I’m looking for ways to monetize the community beyond subscriptions. We charge an annual fee for access to exclusive, member-only channels.
Are there other simple, overlooked ways to generate revenue from the community? Let me know.
Community Administrator • 2w
Welcome back, Paula! CrazyEngineers community was fully monetized using online ads.
Online advertisements is the best way to monetize a community. It works for any community with a decent traffic. The easiest way is through ad network like Google Adsense.
Your audience is mostly US based and I'd strongly recommend networks like Mediavine or Ezoic.
Direct sponsorships are the best, if you can connect with advertisers. The CPM and CPC we received was 2x the market rate because we offered a premium audience to the advertisers.
I however know that most business communities won't agree to running third-party ads on their community. That's a fair point. I'll write about a few more strategies that I've tried. Let me tag Rohit. He used to work for D2C brand and can share a more interesting ways of community monetization.
Member • 2w
Happy to help. Community monetization is easy if you have a well defined niche and know your target audience. I've experimented with the following monetization strategies-
Sponsored Content and Brand Partnerships: Several brands want threads and posts around their products. I recommend creating a dedicated channel to host sponsored content. One mistake that I did was to accept every sponsorship deal that came our way. We had to publish thin content that looked like advertisement. Only accept the content that nice specific to your niche, benefits your audience and adds value to your community.
Digital Product Sales: This is a great way to generate revenue from your community. Promote your products or sponsored products through your community posts or advertisements. We had created PDFs around our niche (fitness community) and linked them through the community menu and posts. It gave us a nice addition to our MRR.
Paid Webinars: If it works for your community members, I strongly recommend paid webinars as a monetization channel. If you can create enough value for your audience, you can earn good income through from your community.
Courses: You may offer courses to your community members. Your members are already engaged and many will happily opt for courses. These could be from you or your partners.
Affiliate Income: Strategically add affiliate links to the products in your niche along with a disclaimer. Users love transparency and happily buy the products through your affiliate links.
I hope this helps. My general recommendation is to talk to your community members and seek ideas from them. The biggest advantage of having a community is that you can take wiser decisions based on your community's recommendation. I am available for any help you may need.
Member • 1w
The best way to monetize a community is through freemium model. I've studied multiple monetization models for online communities and freemium stands out.
Create some exclusive-access channels on your community. These channels can host exclusive content available only to paid members.
