Understanding Monetization Options For Publishers

Creating compelling and high-quality content requires resources. The higher the quality, the happier the readers.

But with the rates of advertisement getting lower with every passing day, it is becoming difficult to balance the costs and profits. Moreover, tech giants like Facebook and Google have also take a large portion of the advertisement revenue.

So, how does a digital publisher survive and thrive?

The answer is – having multiple monetization options. No doubt that digital ads might sustain your business, but they will not lead to growth. The only reliable solution is expanding revenue streams.

Here are some of the monetization options that publishers can explore to grow their revenue:

Subscriptions

The subscription model is the simplest yet most powerful method of monetization. What makes this method so powerful is that you don’t have to shift your focus from your content’s quality to anything else.

In the subscription method, the reader has to pay a subscription fee to read the content behind the paywall. You can create various types of paywalls like a soft paywall or hard paywall using CMS like Bold.

Micro-payments

Sometimes, users do not want to pay a monthly or yearly fee. The reason can be anything: the reader wants to read only one article, or she has already taken a subscription to a similar publisher and does not want to pay for another subscription.

The solution to such a problem is micro-payments. You can charge the reader a small fee (hence the name micro-payments) for reading one article. However, your first preference should always be a subscription instead of micro-payments.

Donations

Donations are not as reliable an income stream as subscriptions or micro-payments, but they can still keep your business afloat. If you have created a positive relationship with readers, there are high chances that they will small sums as donations.

Content that does good for society at large can also help in getting donations as a big part of your income.

Organizing Events

Organizing events can be beneficial for your publishing business in many ways. You can sell tickets of the event directly on your website, you can show advertisements in the business, you establish yourself as an industry leader, and most importantly, you create a direct relationship with the reader.

If an offline event sounds like too much of a hassle to you, you can organize a digital event and still get the benefits.

Sponsored Content

There are many problems with digital ads, such as the increasing popularity of ad blocks, readers developing a blindspot for ads, decreasing rates of PPC, etc. Thankfully, publishing sponsored content can solve all these problems in one go. The more relevant sponsored content is for your readers, the higher the advertisers will pay for it.

Affiliate Marketing

If you write content that is related to products, you can earn revenue with the help of affiliate marketing. For this, you can join an affiliate marketing program or contact a seller directly. Add a buying link in your content, and whenever your readers buy the product from that link, you will get a small portion of the sales.

Selling Products

Just because you are in the publishing business does not mean that you can not sell a product. Publishers are now realizing that instead of promoting someone else’s product, they can create and sell their own products, also known as merchandise.

If the idea of selling products sounds overwhelming, you can sell digital products like PDFs and exclusive video content.

Privacy-friendly Data Selling

Today’s economy is called the data economy for a reason – data sells. As a publisher, you do not even have to do anything extra to get it. You must already be collecting a lot of user data. The only thing you have to do is sell it on data marketplaces.

Now, this does not mean that you have to compromise your readers’ privacy for it. Instead of individual users’ data, you can sell the consumer behavior of your readers in a privacy-friendly manner.

No matter what the size of your publishing company is, you can increase your revenue by using multiple monetization options. Create a revenue strategy and slowly execute them using the right tools.

Here at Quintype, we can help you generate revenue via our Bold CMS that offers features such as metered paywalls. It also makes publishing process seamless with its user-friendly interface and features like live preview, omni-channel distribution, etc. You can also use Accesstype – content monetization tool – that also facilitates customized subscription