Creating digital content can turn you into a digital entrepreneur if you approach its monetization strategically. There are many options to choose from for this purpose. However, you should weight benefits and drawbacks before deciding on the best one. Cracking the puzzle to success depends on your ability to see and seize opportunities in the digital sphere. The choice of digital content monetization strategies depends on the type of content you publish, time and resources you have, and your knowledge of digital tools.

Table of Contents

• Developing Alertness to Opportunities for Digital Content Monetization Strategies
• Monetizing Your Digital Persona vs. Website or Company Brand
• Making the Right Choice for Greater Revenue: Benefits and Drawbacks

1. Developing Alertness to Opportunities for Digital Content Monetization Strategies

The development of alertness to opportunities, that is, your ability to see and seize them, requires you to apply two thinking types: divergent and convergent. Such a skill is highly important in any life sphere. If you are eager to become a digital entrepreneur, it is a great technique to apply for spotting opportunities and solving problems. Palmiero et al. (2020) point out that it is typically effective for open-ended problems that require a creative approach instead of just a right or wrong strategy.

Broaden Your Thinking

Start with divergent thinking, which involves spotting as many solutions to the problem as possible. In the case of digital entrepreneurship, the problem is digital content monetization, while ideas or solutions are various revenue streams.

Narrow Down Your Ideas

It is where convergent thinking can help you select the most applicable monetization strategy.

Frame Your Vision of Success

You should set the goal with milestones for revenue generation. Estimate what sums of profits will mark your success within specific time periods.

2. Monetizing Your Digital Persona vs. Website or Company Brand

The choice of digital monetization strategies depends on whether you want to monetize your digital persona, building a brand around your personality, or a website or company brand.

It also depends on the following factors:

• Monetization on the website or blog versus social media,
• Content type: general content versus high-value content and useful tools like templates,
• Willingness to adapt to trends for growth versus constant and reliable revenue streams,
• Time, resources, and the knowledge of digital tools.
• Direct vs. indirect revenue (selling content versus advertising).

Website vs. Social Media

If you plan to monetize your digital persona, YouTube and social media revenue generation ways are a better choice:

• You can use affiliate marketing by dropping promocodes below posts.
• Cooperation with brands requires dedicating more time to creating content for such promo campaigns.
• Publish such promo content on your social page or sell it to the brand for publication on their account.
• Connect AdSense for YouTube to show ads on videos.

There are more options for digital content monetization on websites:

• Paid spaces on websites for other bloggers to advertise their blogs,
• AdSense ads,
• Affiliate links in posts,
• Paid access to some content,
• Guest posts for publishing which bloggers have to pay,
• Donations,
• Paid course with modules,
• Software as a service (SaaS) with different plans,

General Content vs. High-Value Content

Monetizing both company content or your digital persona content, focus on both providing some general content for free and paid content that is highly useful and is aimed at solving a problem.

Adaptation vs. Stability

The decision on the monetization strategy may also depend on your ability to adapt or leadership and managerial skills and your perception of stability.

Time, Knowledge, and Resources

If you have no time to create sponsored content and want to publish only entertaining or informative posts, display ads are the best choice.

Being knowledgeable how to develop a SaaS app and monetize it through subscriptions can bring even more revenue.

Resources like initial investment and paid tools can also affect content monetization. An example is payments for platforms to publish courses for further monetization.

Direct vs. Indirect Revenue

Selling your content (textual or visual) can be a quick way to get revenue, but it is a one-time solution. If you want to generate passive income, indirect revenue through ads can be a more effective way to monetize your blog and time.

3. Making the Right Choice for Greater Revenue: Benefits and Drawbacks

Identifying and framing your vision of successful monetization opens many opportunities for you to choose from. Let’s start with affiliate marketing.

Disclaimer: The post contains affiliate links, which means that EEssays may earn a commission at no cost to you.

Affiliate Marketing and Shoppable Content

If you want to create promotional videos and sponsored content, you have such options:

• Finding partnership or affiliate programs directly on websites of brands you want to promote.
• Choosing merchants or partners from affiliate marketing platforms or networks. A good choice is ShareASale, which is part of Awin with a wide range of categories to find partners.

Promote products you use yourself to develop trust, which is the foundation of business-customer relationships. Add links for users to buy products from your content.

Display Ads

Adding display ads to your website can be a great source of passive income. Apply for Google AdSense program, as it is easy to integrate into the website.

Online Courses

Categorize your content into modules with step-by-step progress, tasks, audio and visual content. Sell through paid access on your website or platforms and a link to the course on social media.

Develop a microlearning app or micro-course that can be taken on mobile phones.

Digital Products and Microproducts

Write and publish a book in the PDF format with infographics (paid access on your website or Amazon). Sell templates and microproducts like resource kits or short guides.

Subscription to Newsletters or AI Chatbots

Monetize your newsletter, offering exclusive content with high-quality photos. You can create an AI chatbot that can solve minor issues within a specific domain or topic.

Content Access Restriction

One more option is to restrict access to some content with two ways to pay for it:

• Pay-per-use
• Pay-per-period

Community-as-a-Product

Unite people with a common goal or vision to learn something or share professional insights under paid access to a network through membership fees. You can use Discord, Mighty Networks, Circle, and other tools.

Organize workshops and offer paid access to them in private groups or sell access individually.

Key Takeaways

• Mix digital content monetization strategies to minimize risks of less revenue from one option.
• Choose strategies based on framing your vision of success and using divergent and convergent thinking.
• Unite users of your digital products by creating a digital community through private access.

References Palmiero, M., Nori, R., Piccardi, L., & D’Amico, S. (2020). Divergent thinking: The role of decision-making styles. Creativity Research Journal, 32(4), 323–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2020.1817700