Making Money From Digital Content
Since around 2016, particularly with the rise of the Joe Rogan Experience, podcasts have exploded in popularity. As part of the podcast explosion, every man and his dog wanted to start one, yet no one really knew why they wanted to, it is simply the ‘in thing’ to do to become a content creator. This has spread across a range of content channels, including Twitch and Youtube.
Being a content creator is the latest trend
Content creators today are like the 'entrepreneurs' of the early 10’s, and before that, working in any firm that offered Merger and Acquisition services. There’s always a flavour of the month, romanticised job, yet this one is slightly different, the world of the content creator has matured greatly off the back of the internets new maturity, providing a variety of new ways to monetise an audience.
Traditional content was centralised, relying on reach
Prior to the the internet, there were only the traditional media channels of TV, print (news, magazines, books) and radio. With TV and radio being considerably centralised, access to audiences for small content creators was left almost purely to smaller publications, who at the end of the day, were still centralised and still held control.
Traditional media is also monetised by the volume of its audience, the total reach it has. Based on this, advertisers buy space thats priced relative to the size (or reach) of a channel, this was the only way media saw monetisation of an audience. The focus for content was the breadth of audience it could get to consume it.
The internet changed the need for purely reach
This is where the internet has totally changed the game. Originally, the internet was treated as another channel to deliver content, the value was seen in the potential reach when you can access a worldwide audience.
This added reach wasn’t just good for advertisers, it gave rise to content topics being fractured into smaller subgroups, commonly known as niches. This increased global scale meant that smaller and smaller content topic creators could now find an audience, something that would never have existed in the former, localised centralised content systems.
Direct access brings new monetisation opportunities
This is where opportunity lies in more than just reach, the internet is more than just a new channel, it’s a way to directly access an audience, which opens up monetisation opportunities.
Although volume still drives value through breadth of reach for advertisers, a new form of monetisation has formed, The internet now adds value in audience depth, rather than exclusively breadth. Let me explain.
What is depth of audience value?
Depth of value refers to the increasing value per content consumer. We no longer need to just sell advertising, selling ad space brings only a few fractions of a cent of value per person, but new opportunities such as selling digital products, paid subscriptions, special paid access or using affiliate links allow the creator to massively increase the value per content consumer. There is now depth in value per consumer, rather than purely selling eyeballs for ads.
This breaks the logic that a market / niche is ‘too small’; the smaller the niche, the more likely an audience is more involved in the topic, this also makes them more price insensitive to any products in that same category.
Key takeouts for building depth and breadth:
Advertisers will always want audience reach, but there are now more ways to monetise content.
No content topic is too small. Create content around your own skillset and interest to build an audience overtime, there’s always enough people in the world.
Direct access to an audience is where the value is. Once you build the audience, monetisation opportunities will present themselves down the line.