My first Side Hustle for 2023 is changing the monetisation strategy for my Podcast (The Payments Show) and YouTube channel (Digital Money Lab). As I mentioned in my last post, my lack of motivation during the whole of 2022 means I feel as if I'm starting from scratch again anyway.
The Original Plan
I originally started Podcast, and complementary YouTube Channel, to educate businesses about the latest payment technologies and eCommerce platforms.
My aim was to help businesses increase sales conversions and revenue, and/or reduce payment processing costs, by implementing technology that made it easier and faster for people to pay for goods and services.
My original monetisation strategy was to get inbound leads from my content, then offer paid consulting services to advise them on the best technology solution(s) to implement.
The Leads Strategy Started to Work
After 12 months of pushing out content, leads started to trickle in. I received enquiries from large Enterprise companies, SMEs, all the way down to freelancers who had very specific (but relatively small) problems.
I advised these customers which solutions would be ideal for them. But it was simple advice which mainly involved sending links to specific solutions which could be perfect for them. These were not conversations that would lead to months' worth of consulting work for me personally.
After 20 or so of these conversations, I quickly realised that offering consulting services wasn’t something that really excited me. I enjoyed researching and discussing technology via my podcast and YouTube channel, but I had to figure out a different way to monetise.
After the lockdowns happened in March 2020, I had suddenly had plenty of time to try and figure things out.
I continued to produce content until 2022 when I lost all sense of purpose…
The Process of Elimination
In January 2023, with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and motivation, I really understood how I’d like to monetise my content. I had to go through a bit of a process in my head to get there, which I will now explain.
First, I decided what I absolutely did not want to do. As I’ve mentioned above already, I realised that I didn't want to be a consultant. But I also didn’t want to be a technical person who implemented payment systems, eCommerce websites, SaaS solutions, or anything in between. None of those paths excited me.
I also didn't want to become an online reviewer of these products and services. Unlike consumer products, it's challenging to review Enterprise software and technology. Often the only way to see these systems in action is through product demos or webinars delivered by vendors. Vendors usually only give demos once they've qualified serious buyers. This path would cause too many delays in creating content.
Revisiting Inbound Enquiries
The inbound enquiries I received online had a few common threads. But the main one was that the information which businesses needed to solve their payment problems was not being delivered in the format that they wanted. In other words, YouTube (instead of vendor websites).
Two examples of this:
1. I received an enquiry from the owner of a medium-sized business in the UK who had watched one of my “vs. videos” (e.g PayPal vs. Stripe, or Affirm vs. Klarna etc). He could easily have gone to 4 separate websites and tried to figure things out himself, but he didn’t have the time. He just wanted to find out the answer on YouTube.
2. I was contacted by a Vice President from a large US software company who watched one of my videos on subscription billing software. He needed to figure out which of the various options on the market would fit his organisation’s exact requirements for selling software using different billing models.
Almost all of the inbound enquiries I received proved that independent YouTube content aimed at businesses is a major underserved area on YouTube. Vendor YouTube channels do exist, but almost all of them have a small number of views, and even less subscribers. This indicates that customers want one place or channel to find information. Going to 15 vendors’ YouTube channels wouldn’t make their lives easier.
Monetisation Strategy in 2023: Sponsorship
After going through my decision process, I realised that as an underserved niche, I could probably monetise my content quite easily through paid sponsorships.
1. Paid Sponsorships on YouTube
Unlike consumer technology YouTube channels (where viewers often don't like to be sold to), the business market is completely different. All the people who contacted me over the past couple of years are looking to buy a solution to their expensive and costly problems. They are actively looking to buy. Nobody watches or listens to my podcast for fun. They don't love or dream about enterprise payment technology or software. They are consuming my content because their company has an expensive problem, and they often have thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars of their company's money to fix it.
With enough subscribers and engagement, it should be quite simple to get sponsored content on my channel. Viewers would probably welcome sponsored content with open arms if it answers their questions and helps them to solve their problems.
2. Paid Sponsorships via Newsletter
I have collected a small list of email subscribers but have not emailed a single person yet. My current thinking is to start a newsletter which consolidates the most important payments news each week, and send it out on Saturday mornings.
A few weeks ago, I moved my small email list over to a new email platform called beehiiv. beehiiv lets newsletter owners earn money through ads.
I will need a minimum of 1,000 subscribers to be able to participate in the program. Once approved, beehiiv does deals with advertisers and places those ads intelligently amongst all of the newsletters on their platform. It’s like YouTube ads, but for newsletters.
I could also get sponsorships directly from payment technology vendors, and not have to rely on a 3rd party advertising exchange such as the one that beehiiv has developed.
3. Community for the Podcast
Communities are one of the best ways to monetise content. Experts such as Greg Isenberg and Feverbee have written about this here and here respectively.
From a strong community, I could create events such as conferences or smaller get-togethers, special paid-only groups, access to exclusive content, sell merch, and much more.
This is probably a medium-term strategy, but one that could yield decent revenue in the future if the community was big enough.
Now the Work Begins
So there you have it. That's my first Side Hustle for January 2023: a renewed content monetisation strategy where I aim to make money from sponsored content & ads on different channels.
I’m currently busy making my first batch of videos and podcasts for 2023 which will go live soon.
Please let me know your thoughts by commenting below!