals and open other doors for you as well.
  2. Build an audience.  This is how you launch your monetization strategy.  Announce the roll-out in your blog or newsletter, on your website and on social media and YouTube.  The goal is to become visible.
  3. Build your community.  As your audience grows, you must encourage them to talk to each other and connect around your concept. The community will initially be nurtured online, probably through Facebook and Twitter. Eventually, you will solidify your community support with ticketed face-to-face gatherings where you are the featured speaker.
  4. Build trust.  Your community has to trust and respect you.  Continue to create content that they find relevant and be careful in what and how often you attempt to sell to them.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Screenshot of Paul Masson Wines advertising campaign. Academy Award winning writer (Best Original Screenplay 1941, Citizen Kane), producer, director and actor Orson Welles was the Paul Masson Wines (of California) brand ambassador from 1978-1981.

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How to Monetize Your Brand

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In the internet age, there are numerous Freelancers who gain significant notoriety through social media platforms, mainly Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or their blogs.  Their accounts have thousands of subscribers and followers.  Paid advertising deals have come to about all of them and provide a revenue stream.  However, advertising deals are not all equal and advertising rates received can be too low to substantively impact one’s financial status.  Often, the achievement of notoriety earns these Freelancers little money.

Among the primary differences in earning a living in the 20th and 21st centuries is that in the former, one made money by doing a particular activity, such as law, medicine, secretarial, writing, or being a musical entertainer.  In this century, there are proportionately far fewer traditionally employed full-time workers and many more of the self-employed.

A 2017 study by Intuit (maker of QuickBooks) reports that 34% of U.S. workers are self-employed, swelled by Lyft and Uber drivers who join the usual plumbers, electricians, website developers and event planners.  The path to money for Freelancers is to skillfully parlay the achievement of notoriety into a series of revenue streams that create a sustainable income.

For example, Freelance writers of magazine articles were formerly paid $1.00 per word or more and many publications would regularly hire writers to produce 500 – 1500 word articles. The writing life was good.  Even those who wrote for a mid-level daily newspaper and occasionally submitted a story to a middle-brow magazine could be financially comfortable.

Then the internet age arrived and turned the world on its head, in more ways than one.   Online ads may sometimes be clever but they are apparently perceived as less compelling than the full-page ads that once fattened your Sunday newspaper and as a result, online ads command a lower price.  Advertising revenue is tanking and has caused publishers to cut back on editors’ salaries and perks.  Compensation for writers at online magazines is a mere pittance.  In the literary world, advances to writers have become smaller and less frequent.  Book tours are for big-name authors only.  Publishers and editors-in-chief have much smaller budgets and the chauffeured town car to take them to the office is about to disappear.  The Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone editors-in-chief recently announced their retirements.

Musical entertainers of every level made money from record sales, singles and albums, plus touring.  But in the late 1990s that began to change when Napster brought about peer-to-peer sharing of music files. Today, music is downloaded and performers from Nicki Minaj, who is the face of MAC cosmetics, to Lady Gaga for Tiffany & Company, use their famous brands to generate millions of dollars for the corporation and themselves by appearing in ads.  Touring remains relevant but music sales, for decades the very reason for being for a musical entertainer, are greatly diminished.

In the 21st century, one must learn to generate a livable and sustainable income as a result of one’s writing, or other expertise.  This is an unprecedented shift in the way an economy works.  The big challenge for those of us who are self-employed and following the playbook as regards developing a strong online presence, teaching at the university level, speaking at business and professional associations will not appear in an auto advertisement any time soon monetize their comparatively modest brand and perhaps superior expertise?  For those who no longer find an open door to full-time, benefits paying employment, making a living only becomes more difficult as time goes on.

So what does one do? Suggestions on how to make money by building on your brand will be featured in next week’s post.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Academy Award winning actress Joan Crawford (Best Actress 1945, Mildred Pierce), who was the Pepsi Cola brand ambassador, in Frankfurt, Germany (1963).  Photograph: Tony Evanoski/Stars and Stripes (publication that has served military personnel since 1936)