written by This is the web version of our curated email newsletter, The Digital Entrepreneur. Get this content delivered directly to your inbox each week.
A digital business can generate revenue in a variety of ways.
Certainly using content to educate your potential customers, build trust, and ultimately earn the sale is a great way. It’s what we teach over at Copyblogger.
But maybe you don’t have an ebook or an online course or a SaaS product. Maybe you just have content. Or maybe you mostly have content. If it’s published, distributed, and supported fully online, then it’s still a digital product and you’re still running a digital business.
Just the business model will change.
I have some experience with this. The primary product for my website The Assembly Call is the content. And while we receive generous support from our listeners, that’s only part of our revenue model. We’ve also incorporated both sponsorships and affiliate marketing.
You should consider both options when deciding how to monetize your content, especially if your content is your product.
Jonny Nastor and I discussed this topic on a recent episode of The Showrunner.
Episode page: Sponsorships or Affiliate Marketing: Which Is Better for Your Podcast?
And while we focused on sponsorships and affiliate marketing from the perspective of podcasting, the framework of the discussion is relevant to any digital business.
Listen and subscribe to The Digital Entrepreneur:
If you use another podcast app, just search for “showrunner” and you should find the show.
You should also check out this recent episode of The Digital Entrepreneur if you missed it: What Online Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Affiliate Marketing
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“Learn from my mistakes, start with the Rainmaker Platform.” — Jason H.
Now here are this week’s resources to help you create, sell, and grow — curated by me and members of Digital Commerce Academy.
Do you want to submit a link for next week’s Digital Entrepreneur? Click here to suggest your link [Academy members only].
Create
Be a better content producer with the rule of three
We look for tips, tricks and tools to settle our brain. This simple rule may just be the key. [Submitted by Daniel Chohfi]
How the ‘Rule of 3’ Can Simplify Your Daily Life
Are you creating long-term value for someone other than just yourself?
As usual, Seth nails this. ” … the purpose of an enterprise is to make things better. To minimize negative externalities and create value. Value for the owners, sure, but also for the workers, the customers and the bystanders.”
Can you succeed in tech outside of Silicon Valley?
Yes. There are many examples of companies that do. (Rainmaker Digital is one.) Here, Alex Turnbull of Groove describes how they’ve succeeded despite being far away from the Silicon Valley action, and the challenges that naturally presents.
What are the biggest challenges of building a tech company outside of Silicon Valley?
Sell
A pricing model should not erode value
“Mobile apps and SaaS products are apples and oranges. Yet, mobile apps can learn a ton from SaaS pricing models about how to better monetize customers in their own market.”
What mobile apps can learn from SaaS pricing models
Don’t be a … what did he say?
If you’re looking to get links to your site for all the benefits that come with it, maybe you should try a different approach. Here’s how Brian Clark does it.
3 Strategic Ways to Get Links to Your Website
Take your conversion to the next level
Talia Wolf lays out the strategic importance of enhancing the prospect’s experience at your site, and then shares three areas you can start improving today:
3 Conversion Optimization Tactics that Work, with Talia Wolf
Grow
The (digital) entrepreneur’s dilemma
It’s difficult to juggle all of the demands that life places on us. We have to make choices, and sacrifices. In this article, Randi Zuckerberg describes the pick-3-out-of-5 choice that most of us face.
Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3
Want to turn your side hustle into a business?
Then it’s time to focus on customer experience. You may not think customer experience can move the needle that much, but the data says otherwise. Ignore it at your peril.
Leverage Customer Experience to Go From Side Hustle to Full-Time Business
How AI will affect our world
AI is coming. We know that. So we best be prepared. This post provides a deep dive into several important areas that AI will impact in the not-too-distant future.
Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You
I hope you find these resources to be useful, and that at least one of them helps you take a meaningful step forward during the course of the next week.
Thanks for your attention, and have a great weekend.
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