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The 3 types of indirect monetization
(2 min read) Three proven strategies for indirect monetization and how to optimize them for your Creator business.
Melody Song
November 19, 2024
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Sometimes, when you make content for one group of people, it ends up that it’s an entirely different group of people who pays you.
A few examples (from most narrow to most broad):
MaiStoryBook makes content for kids and parents, but makes most of her money selling course materials to teachers
I create content for Creators, but my top revenue streams involve selling to Creator Economy companies
Creators who monetize through brand deals make content for consumers, but get paid by brands
This is indirect monetization - where your audience isn’t paying you, but someone else who either wants to reach or serve your audience is.
With brands, the incentives are obvious: brands want to pay you to get in front of and sell to your audience. This is what I’d call media-based indirect monetization. Creators can optimize for media-based indirect monetization by increasing their audience reach or passion.
But there are other reasons your customer might not be in your core audience.
In MaiStoryBook’s case, her content engages students so well, and parents love it so much, that teachers buy and use her course material offerings to make their own work easier. This is product-driven indirect monetization - your products serve an audience that your customer also wants to serve. Creators can optimize for product-based indirect monetization by making their content more in-depth and offering more / better products e.g. content, services, digital goods, etc.
In my case, while I create content for Creators, many Creator Economy companies read Creator Logic or watch my videos on LinkedIn and reach out to me for my knowledge and experience working with Creators. As a result, I have a strong network of Creator Economy founders and executives - and businesses that want to sell to them then want to leverage that network to drive their own B2B sales.
This is an example of what I’d call network-based indirect monetization. You can optimize for network-based indirect monetization by prioritizing relationship-building with your audience - for example, I respond to every (non-spam) DM and take lots of meetings to grow my network of valuable contacts. That said, this may be the most challenging because building a high-value network requires either a highly passionate audience OR very deep, expert-level content - otherwise it will be challenging to attract a high-value network.
Tl;dr indirect monetization strategies include:
Media-based indirect monetization = marketing to an audience on behalf of a customer; optimize for audience reach and audience passion
Product-based indirect monetization = offering products to a customer whose own customer is your audience; optimize for product quality and content depth
Network-based indirect monetization = offering customers access to a network cultivated through content creation and audience development; optimize for relationship-building by first optimizing for either audience passion OR content depth.
Of course, you can change your monetization strategy over time, or can operate multiple strategies at once. I'm personally aiming to move to a combination of direct monetization and media-based indirect monetization over time, as network-based requires more effort and resources.
Understand what approach you’re taking and how to optimize it, and and you’re sure to earn more than those who don’t!
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What’s your indirect monetization strategy? |
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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
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