Whenever I discuss or advise on community monetization, I like to put forward some disclaimers because a lot of excitement seems to spark up when money is discussed.
Just because you can make money from communities doesn't mean you should rush into building one without plans to offer real value.
Monetizing a community is not about making quick bucks and exploiting people, it is about enriching the community experience.
Remember, it's not all about the money. Don't get excited and lose sight of why your community exists in the first place.
Now that we've got that covered, let's dive a bit deeper!
Two scenarios around monetization;
- You started off your community as completely free but now you're thinking about monetizing it (partially or entirely)
- You are planning to launch a community and need ideas on how to monetize from the start
Whatever the case, there are ways to get around it and that’s what I’ll be sharing with you today.
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But why monetize in the first place?
To maintain administrative work, especially in large communities where you might need to hire extra hands to keep things running smoothly
To improve your programs, whether events or content. Sometimes, certain levels of value require investments
To earn an income
So, how can you go about monetizing?
Membership fee:
Monetizing through a membership fee can take different forms. You can either charge members right from the get-go to join your community or you can have a free community and charge members for special perks and features within the community.
Ads:
Create opportunities for brands or find brands that want to sell products to your members and charge a fee for promotion. These ads can be in the form of banners, sponsored content, or in newsletters.
Products/services:
Identify the common problems that keep coming up in your community, and develop products/services that your audience really wants to buy. E.g. courses, books, mentorship, etc.
Events/workshops:
Put together value-packed events (doesn’t have to be extravagant), and charge an access fee. Whether virtual or in-person, choose what suits your community best.
Marketplace:
Depending on the type and size of your community, you can create a marketplace within the community where members can buy/sell products with each other while you take a percentage of each sale.
Job board:
For communities centered around a specific industry or niche, members can pay to feature their resumes for recruiters, or recruiters can pay to advertise jobs.
Affiliate sales:
Identify products/resources that are relevant to your community, promote them, and take a percentage of every sale. You must maintain transparency with your community by clearly including a disclosure statement with your promotions, that you may earn a commission from it.
Merchandise:
Find items that your members would be happy to buy, make them, brand them, and sell them. E.g. t-shirts, hoodies, caps, journals, etc.
Also, if your community is big enough, approach companies with an offer to create community-branded versions of their products just for you and split the profits.
When selling merchandise, make sure you plan how you'll handle order fulfillment and shipping smoothly.
In conclusion,
The goal of monetization isn’t to figure out how we can make money from what the audience is doing. It’s to figure out what we can do that the audience would want to pay for.
- Richard Millington
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This content was originally published in January 2021 and has been updated for freshness and accuracy.