Eva E. Alordiah

I went from broke to millions of Naira in my bank in less than a year thanks to digital products. Now I am on a mission to help one million creators turn what they know into income online. I am also the Co-Founder of Kobocourse.com /the Only Course hosting Platform for African Creators .

Marketing
7 Steps to Monetize Online with $0 and Less than 500 Followers
Just two years ago, out of the blue, I decided I wanted to grow a new Instagram page from scratch.

My motivation was to grow a niche audience on Instagram fast and learn how to monetize online with digital products and coaching.

I wanted to earn money online teaching what I know.

And I did!

In that time, I have sold hundreds of courses, grown a student base of over 4500 students, earned $30,000+ in my first year, and now offer $10,000+ services.

But I started with exactly $0.

In the beginning, all I wanted to do to monetize online was sell eBooks and maybe a digital course. I wasn’t even sure how to sell courses, how to price my products, or even what exactly I was going to sell. But I was tired of reading and hearing about how people made money online with digital products and I was committed to testing my own theories.

I knew if I wanted to monetize I’d need an audience that listened to me.

So I started a new Instagram page and focused solely on getting my first 5000 followers on Instagram.

5000 followers before monetizing was a personal challenge for me. It was a milestone I wanted to hit before thinking about money.

But forget 5000 followers, you don’t even have to think that far.

Here are 7 Steps to Monetize Online with $0 and Less than 500 Followers.

1 | Having an Audience Online is the First Step.

Except you want to shell out thousands of dollars in ad spend, you’d need an audience.

Having your own audience is a digital asset that pays dividends over time.

If you are a serious creator, you already know the value of having your audience, a group of people who listen to you and look to you to be their guide.

The good news is you do not need more than 10 people to begin to monetize online.

All you need is one person to say yes to your offer and you are literally in business.

Personally, I ask that my students hit a milestone of 500 – 1000 followers first. Understanding how a platform works and knowing how to grow your audience on that platform is key.

I chose Instagram and I mastered how it worked with seven different Instagram pages in different niches. But just because you are growing your audience doesn’t mean you cannot begin to make money.

A lot of money is made right inside your DMs this is why the next tip is important.

RELATED POST – How to Create an Online Course That Sells

2 | Don’t Ask How can I make money

When you are just getting started, it will be unwise to distract yourself with thoughts of how to make money. This is how a lot of people fail. Making money alone cannot be your immediate concern.

Making money is a by-product of helping people.

This is why you always want to start with the question – “How can I help?”

This one question will lead you down the paths that will unravel other connected paths for you. Starting with “How can I help,” will eventually lead you to see the opportunities to help you earn money.

The money you are currently seeking is in the pockets of other people who have problems.

Your job is to identify the problems people have and match your products and services as a solution.

This is why you need to start with the people.

Even if you had less than 100 followers right now, you can begin to ask -” What do you need help with?”

That’s why it is very possible to start monetizing online with less than 500 followers on any platform. This is where the power of the DMs comes into play.

3 | Learn How to Chat and Sell in the DMs

Your content positions you as the trusted source, the go-to expert, the one who knows the most in a specific subject area. But you must use your content to invite people to chat with you in the DMs.

Do not underestimate the power of your DMs to get clients and make sales.

You always want to make sure you use the Call-to-action “DM me” or offer some type of Freebie in a Sales Funnel that does the selling for you.

In the beginning, when you still have a small audience it is very easy to chat with people in your DMs and you must keep this line of communication open.

People want to talk to people and people pay people they have access to.

I have had clients close $1000 deals in the DMs even with a very small following.

Many people stop themselves from monetizing at all because they think they have to prove a point by having more followers.

Yes having more followers is a great look and it’s nice as a vanity metric, but there are lots of people with many followers who are not even making a penny.

That’s because people pay you for solving their problems, not just because you have many followers.

When it comes down to monetizing and making money, your focus is on the one person you can help right now. Get them in your DMs and start selling in your DMs

4 | Offer Paid 1:1 Help and Support

Please do not be the person who answers every question in the DMs and offers free advice.

Believe me when I tell you, if anyone has the audacity to pick your brains in the DMs, they are often ready to pay you.

Your job always is to uncover the deeper desires of your followers and see where your products or services shine as the right solution. Then you must position yourself to offer that solution to your prospects.

And the easiest way I have found to do this is in a 1:1 capacity.

That’s it. Start offering to help people 1:1 time with you in exchange for a fee.

Most of this conversation will start with that very awkward chat in the DMs, this is why I stress the importance of knowing how to sell in the DMs.

When I started monetizing online, I focused on chatting with people directly in the DMs and inviting them to a phone or Zoom meeting.

Once in a meeting, I was able to upsell myself and my higher-paid services as well.

How to Start an Email List From Scratch The Right Way

5 | Raise Your Prices

I remember initially charging $45 for an hour of consultation and feeling all kinds of euphoria the first time I got paid. It was unbelievable to me at the time, that I could sit at home, talk to someone on the phone, solve their problem, and get paid.

Over time, as I learned more about how to price my offers and how to deliver more value to my clients, I began to bring more to the table and inevitably charge more.

I raised my consultation from $45 per hour to $100 and later on to $350 and so on.

If you are in the beginning phases of your monetization journey, you are in the phase I call the Researcher Phase.

Throughout your business and career, you will always be in this research phase but especially in the very beginning, you need to take this 1:1 research opportunity seriously.

What’s even better is you are getting paid to do your research. By talking with people 1:1 and helping them solve their problems, you’ll better understand:
- Who you really want to help
- How you really like to help
- What services or products are winners
- How much effort is required on your part
- How to set your prices in relation to the value you offer
- What to offer next
..and so on.

6 | Always Have an Upsell to the Next Offer

Charging for an hourly consult is great, but it is only the very first offer. You need to have a higher-priced offer as an upsell and you need to know how to sell this next offer.

It is very easy to sell someone on an hourly meeting or phone call for say $100. But once on the phone, you want to ensure that they are not only satisfied with your service, but you open a loop for them to continue to work with you on a deeper level.

You never want to end your conversation with this prospect, without letting them know how else you can help them. You must show them the possibilities available to them were they to continue working with you, and even let them know the cost implication of that.

You can offer single coaching / consulting calls – e.g $100 per hour

And on your coaching call, pitch to continue to help your client through a deeper level of coaching – e.g $1000 upfront fee for 2-Months of weekly coaching.

You must make this offer on the call, you don’t have to seal the deal just yet.

Say goodbye, end the call and let them go back to marinate on the possible idea of working with you. In your follow-ups and check-in with them, you can continue to try the seal the next offer.

This way, a single $100 per hour phone call can become a $1000 per month coaching with you!

7 | Go From 1:1 to One-to-Many

A lot of people begin monetizing by charging people by the hour. Unfortunately, this is where they stop and they never go on to doing much else.

Soon your 1:1 consults begin to tire you out and you wonder if this is all life is about, selling your time for money. Even worse, you realize that you do not have enough hours in the day to sell and even if you did, it begins to drain you and you lose all love for the thing.

I started doing 1:1 coaching until I realized I didn’t enjoy it and I preferred to coach many people at a time.

So I started offering group classes and paid workshops, group coaching, memberships as well as offering digital courses. These are great ways to take the material that helps one person at a time to offer it to more people. Now you can earn more in much less time than it would take to help just one person.

But getting your material to the point where you can prove results really comes from that 1:1 engagement you have with your clients.

So start now and fail fast.

Begin inviting people into your DMs, make your DMs work for you by learning how to sell in the DMs, and begin to offer your solution to the many people who need your help right now.

It works if you work it.

Webinars, Workshops, Masterclass – What is the Difference and Which is Best?

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Marketing
How to Start an Email List From Scratch The Right Way
Two years ago I started a brand new Instagram page.

At the time I already had an Instagram account with over 300,000 Followers, but I needed to branch out into a new niche. So, I started from scratch.

I also knew that if I wanted to monetize online correctly and have an online business that thrived, whether I was on Youtube, Instagram or Tiktok, I needed to grow my email list.

Fast forward to right now, my new Instagram page has over 50,000 followers and my email list, which I grew from Instagram has more than 11,000 subscribers and counting.

Followers are great, and everyone wants more and more followers.

Unfortunately, followers belong on the platform and you don’t really own them.

It doesn’t matter what you do or sell online, you need an email list.

Your email list is a real business asset that no one can take from you, and when done right, you can continue to earn money thanks to your list.

Most people skip this part because they falsely convince themselves that email marketing is not important, and worse, those who eventually take the leap and start using email, just have a list they never send mails to.

Here Are 5 Easy Ways to Ensure You are Growing Your Email list the Right way.

Create an Evergreen Leadmagnet /Freebie

Your Leadmagnet must be an EVERGREEN resource that can be used again and again, year after year to attract your specific ideal client/audience. Earlier this year, I released a NEW free guide called 32 Digital Products to Create in 2022 that will Make a Lot of Money.

Come 2030 and this resource will still be a high-value, evergreen offer that will continue to attract my ideal audience, people who want to monetize with Digital products.

Heck I can change the title however I want but the content will still be valuable.

Remember, just because it is free doesn’t mean people will just take it. They still have to exchange their email address for it and they still have to invest their time going through the content.

So what can you create as a Free offer that will always be a needed resource for your particular audience?

Use a Platform You Understand and Can Manage

Since I started marketing online as far back as 2003, I have tried and tested several email marketing software. I started with Mailchimp, did not like it much so I moved to Convertkit.

I used CK for a while but eventually fell in love with Flodesk Email Marketing because of its simplicity and the fact that I get to pay only one price forever.

As you know, as your list grows and you have more subscribers, you get to pay more.

Flodesk canceled all of that with its unique pricing model of a single fee.

Even better, if you have an affiliate link for Flodesk, you will get in at a crazy $19 per month forever, regardless of how many subscribers you have.

Let’s face it, most people never start using email marketing because of the added costs of growing an email list. If that’s you, be honest with yourself here, is this a cost or an investment if your email list is making you money?

If you spend, for example, $19 on Flodesk month to month regardless of how many subscribers you have, and you are able to earn $200 from your list, is that an expense or an investment in your business?

You do the math.

No matter the platform you choose, you want to make sure it is software you can easily understand and one that makes sending email fun for you.

To Grow Your Email List, Always Promote Your Lead magnet

Your Leadmagnet/ Freebie is what you give away so people can join your email list. But just because you created it doesn’t mean it will promote itself. Even though this is a free resource, you still have to convince people to download it.

Every time you create content online, find a way to tie it into your Lead magnet.

Your list grows when you have people downloading this resource so the more traffic you send to your Opt-in page, the better results you will get.

If you have done Step 1 perfectly, you’d have created an evergreen Leadmagnet that works for your audience /ideal clients. That means no matter what content type or topic you create, your Leadmagnet will be relevant.

Commit to Serving Your List, But Know when to Sell

Do not make the mistake of growing your list but never mailing your list.

When people opt-in to get your resource in exchange for their emails, they are giving you permission to have their email addresses. You have their email addresses so that you can send them messages, content, offers, updates and serve them continually.

If you have a list you don’t send mails to, you are just as good as not having a list at all.

You need to have a mix of serving your list and selling to them. Just as you plan out your social media content, you should also plan out your email content.

Have a strategy for coming up with content for your email list, and ensure you have a fine mix of content that serves and content that sells.

Remember, Selling is a service. When you have an offer that can help your audience you are doing them a favor by selling to them.

Convert Your Leadmagnet to a Sales Funnel

Here’s something that the pros do but amateurs skip. Pros create a Leadmagnet, then ensure it does more than just get leads, it also gets sales. They do this by building out a simple two-step Funnel, often called a Freebie / Tripwire Funnel.

When implemented into your business, your Tripwire Funnel will not only attract your ideal clients and audience, it will also ensure that you are able to make a sale.

This makes your entire list-building process even more fun. Not only are you growing your email list, but you also have a Funnel that’s selling for you every time someone downloads your lead magnet.

I show you exactly how this works and how to set up your own Tripwire Funnel in the Funnel in a Day Masterclass.

If you haven’t already, secure limited-time access to this value-packed one-hour training here, so you can learn how to create a lead magnet that works and how to build a Funnel that sells for you on autopilot.

When done right, you’ll only need one Freebie at a time. Don’t be one of those people who are always creating yet another Freebie every other month but never selling anything.

Create one Freebie, supercharge it with a Sales Funnel, and start growing your email list and making money in your business, by design.

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DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Online Courses
Are Online Courses Still Profitable in 2022?
The straight answer to this is Yes!

Even more so now than ever before.

The world has changed drastically in the last couple of years due to the unfortunate outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. It is no surprise that more and more people are online now, as the pandemic forced us to be quarantined and work from home.

Many more people are embracing the work from home, learn from home attitude, and as such, there is a huge increase in the number of people searching for solutions online.

If you are yet to create an online course, now is the perfect time as people have become more accepting of the digital world, transacting business, connecting with friends and family, improving themselves, and getting an education, all online!

As you can see from this Google Trend search below, the search for the keyword “Online Course” has only continued to rise in the past five years.

How to Make Your Online Course More Profitable

So many course creators are faced with the daunting feeling that perhaps their online course is not valuable enough, and they need to improve the information or add more modules to make it appear fuller.

SEE ALSO: How to Make Money Online With No Money using Kobocourse.com

But simply adding more and more modules into a course is not what makes it valuable. A valuable online course is one that does what it says it would do for the student.

Not everyone who begins an online course actually goes through the entire content and finishes up. It is estimated that only 20% of the students go through the complete course material.

So your task is not merely to add more modules to make the course appear valuable, you should instead be focusing on helping your students go through the material easily and achieve results faster.

How do you make an online course Profitable?

Have you created an online course already or thinking of creating one? Simply increasing the price of a course without increasing its value to your students is not what will make your online course profitable. You need to follow proven tactics and strategies which I will share with you below.

Once you have one or a combination of these in place, you can bet your next Dollar that the perceived value of your course will increase dramatically.

Here are 7 Ways to Make Your Online Course More Profitable

Your course is only as valuable as it can get results for your students. Here are 7 simple things to do to Increase the Value of your course and even potentially increase the price.
- Add Worksheets, Templates, and corresponding documents that will help students practice what you teach: This is a great way to really make your course come alive. By adding templates and such documents, you give your students more resources to help them achieve their goals faster. Watch this quick tutorial to learn how to add worksheets and templates to your course.
^{Step by Step How to Add Worksheets and Templates to your Course on Kobocourse.com}
- Include hands-on training or one-on-one coaching access: Some creators and coaches are available to work one-on-one with their students. Adding this simple offer can exponentially increase the perceived value so you can raise the price of your course. People love access, and most times are more than willing to pay for it. Simply adding two Live group coaching to your course can prove profitable. Create a simple Coaching gig directly from your dashboard on Kobocourse.
- Create a Community for the students: People like to be around like-minded people. This is why social media gets all the attention and why people still spend time in Facebook groups and Discord communities. Humans are generally community-driven and having a community in your course can be the difference between a course that thrives and is successful and one that isn’t. You can set this up easily with Facebook groups or with the powerful Membership feature on Kobocourse.
- Add Exercises and Homework for students: Adding homework or things to do is the perfect way to ensure your students are practicing the information in your course. You can add compulsory work-to-do assignments to each module of your course and force your students not to move to the next module without finishing the first. Your students will be glad for this because it encourages them to do the work and leads them closer to their own goals. Remember, your course is only as profitable as it can get results for your students.
- Offer direct QnA portals or Forums: If your students know that they can send in questions anytime and get answers directly from you or your team, this alone can trigger a sense of support which is what everyone needs. Your students don’t only need the information in your online course, they also want to know that they will be supported if they ever need help. Kobocourse makes this a seamless process with a Questions box that is displayed with all of your courses and you can easily respond to questions from your students on your Kobocourse dashboard.
- Offer Challenges and Prices for completion: Just like your work-to-do or homework for your students, you can offer group challenges that everyone participates in from time to time and add prices for winners. These types of added bonuses deepen that sense of community with your students and help them feel motivated to actually implement your course.
- Set your Courses to Expire at a certain time: A very effective, yet not so common strategy is to set your courses to be accessed for just a limited time. Some coaches set their courses to expire after a year and because students know that they will have to pay again to access the material, they are usually forced to finish the course. You can do this easily with the Membership feature on Kobocourse and you can create a Membership course site that is set to monthly, quarterly, or yearly access.
Remember, the more you help your students get what they want, the easier it is for you to get what you want. If your students are successful from taking your online course, they are more likely to leave Testimonials and this in turn will give you leverage to sell more courses.

Ready to sell your own profitable online courses?

Make sure you are using the best, most affordable course hosting platform with the right tools for more sales. Sign up now for a Free Kobocourse account to start selling your own courses the smart way.

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DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Marketing, Online Courses
How to Create an Online Course That Sells – 5 Mistakes You Must Avoid at ALL Costs
Don’t create yet another course that nobody wants to buy.

^{Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash}

My first Online Course flopped big time. I look back and wish someone shared this information with me when I started.

I always considered myself the creative one. The one who had the answers and could help people with my knowledge. I also believed strongly that with the right strategy, I could turn my knowledge into an income online with digital products and courses.

So when I started a brand new Instagram page to grow a niche community of content creators, my monetization plan was stupid simple.

Monetize with my courses and eBooks.

I knew I could earn money online from coaching and selling my own online courses.

At the time, I also really believed that all I had to do was create the damn course, slap a price on it, and throw it at my followers.

My plan was to sit back and watch the sales trickle in then I could claim passive income victory.

It didn’t quite happen that way.

I needed to eat a big humble pie and my first online course served me that with a side of disappointment.

Here’s the deal.

People on the internet are looking for answers and they need help.

This is true.

However, their first step to getting answers online starts with a simple search on Google or down the endless hallways of Youtube University.

Think about yourself and how you use the Internet. When you need help with something, do you search for a course or do you trust a Google search to help you?

I bet my narcissistic ex’s left leg, it’s Google to the rescue for you.

That’s the same with the majority of the millions of people who use the Internet daily.

I have invested hundreds of hours into creating eBooks and Courses in the past few years. I have even blown past my own comfort zone and built the first most intuitive, all-in-one Course hosting platform for Africans. So hear me when I say, I have enough trial and error in my history to know more than a thing about selling online courses.

Here are 5 Mistakes you want to absolutely avoid at all costs when creating and selling your own Online Courses

Never create the full course until you have sold it first

Perhaps the most important thing I tell anyone who wants to sell courses online. Sell the course, then create it.

Hear me, I had to learn this one the hard way.

My first course was a mini-program teaching content creators how to film and edit videos on their mobile phones.

It was just something I did for myself in creating my own content. A nice comment or two on my Instagram praising my video editing skills and I suddenly believed that I needed to create a course.

So I dedicated a full couple of weeks to see it through and ended up with only two sales!

Two sales, which quite frankly, I had to sweat my armpits for.

I felt like a decorated failure.

What to do instead:

Over time I have learned to pre-sell my courses. This means, to present the idea to a small group of people even before I ever create the first module of the course, and to get a payment in.

What I’d do is host a Live class or Paid Workshop on a subtopic for my main course. This will ensure I have the audience of my ideal students and buyers.

Then I present my ‘not-yet-created’ course to them as an offer and see if anyone raises their hand to buy.

To do this successfully, make sure your buyers know they are paying for something that’s not yet available to access.

Alternatively, you can opt to host a Live, weekly version of your course first. This way you are creating the course week by week with actual students who already paid for the material.

Your Course is NOT For All Your Followers

As you create more and more digital products, you will come to learn a simple fact about your followers.

Your followers follow you for your content. They are paying you with their time and attention.

Your customers are people who actually buy from you. They are followers who know, like, and trust you and they pay you with their money.

My mistake was thinking that because I had a great idea for a course, then all my followers would be interested.

I even estimated my profits based on how many followers I had at the time. Big mistake. I had more than 10,000 followers yet made only two sales of a $39 course.

What to do instead :

Instead of trying to sell your course to everyone who follows you, harvest your list first. Harvesting your list/fanbase simply means you fish out those who are likely going to need your course from those who wouldn’t.

There are three easy ways to do this.
- Grow a Waitlist for your course: Long before your course is ready, start growing a Waitlist. This is as simple as creating an opt-in page and telling your followers to sign up so they are the first to know when the course is open for enrollment. Most people gladly sign up for Waitlists because it gives them a tiny sense of accomplishment toward their goals. What it does for you is even more significant. It helps you grow a true list of people who are likely to buy from you when you are ready.
- Offer a related Lead magnet in your course topic: Everyone who runs an online business has some type of lead magnet /freebie. At least the serious ones. What you want to do is create a valuable Free offer /download your followers can opt-in for in exchange for their email addresses. This is something you have to do very early in your online content journey to take your followers off the internet and into your private fold.
- Start hosting paid Workshops to gate paying customers: One of the easiest ways to test your course idea before it is ready is to teach a piece of your course Live. Hosting paid Workshops will also give you an alternate stream of income as a course creator. If people sign up to your Workshop then you are able to validate that you have a profitable digital product with your course.
People want accountability and Results, not another course with just information

If you think people want more information, think again.

We are tired. There is information everywhere we turn. We literally live in the information age and there is excess information than we can possibly have use for.

There are hundreds of millions of blogs, endless podcasts, billions of hours of Youtube videos, and even more, added every day on the Internet.

People do not want more information. They want solutions. They want solutions to the core problems that they really have.

People with core problems all have one thing in common– they want a unique, straightforward solution, and usually, they want it with accountability.

Meaning they want to know that they will have support in accomplishing their objectives.

This is where your course comes in.

What to do instead :

Create your course in a way that not only provides information but it pushes your students into action and achieves results. You can do this by:
- Including Worksheets that forces students to implement the material
- Offering Templates that help students achieve certain milestones faster and save them time
- Offering optional direct access coaching so they can connect with you directly and get support. This can also come as an add-on offer at a different price.
- Creating a community group site along with your course. This can be as simple as having a dedicated Facebook group for your students to share ideas. Or even better, create a Membership type course offering.
You need to prove authority in your topic

It doesn’t matter how great your information is, if you do not have a proven track record for your offer, it will be difficult to sell.

Understand that when you tell people you have a course, what you are really saying is: I have the answers. I know how this works. I can fix your problem.

If someone is interested in buying your course, they want to know and see that it will do what you promise.

You can achieve this by showing the results you created for yourself in the past, showing your work, showing testimonials from past clients you have worked with, or even taking your audience behind the scenes.

If you do not have testimonials from others, it will help to offer your solution to a beta group before you launch the full course. This way you can get real-time feedback and potential testimonials to help sell your course.

Often times in the beginning, simply showing your own results can be just as beneficial.

Never Create Your Online Course in Isolation

If you are serious about selling more courses and getting a rave about your products, never create in isolation. Most creators are lonesome geniuses who want to hide away in their creative den for long periods of time. They want to finish the product, be happy with it, and make sure it is perfect before announcing it to the world.

While this is reasonable in context, it is a poor use of the opportunity we have in the digital economy. Things have changed drastically in the past ten years and we now live in a very see-it-all, nosy world.

For Creators, this is a good thing. We are in the show business and it is important for people to see your process, not just your perfectly finished works.

You should strive to take your audience along with you on your journey. Take them through the process of creating your course, let them see you working on it, tell them about your creative process, the challenges you have faced, the plans you have, and what your course is all about.

You want to do this in a documentary style. You don’t have to create new content, you only have to document what’s happening, all the while saying –” I am creating this course and it is coming soon.”

This can also be a great strategy to help build awareness and fill up your Waitlist with potential buyers of your course.

Your Next Steps

If you are creating and selling digital products and online courses, you cannot afford to continue to try to sell each course on your own or connect with your buyers one-to-one.

Remember, your online course is created so you can enjoy passive income streams.

Watch this Free Training to learn how.

Ready to sell your own profitable online courses? Make sure you are using the best, most affordable course hosting platform with the right tools for more sales. Start now with a Free Kobocourse account.

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Content Creation, Marketing
Dear Content Creator, Do You Even Know What Content Marketing Is?
If You Are Making This Mistake as a Content Creator, You Are Losing Too Much Money and Probably Wasting Your Time

^{Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash}

It’s not new.

I see this all the time. So many content creators spend hours and hours online, creating content on different platforms, completely driven by an insatiable need to be seen.

They fire content after content, spurred on by a hellish dopamine high and itching for the next dose of notifications to let them know they are doing great.

Needing to be seen and heard is not a bad thing in and of itself. This is an essential part of what makes us human and what drives us to apply ourselves to our best work.

The problem starts when content creators miss the point on why they are needing this recognition in the first place.

If the point of creating content is to be seen, to get Likes, Claps, Followers, and go back to repeat the cycle, then you are missing an important ingredient to content marketing.

To make it worse most creators have no money, and endlessly daydream about a time when they can make cents off their content. Yet they still make a mess of their content marketing efforts.

Here’s a definition of Content Marketing that I pulled from Google:

What is Content Marketing?

content marketing

noun
1. a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
  “social media is an integral part of content marketing”
Read that again, then pay attention to this tiny phrase – intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

The mistake you are making is focusing on the first part- creation, and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts)

And not enough time on the second part- intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Why are you wasting time online just creating content after content with no plan for making your content work for you?

The purpose of your art and creations should be to fulfill you and serve the world. Unfortunately, you may be headed straight to the frustration camp if you exhaust yourself by being a good content Samaritan, and never putting on your business cap.

If you are like me and you love the idea of growing an online audience with your content, so that you can potentially monetize with digital products, then this is for you.

Here are 4 things you can do immediately to go from someone who simply creates content to someone who creates content that makes money.

Know what you are selling

Truth is, most people create content. Only a handful know that their content should sell something. Don’t be so focused on feeding the machines of these social platforms, pumping content after content, and forgetting completely what you are trying to market and sell.

Or worse, not have anything to sell at all.

And there goes a serious problem.

Most content creators have nothing they are selling.

They are simply just creating content, chasing the algorithms, getting high off the feedback, and running around this sick wheel.

We are all selling something.

Whether you admit it or not, life as we know it is a business.

You have something to give the world. You are in business when you realize that your gifts to the world can be paid for.

The purpose of your content should sync seamlessly with your purpose for being and should support that.

Whatever it is that you decide to sell or offer as a service, create your content in a way that supports that.

Don’t just have followers, have contacts

If you want to make money online long term you need Contacts.

I started a brand new Instagram page at the end of 2019 to grow a niche community of content creators. The very first thing I did was make a concrete plan for how to grow on Instagram quickly. But not only that, I also had a clear strategy to grow my email list through Instagram to generate contacts off the page.

All I did was create a simple, yet powerful eBook as a lead magnet and offered this to my followers in exchange for their emails. I did this even before I ever got 1000 followers on Instagram.

Know this and know peace: You do not own your Followers, but you own your Contacts.

This is where the dreaded email marketing comes in.

Unfortunately, most content creators hear about the importance of email marketing almost daily, but it never seems to be important enough to take action.

Every content creator I know wants 10,000 followers on Instagram or Twitter and wherever else they can get attention online. They strive for more and more followers and focus on this number that is logged in their social profiles.

The sad reality is you may have followers on a particular platform, but it is nothing but stats on that platform.

That’s it.

The number of followers you have is just a simple, almost useless statistic to show how much of your life and energy has been invested on the said platform.

You don’t really have these followers if you don’t have them on your own private lists and community.

If you want your content to make you money long term, invest some time in learning how email marketing works. Stop putting this important step off. Start growing your email list.

Commit to Contacting your Contacts regularly

If you have a list that you do not keep in touch with, how can you say you have a list?

Just as you create content on your blog, on Youtube, or on Twitter, you have to create content for your email list.

Most creators who start growing their email list give up the process before they get to 1000 followers.

Unfortunately for most, growing an email list is not as fun as posting posts on Twitter and Instagram. You don’t get the overload of Dopamine that you’ll usually get from social media. If anything, email can sometimes crush your confidence.

You send one email out and ten people unsubscribe.

You feel defeated like you are not good enough. You take this feedback as a heavy blow to your ego.

The feedback from emailing is not always as tasty as Likes and Comments on social media.

Soon you stop contacting your list completely and a once-thriving email list goes cold-stone dead.

You have given up even before you start.

Make writing these emails to your list easier. Have a special type of newsletter for just your subscribers or even repurpose your blogs or Twitter threads as emails.

James Clear has a newsletter he sends out every Thursday called 3-2-1, Tim Denning has Unfiltered, and Mark Manson has one called Mindfck Monday.

Perhaps adopting this kind of style might be your mojo.

Remember, people who regularly read from you are more likely to buy from you when you do have something to sell.

Shamelessly call people to Action. CTA is the lifeblood of your content efforts

On the internet, most people are a bunch of scrolling zombies. They are in a trance state, high AF on dopamine and completely lost.

You have to constantly tell people what to do.

Every piece of content should have a call-to-action.

I like to think of content as an Ad. A marketing campaign in and of itself. Here are two questions I ask with every content piece:
1. So what?
2. Now what?
I may have written a great piece of content but so what? What does it do for the reader? How does it change their perspectives or make them think differently?

Second, if I am lucky and I can hold people’s attention with my content, now what? What do I want them to do? Where do I lead them next?

When you know what you want people to do, tell them to do it.

Every time.

Do you want them to join your mailing list? Tell them.

Do you want them to read another post? Point them to it.

Always know what you want people to do after they have consumed your content and tell them before they drown off back into scrolling zombie mode.

Have a clear plan to convert followers into buyers

Again and again, creators come to me at the last minute asking for help with making cents off the attention they have received online.

A Tiktoker I last spoke with was so frustrated because she had suddenly gone viral on Tiktok and now has 500,000+ followers without a plan on how to convert these followers into buyers.

To make it worse, she had skipped out on step one- knowing what to sell.

Now, not knowing right off the bat what you’ll offer as products or services is okay in the beginning. Most people including myself have come to find out over time what we really like to offer.

But this is not enough reason not to create anything at all.

A simple strategy could be starting out with a lead generation funnel that has a Trip-wire offer in the backend, or a 5-7 day email sequence ready to go.

Never make the mistake of setting up your lead generation funnel or opt-ins, without having pre-written emails all stuffed and waiting for your subscribers.

Did something stick out for you while reading this?

Don’t be one of those who find new inspiration and do nothing with it.

Commit yourself to implement these ideas in your own process and slowly haul yourself out of content hell to content marketing that actually works.

And when you are ready to monetize online, if selling digital products is your jam then here’s an extensive list of 32 Digital Products you can create that will make money this year.

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