Posted on 26 September 2008 by Dr. Robert White
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This is a subject that is talked about quite often in the New Media World and we are going to go over a few ways that you can monetize or make a little money with your blog or podcast. This discussion is by no means a complete list. I will cover some highlights that will enable you to have a starting point to your monetization.
Now, there are many ways to monetize, such as advertising, sponsorships, donations and affiliate programs. The easiest of these aforementioned methods is donations. You don’t have to do much of anything except to put a Donation Button on your blog or web site and if someone is inclined to help you out, they can easily click this and give you some money! Sounds easy, right?
Setting up a Donation Button will require you to have a merchant account (to accept credit cards) or a PayPal Account. There are other “PayPal type” places around that may offer this feature as well. Make sure to place your Donation Button in a prominent place so that it can be seen (and hopefully used) and then make sure to tell your listeners (of your show or podcast) or readers of your blog, that this button is there and then ASK them to make a donation! That’s all you need to do for this type of monetization structure.
The next type of monetization is sponsorships. These are a little harder to obtain, but well worth getting. To get a sponsor for your blog or podcast, you will need to approach several companies that you would like to “push their wares” in exchange for an advertising spot on your blog or podcast. There are places that will help you get sponsorships, such as BluBrry, a Rawvoice Company, that you can signup with, it’s free to do this, fill out an advertising survey and complete their requirements and then they will match you with advertisers (sometimes more than one) that you can place on your sites, blogs and use as host read ads in your podcasts. One such example of this is the GoToMyPC ad I read at the beginning of every show and have a banner ad on my blog for. Of course, once you get a sponsor, it is important that you do your part by reading the ad and/or placing the advertising your site or blog to insure that you will get paid!
Speaking of advertising, our next structure is actually two fold. Advertising can be from businesses or companies that you approach and signup with yourself or you can sign up with an affiliate program and place ads from different companies easily on your sites or blogs and use these advertisers as possible sponsors of your podcasts. You can go to places like Commission Junction, ShareASale or LinkShare to signup for a free affiliate account and start placing ads today! Affiliate sales usually get you anywhere from 5 to 75 percent commission on each sale. This is also an easy way to place ads for companies you like to shop with on your sites or blogs too.
The last way we will discuss in our monetization structure is selling your own product or service. You may be involved in a Network Marketing or MLM company and have such a product or service already, or you may have developed an eBook or piece of software that you can sell, however, which ever case it is, you can begin to use this as a sponsor of your podcast and run your own ads on your site or blog and you would have a built in sponsor. Now, keep in mind when doing this method, that you keep within the guidelines of the MLM company for advertising their products and services in this fashion. Some MLM companies do not like Web 2.0 strategies and may drop you as a representative, so be sure to double check with your MLM company before doing this.
If the product or service is your own, meaning you own the copyright, rights, etc. then by all means, this is a great method to promoting your product and your self!
Here’s one more idea that isn’t real popular, however, it does work for most people. Joint Ventures or JV Affiliate Opportunities, are a way to make commissions by selling someone else’s products on your site or blog. In most cases, you can even sell them on your podcast as a sponsored deal and direct them to your site or blog to click on the affiliate link (so you will make the commission and not someone else!). You can find JV opportunities in most eBook and software sales. Sometimes these opportunities are presented as Master Resell Rights or Resell Rights and you buy the product one time and have the opportunity to resell it as many times as you like and keep 100% of the sales as your commission. There are lots of these type of eBooks and software out there and you can find more than 200 products right now at The Personal Publisher for only $2.00 each! That’s a small price to pay to be able to resell these products for whatever price you like!
Concluding this topic, I know that there are plenty of other ways to monetize your blogs and podcasts. I have only presented just a few to get you started. If you would like to leave a comment to this post with other ways that you know of, I know my readers and listeners would like to hear from you!
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